Katara blinked blearily. They'd arrived late and stayed up later, she liked to sleep in at the best of times, and she had sleep debt to work off from having taken watch every night for weeks. Still, something had roused her before dawn. She got up, passing Suki, who was sleeping lightly, and Toph, who was dead to the world, and padded out into the living room.

Zuko was there, shirtless, doing push-ups. The floor creaked softly as he cycled up and down. Katara stood and watched him as went, again and again.

I've thought he was Aang's opposite before. Up at first light, training. How long until his work ethic finally overtakes Aang's natural talent?

Aang's the Avatar, he can bend three more elements, Zuko's never catching up to that. And maybe you're underestimating him. It's been more than a month, and he's at the age where you really start growing up; maybe he trains harder now?

Zuko rolled back and knelt. Katara had stopped counting at thirty push-ups, which was a while ago, and he still was barely breathing hard. He gave a tiny head jerk toward the back door; she nodded, and they went out into the back garden, a nice little courtyard of grass lined with bamboo for privacy. The sun was still down, although the sky had an ethereal pre-dawn glow.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, keeping her voice down.

"Did you try to kill each other?" Aang asked.

"No," she said, glancing at Zuko. "We actually make a really good team."

"Really," Aang said. "You're sure about this."

She read his expression and facepalmed. "Zuko, what did you do."

"I just got here," he said, indignant.

"What, exactly," Sokka said, "did you talk about with Lee the Air Nomad from Gaoling, on your 'date'?"

"Uh," Zuko said, his indignation evaporating. "Right …"

" What did you do," Katara repeated.

"I'm guessing she found these guys again after we left," he said. "Along with her friends, one of whom is Azula."

Katara gave him a Look.

We did not think this through.

Darn it, Boss! I told you to tell her earlier! Now it looks like we were never going to say it!

"I can explain," he said, backing away from her.

Everyone gave him Looks.

"… Now?"

"Yes now!" Katara yelled.

"Okay! Her name's actually Ty Lee. She's my fifth cousin."

" What?!"

"I even told you, some Air Nomads married into the aristocracy. Aristocrats are all distant cousins."

"Why didn't you tell us you knew her?" Aang demanded. "That she was with Azula? Tell us the truth!"

"Because at the time," Zuko replied, "she was terrified you'd do to her what you did up north, and if you really want the truth? So was I." Aang flinched.

"Zuko," Katara warned.

He pursed his lips. "I just wanted to get her away and calm her down. I didn't know she was with Azula, not then. I used to write her after I was banished. After … an incident, she cut ties with Azula and left the country, and I didn't expect them to get together again."

"What do you mean, an 'incident'?" Sokka asked.

"It's private," Zuko said.

Everyone gave him Looks.

"It really isn't relevant to this," he said.

Everyone gave him Looks.

He sighed. "Her last letter said, in the shakiest handwriting I've ever read, 'Azula just hit menarche. The academy's burning, I saw your father go in. I don't know how many survivors are left. I'm getting out while I still can.' Rage and pain make firebending stronger."

"…"

"Are you happy you made me tell you that?"

"…"

"Yeah, I didn't think so."

"Wish it made my bending stronger," Toph muttered, "instead of giving me diarrhoea or constipation. Or both."

"Can you not?" Sokka asked.

"I keep telling my ovaries the same thing, but they never listen."

"I don't think that's supposed to happen," Katara said. "You should see a doctor."

"Like you?" Toph asked.

"A different doctor."

"How do you get both?" Aang asked. "Aren't they opposites?"

"You know how poop normally has a consistency like wet clay? Imagine instead of that, it's baked clay sitting in water. Maybe not water, it's more like fermenting –"

"Can we please talk about anything else?" Sokka said. "Zuko. Was Azula there too? Did they say anything else?"

"Yes. And, lots of stuff. I don't remember. It was mostly personal, just talking about people you don't know, friends and family from back home. It was more than a month ago, but I don't think I said anything dangerous. Um. You should know, her plan isn't to capture the Avatar any more, it's to capture your next reincarnation."

"We kind of figured that," Toph said, "from her shooting lightning at us all the time."

"Because," Zuko said. "… It was nice, having you not hate me for once."

Katara's eye twitched. "I don't hate you," she said. "But I do really hate it when you do things like this."

"I forgot."

There was a beat.

"I'm sorry," Katara said, "did you just say you forgot to mention that the girl you went on a date with was a professional assassin working with your sister? It just slipped your mind?"

"It wasn't a date," he said.

She gave him a Look.

"I mean I didn't forget at the time! But I was still on her side then. I'm good now. But I'd forgotten by the time I changed. A lot had happened. And it's not like it would've helped if I'd told you anyway, they were long gone by then."

Her Look persisted for a long moment, then softened. "Prove it," she said. "Teach Aang firebending."

"What? I already told him about the old man."

"And maybe that'll help, but Aang needs everything he can get. Firebending is important. The Avatar has to master all four elements."

"In the middle of Ba Sing Se? When it's full of refugees from the war?"

"They won't do anything to the Avatar's teacher," she said.

He looked up at the sky, the yellow-white pre-dawn glow at the eastern horizon.

It's not just about them, it's about home. Before now, we could always back out and say everything was our master plan to get the Avatar to surrender just before the Comet. There's no way to spin this as anything but high treason; if it doesn't work out, they'll do worse than banish us forever. I know we said we'd help reform the Fire Nation, but …

"Are you really good now?" she asked. "Or are you still your father's cat's paw?"

Is it really about good and evil? Loyalty to our country against loyalty to our principles?

"Remember this, Zuko," his mother said. "No matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are."

"Zuko," Katara pressed.

' Never forget who you are.' Did we ever even know?

If we don't know, then doesn't that mean we're free to choose?

"Yeah," he said. "I'll teach him."

The sun rose over the Inner Wall.

"Just, let's hold off until we figure out those guys who tried to arrest us earlier. I don't want to give them the excuse of catching a publicly known firebender."

Katara smiled and got to her feet. "I'm getting some leftovers," she said. "Come heat it up for me."

"We haven't eaten since breakfast," she said, "shall I cook something?"

"We haven't had to cook since we got here," Sokka said. "They keep inviting us for feasts. It's great." Thinking about food, he relaxed into his happy place.

"Here," Suki said. She got up, rummaged around in the next room, and came back with chopsticks and boxes of sweet and sour pork and fried rice. Zuko breathed in heat, and he and Katara dug in.

"Um, actually," Aang said, worried. "About those feasts. We bumped into General Fong at one of them."

"Another guy from before I joined?" Toph asked.

"Yeah," said Sokka. "He pretended to try to murder Katara, then Zuko went ballistic and almost chopped him in half," he summarised. "He's still using a crutch."

"…" said Toph. "Did I accidentally join a gang of serial killers? Gee, you sure can pick 'em, Beifong."

"Sokka exaggerates that story more every time he tells it," Zuko said.

"Right," she said, unconvinced. "I don't remember anyone with a crutch."

"It was the night you snuck like half a sip of rice wine," Sokka said, avoiding Katara's unimpressed look, "passed out, threw up on me, twice, and slept until mid-afternoon the next day, complaining the sun was too bright even through your cataracts."

"That would explain it," she said.

"We got into, er, an argument," he went on, "and they haven't invited us to the same parties since; but still, a lot of people there have a grudge against Zuko, and sooner or later, someone's bound to recognise him. There are only so many guys with yellow eyes and a scar. Maybe skip the feasts."

Zuko nodded gratefully. He wasn't much into parties even with people who didn't want to kill him.

"The Dai Li already know who he is," Katara said. "We were hoping they'd stay away from him if we're with Aang."

"That's not your problem," Toph said. "Your problem is anyone who realises who his uncle is. If people find out the Dragon Of The West's nephew is staying here, they'll kick his face in. Ours too, probably, for being with him." She looked intrigued at the thought.

"What's wrong with his uncle?" Sokka asked. "We've met him a couple times, he didn't seem that bad."

"Not that bad," Toph repeated flatly. " Not that bad. He burned down half the Earth Kingdom. He wiped out Honghe, Dongfeng, Bailong. He killed the Unbreakable Wall …"

"He did a lot of good too," Zuko said. "He defended Yu Dao, Minamichi, Izumihanto …"

"These being places the Fire Nation had conquered," she said, "that the Earth Kingdom wanted to liberate."

"Yeah," Zuko said, "and he defended them. What? You people always go on about how you have to protect people, and there were civilians there."

"We need a rule against talking politics at dinner," Aang said.

Zuko followed Katara into the kitchen and started a fire. The rest of the Gaang slowly filtered out of their rooms.

"Good morning," she said.

Sokka shambled along, not all there. She pushed reheated leftovers into his hands, making sure to give him a double serving of meat, and he started to revive.

"What's the plan for today?" she asked.

He swallowed an outsize mouthful. "Most days, Toph trains Aang until mid afternoon, and we split up and go around town for a few hours in the afternoon –"

"We should take today off," Aang said. "If the Fire Nation is attacking by air, we have to think up some way to stop them, or we won't even last until the Comet."

" We should do that," Zuko corrected. " You need to keep training."

"I've got the hang of earthbending. I can –"

"Can you beat Toph in a one-on-one duel, earthbending only?" Zuko talked over him.

"Well, no," he said, "but –"

"Then you haven't mastered it and need more training," Zuko said. "And I don't think you can take Katara, either, at pure waterbending, not if she goes all-out."

"It's one day," Aang said. "Since when do you care how hard I train?"

"Since I decided to put my bacon in the fire too if you don't win. You do want me to take being a good guy seriously, don't you?"

"… Not at this specific moment?"

"Are we splitting up, then?" Katara asked. "Aang and Toph train, the rest of us work on the glider problem? I kind of wanted to see how Aang's doing."

"Avatar Kyoshi told me to watch over him," Suki said. "Sokka, can you and Mister Guo handle it?"

"Better not," said Sokka. "I'm going to have to call in a favour for this, and it's from someone whose family Zuko threatened before he joined us."

I wish I could say that narrowed it down at all.

"Anyway," he went on, "it's fine, we'll handle that once Aang and Toph are done for the day. After that, we have a feast on, then we'll come back here, wait a bit, and sneak out for Operation Wall. Having the two of you back will be a big help. The Joo Dees will attack if we all go as a group, so instead, we'll pair off and hit two targets at once." Zuko and Katara subconsciously inched together. "They notice and get suspicious if the same pairs go out twice in a row, so we have to switch people up. I want to go with you, Katara – I want some one-on-one time with my sister, it's been more than a month –"

" O~nii-chan, mo yamete kuda~sai," Zuko singsonged under his breath.

Katara choked on her rice, coughed some up, swallowed the rest, and tried to glower enough to hide her smile. " Ouji-chan no baka. – What?" she asked, realising everyone was staring at her.

"You speak weeb," Sokka said, leaning to forward to squint at her. "Who are you and what have you done with the real Katara?"

"It's not called weeb," Zuko said, beetling his brows, You stupid idiot. "It's Kotoba, the sacred, ancient fire language."

Toph staggered out of her room, looking like death warmed over. Suki got another bowl of leftovers for her and pushed chopsticks into her hand.

"I'm not fluent," Katara said, raising her hands, I haven't gone native, I swear. "I just picked up a couple words here and there. He said –" her eyes flicked to Aang and Toph "– an in-joke."

"Zuko tells jokes," Aang said, wide-eyed. "You have in-jokes now."

"I've always told jokes," Zuko said. "My sense of humour's just too subtle for you."

There was a beat.

"Must be," Katara said.

Toph slurped some noodles. "Does this have anything to do with how the two of you smelled like each other last night?" she asked.

Katara and Zuko went red.

"I borrowed his soap," she said quickly.

"I loaned her my soap," he agreed.

"It's nice soap," she elaborated.

The others stared at them.

"It's worth paying for good soap," Zuko clarified.

Sokka sat back. "In the interest of dragging the topic away from soap for once in our lives, I think Zuko should go with Suki. I know," he said, of her distasteful expression, "but Toph went out last night, and we want to keep Aang fresh for training."

Toph perked up. "Wait, are we picking teams?" she asked. "Scratch that, I'm pulling a double and taking Sparky. You got into four fights on the way in, I'm not missing that."

"Getting bombed wasn't really a fight," Zuko said.

"What Zuko's trying to say," Katara said, "is that he's going to be responsible and not get into trouble again."

Zuko gave her a look of We both know I can't make that promise.

She's twelve! Katara glared back. Set a good example for her!

"Your mother's right," he told Toph. "There definitely won't be any fights this time."

Toph smiled angelically. Katara facepalmed.

"Speaking of getting into fights," Sokka said, "how'd you get past the blockade on foot? There were soldiers everywhere, even we barely made it through in one piece."

"We just looked around awhile and found a gap in their patrol routes," Katara said smoothly.

"Lying," Toph said curiously. Katara blushed.

"I stole a uniform," Zuko said, "tied her up, pretended she was a prisoner, and we just walked through. It worked really well. I should tie you up more often."

"I should tie you up more often," Katara shot back.

"Save it for the honeymoon," said Toph.

Katara and Zuko went red again and glared at her. Sokka and Aang exchanged quizzical glances. Suki opened her mouth and shut it again.

"I don't get it," Aang said.

"What's a honeymoon?" said Sokka. "Sounds like a pastry."

"Yes," Katara said, before Suki could explain. Toph smirked. "Let's hurry up and get to the training ground, I want to see how well you're doing at earthbending."

They finished eating and set off. Another Joo Dee was waiting two feet outside the front door, making Sokka jump.

"Good morning," she beamed. "I see you have made new friends again!"

Sokka had his hand to his heart, so Aang stepped forward; she backed off, making space for them to file out. "Actually, we were already friends," he said. "This is Katara, she's from the South Pole. She's my waterbending teacher. And this is …" He took a breath and made a sucking-on-lemons face. "… Guo. He's her bodyguard."

"This is wonderful news," Joo Dee said. "They must be presented to the royal court!"

"Uh," Katara said with a nervous glance at Zuko, "that won't be necessary …"

"Etiquette demands that companions of the Avatar be presented to the court," Joo Dee said. "I shall immediately schedule your fitting for suitable clothing."

"I'm technically not the Avatar's companion," Zuko said, "I'm just Katara's …"

"Valet," Katara supplied.

He gave her a Look; she responded with one of Kiss my blubber, Onii-chan.

"Regardless, you will be expected to attend," said Joo Dee.

Zuko sulked.

And once again, no plan survives contact with Zuko.

Can we just not do it?

That'll attract attention itself. It'll be fine. Just show up, skulk behind Katara for ten minutes, eat a canape, then fake an allergy and go home. No-one will pay us any attention.

It'll be just like Azula's tenth birthday party.

By day, the Inner Ring was beautiful, all clean streets and elegant buildings and well-dressed merchants or aristocrats going about their day. The canals were sparkling and clear, the public buildings were decorated with colourful mosaics, and even Zuko only caught odd glimpses of Dai Li lurking in the shadows.

Joo Dee escorted them a few blocks to the sanctioned training grounds, a huge, blocky grey structure with no ceiling, a sort of labyrinth of one paved courtyard after another. The first room they checked already had a squad of earthbenders running through drills, who made themselves look as small as possible while Toph pushed past and into the next room. She and Aang moved to the centre of the room, everyone else stayed at the sidelines.

"Alright, maggot," she barked, "listen up! Today, I'm putting you through your paces."

"That's not how I trained him," Katara said, concerned.

"A kid like him needs discipline," Zuko said.

Toph stomped up a cluster of rocks. "Horse stance! Stand your ground, no matter what!" And she flung them at Aang rapid-fire.

"Discipline doesn't mean yelling at someone and putting him down for no reason," Katara replied. "Or blasting him with your strongest attacks."

"Speak for yourself," Zuko said, remembering his training under his father.

Aang bent up earth shields to catch Toph's bombardment, one after another, occasionally shifting out of the way of a bad shot, but keeping his feet planted and his centre of gravity low.

"Huh," Katara said, watching from well out of the line of fire, "he's doing really well."

"It's kind of thanks to Azula," Sokka said.

"?"

"I don't get it, but I think bending of any element is more about the mindset than about the physical movements?"

"Of course," said Katara the almost-master.

"For earthbending, it's a never-back-down mindset. During the fight, Azula was fighting Aang and Toph at the same time, and she knocked Toph down."

She took both of them at once? Jeez.

It would have been when they were exhausted from training all day, and she was rested, and she probably had the element of surprise, she likes that …

Still, she must be an absolute monster. No wonder Zuko thinks he's weak, by comparison.

"Aang couldn't take her on his own," Sokka went on, "and Suki and I were fighting Mai, so he tried to fall back, but she was going to finish Toph off, so he came back to protect her. He blocked like thirty attacks in a row, just stood there and stopped them cold, until Toph woke up and tossed Azula, and we got the chance to run for it."

I wonder whether Zuko would make a better teacher here? Toph's good, but from what I saw of that fight at Earth Rumble, her style is to have a rock-solid defence – no pun intended –

None taken.

– wait for the enemy to overcommit, then take the opening. Zuko's the one who specialises in nonstop attacks. He'd be better at pressing Aang's defence.

Her eyes flicked to Zuko.

Uncle said we could learn a lot from waterbenders. Does that apply to earthbenders too?

Master Kunyo and Father always said earthbending was trash. You win a fight by putting the enemy down, not by standing there and taking it. Uncle took them more seriously, but he still favoured taking the initiative.

And the fact that we're winning the war proves them right, but she doesn't fight like any other earthbender I've ever seen. Even ones like Fong. Her defence flows into offence, almost like Katara's. And she's better than us; at least, when we aren't going all-out, and I'm sure she's not going all-out either.

So you think we should pay attention to her too, for the same reason?

It'll be just the two of us tonight. We'll see what we see.

Suki and Sokka went off to go through some of her exercises; they had to have been working at it awhile, because he'd improved miles from the awkward boy Zuko had toyed with at the South Pole. Meanwhile, Toph kept up a brutal barrage that lasted until she and Aang were both gasping for breath and the courtyard was a wreck. She finally called time, smoothed the courtyard out with a sweep of her foot, and they took a breather.

"That was really impressive, Aang," Katara said. "You're doing fantastic."

He beamed. "Thanks, Katara," he said. "We've worked at it almost every day."

Zuko frowned. ' Almost' ? What're you doing taking time off?

"Drinks on the rocks," Sokka said, and everyone but Katara and Zuko laughed. Katara gave him a quizzical look. "… Sorry, you had to be there."

"Okay," Katara said. To Aang, "Have you been keeping up with your waterbending?"

"An hour's meditation and practice," he said. "… Most days. It was hard without you. I completely forgot some of the advanced forms, and Master Pakku's scrolls aren't as good as a real teacher."

"Then let's do some revision," she said. She looked around. "… If there's any water. My skin isn't enough for anything but the basics. We might have to find a canal to practise at –"

Joo Dee materialised at her elbow.

"It is against regulations for citizens to use combat bending on public streets," she smiled. "You must keep to designated training areas."

"I can't keep to designated training areas," Katara said, annoyed, "because they don't have enough water."

"Provision will be made," Joo Dee said.

"We still don't know for sure what the Joo Dees are," Sokka said. "At first, we thought it was brainwashing –"

" You thought it was brainwashing," Toph undertoned. "I just thought they were weirdos."

"– but then we noticed them coordinating too fast. Anything any Joo Dee knows, they all know, instantly. That goes for Kyoshi Warrior fighting skills, too, we think, although they're not quite on that level. Now we think it's some sort of spiritual sickness."

"You mean possession?" Katara asked, thinking of ghost stories they'd told back home.

"Yeah, but I'm thinking about how it spreads. If they're a hive mind, that means it must be a single spirit, but no way have this many people just happened to run into the one spirit all of a sudden, all over the city. I thought, maybe there's something in the water? That's why Toph and I were checking out the canals, why we ran into you."

"If you drink the water here, you become a Joo Dee?" Katara asked. "Then why isn't everyone?"

"Take the sickness analogy. If you have a dirty well, the entire village doesn't all get sick at once, some people are resistant or immune or just get lucky. We've been trying to figure out patterns. Girls get it more, we think boys only started getting it about a month ago, I don't know why. Only Eartheners have got it so far: Aang and I haven't had it, and we found some Water Tribesfolk in the Lower Ring and none of them had it. And there's a cure. We figured out that Aang can do an Avatary spirit quest thing and de-Joo the Joo Dees."

"If I meditate," Aang said, "and half-enter the Spirit World, I can see there's something connecting them to it. It's not exactly a spirit, it's like a sort of …" He frowned: human languages tend not to have words for things beyond mortal experience. "Rubbery tentacle? Except not; it's more like the idea of a connection than anything physical. Whatever it is, I can tear it off, and then they go back to normal."

"We've been trying to get them back here," Sokka continued, "so Aang can snap them out of it. We even got another Kyoshi Warrior earlier, she's around town. But the Joo Dees go nuts whenever we try, so we haven't cured many."

"They seem nuts at the best of times?" Katara probed.

"Kind of. Whatever's controlling them either insane or really, really stupid, but they usually aren't dangerous if you follow the city rules." Katara and Zuko exchanged glances. "If you break the rules, and especially if you try to cure them, they attack. But, they have rules of their own. They can't enter a home uninvited, they don't attack you if there are more witnesses than Joo Dees, and if you break a rule but then they lose sight of you for a minute, they forget about it. They're creepy, but you get used to them."

"What about when they attacked us?" Katara asked.

"They must have been ordered to," Sokka said. "So now, we have to figure out who gave the order."

"They work for the government, so …"

"There are at least four different factions who control some Joo Dees," Sokka said. "It could have been any of them. Let me show you the Wall."

"Why don't we do something about that?" Katara asked. "You said no combat bending, but it should be fine for Aang to make an iceball and roll it in here. Then we can do this properly."

Joo Dee's smile thinned, but she couldn't think of a rule that violated, so Aang and Katara headed outside.

Zuko hadn't had a proper sustained workout for a while, so he stayed where he was, dropped, and started doing pushups.

Toph wandered over. "I figured you'd be sparring with Team Muggle over there," she said, of Sokka and Suki, who were still doing drills.

"It only counts as a workout if you push yourself," Zuko said.

"Is that so," she said, and she stepped onto his shoulders.

He kept going: she only weighed maybe eighty pounds. "It is," he said. "Are you after a rematch? I'm not bending inside an Earth Kingdom city."

"Nah," Toph said, and she sat cross-legged on his back. "Honestly, I kind had it coming, that time with the bounty hunter. I'm just bored. We've been sitting around training and waiting for you guys to get back for a month, and now we're still sitting around training and waiting. This city's driving me crazy. I came along because I wanted to get away from all the rules."

"Speaking of," Zuko said. "How often do you do this?"

"What, train? Maybe three days in four. We don't go all-out like this every time, maybe one of the three days, and the other two are just learning new techniques or messing around aaand I can tell from your heartbeat that now you're angry again."

"You can?" he asked, impressed in spite of himself. "Even sitting like that?"

"Especially sitting like this. I'm right up against your heart."

"Your butt is. That's about the least sensitive part of the body, you shouldn't be able to decipher a heartbeat through it."

"The earth chakra's at the sacrum. What did you expect?"

Not to be read like a book by a twelve-year-old girl's butt chakra.

Why not? Tell me it's not on-brand.

I would've called that one more of a Sokkaism.

Aang and Katara walked back in, rolling an ice sphere along; she minded it while he bent a pool to keep it in. Joo Dee watched, smiling.

"So what gives?" Toph asked.

Zuko rolled over, dumping her on the ground, and they watched Aang and Katara prepare for their session. "Back home, I'd train or meditate from dawn until noon, every single day," he said. "Until sundown, most days, and sometimes even after that. If I was tired or even had an injury, too bad, I'd work through it, at least do breath work or meditation. A Fire Prince has to be strong to protect his people. Him? He has to fight my father in four months, and if he loses, it'll be the end of the world, and he's wasting a quarter of his days chasing butterfly dragons and half of his actual 'workday' slacking off 'messing around'."

"Aren't you supposed to take every other day off to let your muscles recover?" Toph asked. "Besides, we're not just goofing off. You have to try things, not even fighting moves, to figure out what's usable in a fight. I took years inventing my fight style: Hung Gar earthbending doesn't work when you're blind, and it's not great when you're four foot tall. I can show him how I do it, but he has to figure out on his own how he should do it."

"That's the other thing. Katara's nagging me to teach him firebending, but he doesn't have time to master that when he hasn't mastered water- or earthbending yet. You can't take shortcuts with firebending, or you burn yourself and the person standing next to you."

"He's picked up a lot of earthbending in a month," Toph said. "He's not as good as me, but he's still better than most earthbenders."

"It's not good enough to be better than most. He has to master all four elements. An Avatar who's pretty good at all four elements won't stand a chance against my father. If he can only do one move at a time anyway, he might as well stick to airbending, at least he's mastered that."

And we still don't have any ideas what to do about Father's lightning.

Did we pick the losing side?

"What about that thing you mentioned last night?" Toph asked.

"That might help. Or it might be another waste of …"

He trailed off, because Aang and Katara were starting on their session. Katara was stripping down to her underthings to get into their makeshift pool; Aang had said something, and she burst into laughter, light and free, where there was so often an undertone of teasing when she laughed at him. Zuko stood up abruptly.

"I've seen this a thousand times," he said. "I'm going for a walk."

Toph didn't respond as he strode from the training hall.

After everything, we're right back here. Story of our life.

What did you expect? They were together for months before we joined them, and we weren't just a stranger then, we were an enemy. Of course you didn't feel like an outsider when it was just us and Katara, you can't have an outside when there are only two people; but now, why wouldn't they snap back together? If she called him Charmbender, it wouldn't be sarcastic.

"Excuse me," said a man in a nice robe, approaching with a Joo Dee in tow. "Master Guo, I believe?"

Zuko's feet had taken him to a path running along a canal lined with manicured trees, clearly a popular walking trail. This was probably for the best: he didn't think the Dai Li would jump him now that Aang knew he was around, but if they did attack, it wouldn't be in broad daylight out in the open. He frowned at the official. "What is it."

The man gestured, and the Joo Dee held out Zuko's twin swords with a bow.

"We reviewed the actions of the custom officials," he said, "and found they were in error. Please take these, with our deepest apologies. And in the confusion, I believe you forgot this." He held out a passport.

Zuko took the swords, hung them from his belt, and opened the passport.

' This document entitles Master Guo to free passage throughout the Earth Kingdom, on the authority of Mayor Long of Hua Ti.'

It had his detailed description, formally stamped, with date of issue four years ago and update one year ago, all perfectly authentic. His brow knitted.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Long Feng," said the official, folding his arms behind his back. "Shall we take a walk?" Zuko paced him along the canal, Joo Dee two steps behind. "I'm responsible for maintaining order in this city. The Avatar is, let's say, a chaotic element. Of course, he's indispensable, and to move against him would be unthinkable; but he must still be … managed. The same is true of his companions, all chaotic in their own way. Foreigners, women warriors, now both at once … And then there's you. A respectable Earth Kingdom man. Quite a welcome change. I'd prefer we cooperated to keep things that way."

"Right," Zuko said. "And these?", patting his swords.

"There's a concept called guanxi. No man thrives on his own. He relies on a network of supporters; sometimes equal to him in rank, sometimes above, sometimes below, sometimes incomparable. The wise man cultivates that network; does little favours where he can. And in return, his network does little favours for him."

"A bribe," Zuko summarised. "You want something in return."

"The Avatar and I got off on the wrong foot," Long Feng began.

"I'm not going to backstab him. Nothing personal. But I'm already not in their best books, and I can't afford to tick them off any more."

"Wait," Zuko said. "I just remembered. Azula wants to ambush the Avatar at Boiling Rock. So whatever happens, don't go there. It'll be a trap."

"Right," Aang said, with a much less friendly expression than usual. "Great."

"Aang?" Katara asked.

"Yeah," he said. "You know how you wanted to cancel our deal with Zuko?"

"That was ages ago –"

"I'm thinking about it too," he said.

Zuko's heart skipped a beat.

"I think I made a mistake when I offered to bring you along," Aang said. "You said you'd help protect us. That means telling us when a team of elite assassins is after us! I wasn't the only one in danger, she could've hurt any of us. And then you took Katara off to the Fire Nation, after you promised me you'd only go to Ketu Harbour –"

"I asked him to –" Katara tried.

"– and I think you're only telling the truth now because Toph's here."

"," said Zuko. He avoided Katara's eyes.

"You covered for Azula," Aang said. "She's come after me three times and counting. And she hurt Appa."

"I didn't do anything for her," Zuko said, "I just didn't call out my sister while she was in a country that doesn't exactly have a great track record of treating prisoners well. And that was then. I've changed. I'm on your side now. Katara, tell them what I said after Yon Rha."

"What you said," Aang said. "Why would we trust that either?"

Katara frowned but said nothing.

"You said," Sokka said to Aang, "you wanted Zuko around for … reasons other than having a guide to the Fire Nation. Those still apply."

Zuko blinked and glanced at Katara. Her face was too smooth.

So we all have secrets.

"Those reasons won't matter if Azula gets us first," Aang said. "Look. I wanted to like you, to give you a second chance. And thank you for protecting Katara at the North Pole. But I can't let you put her or anyone else in danger. I'll fly you out of Ba Sing Se tomorrow, and –"

Sokka smacked his palm on the floor, cutting him off.

"He stays," he said.

Everyone looked at him in surprise.

"What about Azula?" Aang asked.

"I know. But. We can't throw him out."

"Why?"

"Because," Sokka said. There was a lengthy pause.

"There's supposed to be the rest of a sentence after that?" Katara prompted.

"I know how to grammar, Katara. It's because …" He trailed off, looking for a way to word it.

"Back in the desert," Toph said, "after you all flew off and only Snoozles came back with some dumb story about Sugar and Spice needing emotional closure, I knew he was full of it. I got him alone and made him tell me what he was really playing at. He has a secret plan, and it needs Sparky to stay in the Gaang. If it works out, it could save hundreds of lives."

"What? Why? How?" the others chorused.

"He made me promise not to blab, and I keep my promises. It probably won't work if you know, because you're all idiots. Anyway, bad things happen if you chuck Sparky out."

"You can't just make plans and not tell anyone what you're up to!" Katara told Sokka.

"Watch me," he said. "You're all super-powered benders; it's not my fault I had to get creative to even it out."

She sulked.

"You know what?" Aang said. "No.I'm calling your bluff."

"He's not bluffing," Toph said.

"Then maybe you're bluffing. If you're not going to be honest, I'm not going to believe you. We didn't have all these layers of secret plans and different groups within the Gaang plotting against each other before Zuko showed up. Either tell me the plan, or I'm tossing him out."

"If you toss him out, hundreds of people could die," Sokka said.

"So tell me why, and I won't do it."

"I can't. The plan only works if it's a surprise."

"Then you'd better come up with another plan," Aang said, setting his jaw.

"What if," Zuko said, "I proved I was loyal, by answering a question you never thought to ask? One that might make the difference and help you win when you fight my father?"

"What question is that?"

"When I was banished, I started by visiting the four Air Temples, thinking the Avatar might have left a clue at one. The Western and Southern Temples are deserted. The Northern was occupied by the Mechanist and his village. The Eastern was home to an old guru."

Zuko – a few years younger, dressed in Fire Nation armour, still freshly furious more than embittered, his scar red and angry and hideous – hauled himself up the cliffside to the entrance. An ancient brown-skinned man sat there cross-legged. He cracked an eye.

"Good morning," he said.

Zuko glowered. There's nothing good about it. "I seek the Avatar," he said.

"Then you and I have something in common," said the guru. "Would you like to join me in my meditation?"

"You've clearly been here awhile. You must have found clues. Where is he? What do you know?"

"Many, many years ago, I sought enlightenment," the old man said. " I am, I am. I was granted visions of the future. I haven't a clue where the Avatar is, Lost Prince, but I know that he will come. I'm waiting so that when he arrives, I will be here to teach him the secrets of the Avatar State."

Zuko glared. "When is he supposed to get here?"

"Soon, I think. Even with my special talent, I don't think I have very much time left."

"How long have you been here?"

"Sixty-three years."

Zuko huffed. "Crazy old fool. I'm going to find him."

"Perhaps you should try to find yourself first, Lost Prince," the guru suggested.

"Perhaps you should shut your mouth if you like having teeth in it," Zuko replied.

"I understand your apprehension," said Long Feng. "As I said, I don't intend to move against the Avatar. My concern is that he won't speak to me, and it's important to maintain channels of communication. You might hear me out if I have information that would be of mutual benefit."

"And if I don't?" Zuko asked. "Joo Dees were involved in some of the 'confusion' at customs. And you move like the Dai Li do. You're their leader, aren't you?"

"Ba Sing Se's power is decentralised. I don't have total control over either the Dai Li or the Joo Dees. There exist factions that would like to kidnap the Avatar's companions, among other reasons to blackmail him for military purposes. I understand your friends encountered one of them near Izumihanto. Personally, I have little interest in military matters, nor in grudges some might hold against you from your previous occupation. My duty is to uphold order within the city, and –"

Joo Dee chimed in, making Zuko jump: "There is no war in Ba Sing Se."

"It would be to our mutual interest," Long Feng continued, "if such factions were … diminished. However. You are quick to mistrust, which speaks to a history of betrayal. To establish a relationship in the face of that takes time, an extended exchange of favours. I was able to root out part of one of my rival factions, thanks to your actions last night, which I'll consider a generous favour from you. Perhaps I'll think of something else you'd like, as a thank you; if you have requests, you might pass them along by Joo Dee."

"What are the Joo Dees?"

Joo Dee beamed. Long Feng hesitated.

"That's a story for another time," he said. "To be clear, I don't expect you to keep this conversation secret from your friends. You might earn some of their trust if you let them know I'm still keeping an eye on them."

"I might," Zuko said.

"Then, unless you have anything further you wish to discuss? Thank you for your time, Master Guo." Long Feng bowed, and he and Joo Dee walked off, leaving Zuko with his swords and newest fake passport.

We aren't going to trust him as far as Sokka could throw him, are we?

Heck no. Reminds me of those slimy career politicians back home. Remember Lord Aburaya?

Ugh.

He wandered back to the training grounds. Katara sat cross-legged, a hollow sphere of water swirling around her. Aang sat opposite, mirroring her movements. Toph, Sokka, and Suki sat in a row, Toph quietly saying something, Sokka amused, Suki annoyed. Joo Dee stood off to one side, lounging against a wall.

We should tell them, right? They'll accuse us of hiding things again if we don't.

Right.

…

Katara and Aang are in the middle of something, it'd be polite to wait until a pause …

You're just saying that because you don't know how to break the ice, aren't you?

Well how are you supposed to? ' Hey guys, guess what, I just ran into some guy who gave me some stuff and I'm pretty sure he wanted to subvert me to spy on you' ?

Yes! Do it!

I will! Just, let's workshop it first. ' Excuse me, I have something important to discuss' –

Be stuffier. Please. For me.

' Drop whatever you're wasting your miserable worthless lives on, filthy peasants, and listen to me.'

Tempting, but –

"Hey, Zuko," Sokka said. "Where'd you get those swords?"

Every damn time.

"Some bureaucrat gave me them. Said his name was Long Feng."

Everyone's head whipped round to him. Aang dropped his water sphere; Katara put hers away and took in everyone else's reactions, curious.

" That guy," Toph said, which seemed to sum up the consensus.

"Did he do something earlier?" Zuko asked.

"He's at the dead centre of the Wall," Sokka said.

"Behold!" he declared.

He'd set up a twenty-foot stretch of corkboard. It was covered in a spiderweb of papers, scribbles, drawings, coloured bits of string. Zuko checked out part of it at random.

Xu Wang, Liang clan – One-Eye Chan – partners, Fire Nation perfume smuggling. Seen together Warehouse 121, 13th/Sow night.

"Other than training, we've been trying to work out the conspiracies in Ba Sing Se," Sokka continued. "This is where I keep my notes."

"Conspiracies, plural?" Katara asked.

"Maybe. There are dozens of different groups running criminal operations, paying off the police. So you might say there are dozens of conspiracies. But what if you look at it the other way round, that the police are running one giant operation, and the street-level criminals are just doing their dirty work collecting money from the people? And it's not just petty crime, smuggling and fencing stolen goods. We found out that the King doesn't even know there's a war on."

"Did you tell him?" she asked.

"Not yet. Partly because he doesn't run the military anyway. As far as we can tell, he just does ceremonial stuff, and bureaucrats and generals actually run everything. But mostly because one guy told us he'd send agents out of the city to help look for you, if we played by their rules, and he threatened to call them off if we told the king. He wants Aang here to help defend the city in case the Fire Nation attacks."

"That makes sense," she mused. "They don't have anything that can stop those gliders; you're the only one that can even reach them."

"The what?"

"The gliders. That the Fire Nation used to bomb the outer wall this evening?"

There was a moment of stunned silence.

"They did what?!"

"Have you actually caught him doing anything illegal?" Katara asked.

"That's the thing," Sokka said. "He always knows someone who knows someone, but he's never at the scene of the crime. But I'm sure he's involved. There are like fifty things that only add up if he's a part of it. And he was the one who said we had to follow their rules, and he'd send Dai Li to look for you, and then they attacked you. Maybe some other faction hijacked those Dai Li, or maybe he's just full of it."

"There's something else that's really weird about him," Toph said. "He never lies."

"… Shouldn't that make you suspect him less?" Katara asked.

"You don't get it," Toph said. "Everyone always lies a little. Like, you say, 'Pleased to meet you' – you're not actually pleased, you just met the guy, you don't care about him until after you actually make friends. Or you're sarcastic, or, like, even when you aren't lying by omission, you don't tell the complete story, because whoever's listening doesn't care about every little detail. Your heartbeat and breathing always hitch, but usually not much if it's innocent, so I don't say anything. But him? Every word is always perfectly truthful. Even when he says something I know is a lie. He knows some way of spoofing it, which means he's spent a long time figuring out how to lie really, really well."

So. He knew we'd tell them, and that they'd say he's not trustworthy.

Ugh. He's just Azula all over again.

"Then again," Sokka mused, "if he figures we don't trust you, and he could turn you against us, you might be able to find something out. If you see him around, maybe pretend you hate us and see what he says?"

"I'll manage somehow," said Zuko.