The silence that followed Iroh's revelation hung heavily over their heads. The others were sat in utter shock, faces pale and eyes wide. Aang looked worst of all, as if a stray gust of wind would knock him flat on his back, airbending abilities or no.

"What do you mean?" Katara asked in a small voice. "We have to have time, we can't…"
She trailed off, forcefully taking a deep breath. "I mean," she continued, after she'd regained her composure, "there must be something else we can do. Surely we can stop the Fire Lord between us all? It doesn't have to be on Aang alone."

Iroh heaved a sigh.

"The Avatar must defeat the Fire Lord," he intoned. "That is the only way that true balance can be restored to the world."

"But can't you-"

Iroh shook his head, cutting her off.

"If I, or the White Lotus, or the armies of the Water Tribe or Earth Kingdom were to take down the Fire Lord, the world would never truly be at peace. It would just be yet another move in this endless war. Given time, the Fire Nation would regroup, or the nations of the world would demand further vengeance, and so the cycle of violence would only continue." Iroh sighed. "It must be the Avatar, the symbol of balance, who challenges the Fire Lord and ends this war once and for all.

"But that doesn't mean Aang has to face the Fire Lord on his own," Sokka added, glancing fearfully at Aang's dangerously blank expression. "We'll be with you, buddy, every step of the way!"

Aang didn't react, simply staring into the crackling flames.

Iroh cleared his throat.

"Perhaps it is better that we talk about this in the morning. I am sure that you are all tired."

Zuko and Sokka exchanged a look. Yes, they were all exhausted and no doubt could fall asleep right there at the fireside a few minutes ago- but now, after that? The shock of Iroh's revelation would no doubt have Zuko tossing and turning until the early hours, and he didn't know how any of the others would be able to either.

In the end, he just shrugged internally and sat back, letting Sokka take the lead.

"I think you're right," Sokka said, after a long moment. "We aren't going to sort everything out tonight, and we're all way too tired anyway. Some sleep would do us all good."

The others agreed with little fuss, which really hammered it home for Zuko just how much the last few days had taken out of them. Normally Toph and Aang would show some sort of protest at being told to go to bed. Instead they just followed his uncle away from the fire and through a maze of white canvas illuminated by flickering firelight.

The walk wasn't too long, although to Zuko's aching feet it felt like miles; it couldn't have been more than five minutes before Iroh showed them to two tents, pitched closely together and facing onto a narrow pathway.

"Some of our members set these up for you earlier. There are three beds in one, two in the other." He pointed to the slightly smaller of the two. "Ladies, this is yours."

Toph and Katara muttered their goodnights and shuffled in.

Sokka let out a jaw-cracking yawn which soon passed to Zuko and Aang.

"I think it's time you were all in bed," Iroh chuckled. He turned to Zuko and held his arms out hopefully.

Zuko swallowed heavily and shuffled closer, only to be swept into his uncle's embrace. He endured the hug with his own arms held tightly against his sides. It lasted a full minute- Zuko counted the seconds- before he was finally released and ordered to bed.

Burning blood rose to his cheeks, though whether it was from embarrassment or indignation, he couldn't tell. Who was his uncle to order him to bed, like he was some kind of child? And what was with all the hugging? That wasn't…that wasn't how his family treated each other. His mother, perhaps, but…well she wasn't of the blood, was she? She hadn't been cursed by whatever it was running through the veins of the Fire Nation Royalty that made them bloodthirsty, genocidal and lacking in any kind of human decency. She'd been good…

Iroh cleared his throat pointedly.

Zuko stuttered out a "Good Night" and stumbled into the tent, followed by an awkward-looking Sokka and an almost catatonic Aang. Too confused and exhausted to even speak, Zuko picked out the bed furthest from the door and collapsed on top of it. He felt raw, like someone had dug and scarped into the middle of his chest, leaving an unexpected and unfillable hole behind. The past few days lay heavily on his shoulders and he didn't know if he wanted to sleep, to cry, or to set the whole world on fire. He rubbed at his arms, still feeling the warmth of his uncle's hug prickling across his skin. He shuddered.

"Hey buddy," Sokka said softly, pausing at the entrance to lay a hand on Aang's shoulder.

Zuko was more than happy to let Sokka deal with this conversation, too. He looked down at his chosen bed, desperately trying to pretend he wasn't listening in on them.

The thin mattresses themselves were bare, but the White Lotus had been generous enough to supply them with blankets and pillows, which were sat on a table in the far corner. Zuko stood up and began to make the beds, thankful both for the distraction and for the hospitality, especially as all of their own supplies were still on Appa, wherever the bison was.

Sokka, meanwhile, pushed Aang's shoulder gently, until the younger boy turned to face him.

"What Iroh said…"Sokka began hesitantly.

"I don't want to talk about it."

Someone had lit the lamps ahead of their arrival and the soft flame sent shadows dancing across Aang's face. His voice was as flat and cold as marble.

"It will be okay in the morning," Sokka said, his face drawn and drained. "I promise, buddy. We'll work this out."

Zuko finished laying the blankets down on the far bed and hurried back to the one that he'd claimed earlier.

"I know, Sokka," Aang replied, without a flicker of emotion.

Sokka bit his lip.

"Are you-"

"I'm tired," Aang said bluntly, cutting him off. "I just want to go to sleep."

Saying this, he walked to the bed nearest to the door and lay down carefully on it. He slipped under the blanket and then pulled it up and over his head, hiding himself from the world – and it from him.

"Um…" Sokka shifted helplessly at the entrance to the tent. "If you want to-"

"I just want… to go to sleep, Sokka," Aang repeated, an odd hitching breath splitting the sentence in two. His voice was muffled enough that Zuko couldn't make out if he was crying or not.

Sokka shot Zuko a helpless look, to which Zuko could only shrug uncomfortably in reply. He had no idea what to say to Aang either. How was anyone meant to cope with being given a month to learn a skill others spend lifetimes perfecting, with the weight of the actual world in the balance?

Sokka sighed and sat down on the remaining bed, eyes flickering over to Aang every few seconds.

"Are you going to sleep?" He asked, his whisper pitched just loudly enough that – even with his bad ear – Zuko could hear him, but quiet enough that it hopefully wouldn't disturb Aang.

Zuko sighed and lay down, pondering the question; he honestly didn't know. He was exhausted and his head was pounding, but he wasn't sure his brain would be able to switch off enough to let him sleep. They hadn't really had a chance to stop since the Black Cliffs, not really, and so much had happened since then. It felt as if he were swimming against a riptide and being swept further and further out to sea.

"Probably not," he said quietly.

"I'm going to try," Sokka said through a yawn, glancing meaningfully over at Aang. "Are you gonna be okay?"

Zuko nodded, and Sokka sent him a grateful smile in return. With everyone lying in bed and nobody willing to get up and see to the lights, Zuko bent the lantern out, plunging the room into darkness. He'd keep a watch until Aang fell asleep; Agni only knew that was something he could do.

It turned out that Sokka needn't have worried. Aang was dead to the world within minutes, Sokka following not long after. Zuko lay on his back as their gentle snoring began to harmonise with the racket coming from Toph next door. His thoughts were racing, still struggling to process the revelations of the day, of the past few days, in fact. He tossed and turned, not quite able to settle, for what felt like hours.

At some point, he must have fallen asleep, finally succumbing to physical and mental exhaustion, because he startled awake some time later. His heart was pounding and his skin was covered in a cold sweat. It took him a few moments of gasping breaths before he realised that the blackness surrounding him was their tent and not, as in his dream, the depths of the coal mine and the thick coal-dust smog. He knew that he wasn't trapped under a pile of fallen rocks, that he never had been, despite how ardently his sleeping mind tried to convince him otherwise. He kept taking deep breaths until the terror running ice cold through his veins began to abate. He lay back down with a weary sigh, wondering if he would be able to get any more sleep before dawn, however long that may be.

A shuffling noise outside the tent caught his good ear and he snapped to attention, sitting up in his bed and bringing a soft flame to his palm. Sokka was still snoring soundly in his bed. If Zuko wanted to, he could reach out and brush the hair out of Sokka's face. However, Aang's bed, on the opposite side of the tent, was empty.

Zuko swore. Of course Aang had gone missing. Again.

It was Aang, after all. His default to hearing distressing news was to run away from it. At speed. Zuko swung his legs out of bed, ready to wake Sokka and start gathering a search party, when that same shuffling noise came again from just outside the tent. He froze and listened. Titling his good ear towards the tent entrance, he could vaguely make out the sound of two familiar voices: Katara and Aang. He slumped back in relief. Thank Agni. Their whispers were getting steadily louder, but he still couldn't make out the actual words.

"I have to do this!"

Zuko startled and the flame in his palm flickered; that was no longer a whisper, but almost a shout.

"But, Aang-"

"No, I know you're trying to help, Katara, but I have to do this. Look at what's happened every time I try and do this any other way!" Aang's voice caught, and he breathed loudly and heavily for a few moments, trying to get himself back in control.

"Aang, it's not your-"

"It is my responsibility, Katara! People keep dying because of me!" Aang retorted. "I'm the Avatar… I can't keep pretending I'm some normal kid. I can't keep running away from this."

Zuko winced.

Katara didn't reply for a long time.

"We can find another way."

"No," Aang said quietly, resolute. "I need to learn firebending. I have to do this."

Katara sighed and then fell back into silence. Zuko had no clue what was going through her mind, but he silently urged her to let this one go. Aang had to learn firebending; he was the Avatar. Whatever came after that they could work out together.

"Okay, Aang," Katara agreed, finally, and Zuko let out a soft sigh of relief. "Okay."

If Aang replied, Zuko couldn't hear him, instead it seemed like the two of them had said everything they wanted to day and had fallen into silence. After a while, they muttered their goodnights and Aang slipped back into the tent. Zuko lay back down and took slow, even breaths, pretending to be asleep. He didn't want the young Avatar to know he'd overheard the conversation.

Aang was soon back to snoring again, and Zuko hoped that this time he'd stay asleep. It was still the middle of the night and he was exhausted; he could only imagine how the younger boy felt. Eventually Zuko too fell asleep, succumbing to the aching that seemed to come from his very bones. Perhaps Agni was finally showing his mercy, because for the rest of the night Zuko didn't have any nightmares.

He awoke at dawn, as usual, and made sure to offer up a proper thanks to Agni for the good night's sleep he had been blessed with. It had been a surprise, albeit a pleasant one, to wake with something other than nightmares, shouts, or fucking reveille dragging him back to the land of the living. He was even, dare he say it, somewhat energetic. The dull haze and headache behind his eyes was missing. Of course, his muscles ached with the exhaustion of Agni-only-knew how many days of running and fighting and whatever else. Still, that could be worked off with some stretching and some actual exercise.

He was planning on heading off to run through some of the few katas he could remember, a faint and almost-forgotten impulse at the back of his mind warning him against under-preparedness in front of his tutors. Picking his way on carefully through the camp, he headed for the relative quiet of the equipment tents he'd hidden himself in the day before. It didn't take much effort at all to move silently and he allowed his thoughts to roam, pondering over Aang's sudden change of heart and what they would need to do next. He was deep in his thoughts and distracted, when he came across Iroh.

His uncle was sat stoking a small fire in front of his tent, breathing steadily to coax the flames higher and higher. His brow was creased, and his movements, though fluid and smooth with the ease of long practice, were somewhat jerkier than they ought really to be. Iroh looked like he was as deep in his thoughts, as his nephew had just been.

Zuko stood for a long moment, unnoticed in the dim half-light of the breaking dawn, deliberating. Did he go and speak to Iroh? It was likely the polite thing to do, but…well… was Zuko all that bothered about politeness at the moment? Did he feel comfortable enough with his uncle to be around him alone? Could he really trust that Iroh wasn't going to turn around and hut him, lash out with words or fists and reduce him to a terrified child in the way Ozai had only days before? But then why had he hugged him last night?

Part of him recognised that his uncle was trying to help them, that he truly cared for Zuko and beyond mere familial obligation. Zuko could recognise that he really needed to let go of the horrible aching ball of hurt that rose up in his chest whenever his uncle looked at him with those soft golden eyes- eyes which were both familiar and unfamiliar in the same moment. But no… his uncle was not his father, and it was unfair to keep collating the two. Whatever issues Zuko had with his uncle were with his uncle alone, and he couldn't let them linger around forever, either. Zuko knew all too well that he'd have to address the Iroh problem at some point; unpleasant things never just went away on their own. His uncle was going to be training him; Zuko would need to get over his apprehension, and soon.

Decision made, Zuko headed over to where his uncle was sat. The older man's eyes were still closed and he was breathing slowly in time with the pulsing of the flames.

"Ah, nephew," Iroh said when Zuko reached the edge of the fire; he hadn't even opened his eyes.

"Good morning, uncle," Zuko said quietly, with a bow.

Iroh took a deep breath, and the flames surged in response.

"Why don't you join me nephew?" His uncle peeled an eye open and gifted Zuko with a soft half-smile. "There's plenty of room around the fire."

Zuko hesitated for a moment, before folding himself awkwardly on the other side of the fire. He cast a wary half-glance at his uncle, but the other man had closed both his eyes again, returning to his meditation. Letting out a shaky breath, Zuko forced himself to relax into a comfortable meditative position and to feel both the flickering of the fire and the warmth of the sun rising at his back. It was surprisingly easy to fall back into the quiet trance he'd been practicing over the past few months. He could feel the chi stirring through his body, responding to the gentle pulsing energy of the flames, and he felt strangely…at peace. The soft sound of his uncle's breathing was oddly calming, rhythmic and hypnotic over the soft crackling of the fire.

They'd done this sort of thing on occasion when he was a child. After Lu Ten's death… after his mother… Iroh would meditate with him over cups of chamomile tea, sat in the palace gardens. His Uncle would take him aside, stuff him with sweet cakes and sit with him, breathing deeply and calmly. Sometimes it was comforting, with Zuko's shoulders still hitching with supressed sobs after yet another horrendous day of failure, nursing whatever his tutors had seen fit to inflict as punishment for his mediocrity. Sometimes it was irritating, with his Uncle pulling him from whatever studying or practice he'd been doing just to sit. In hindsight, his uncle was likely trying to teach him some element of control, to stop his fire from lashing out or hiding away uncontrollably. But to Zuko, so used to his father's disdain and missing his mother and his cousin so much, his uncle's attention had been this incredible, wonderful and terrifying thing.

Of course, Zuko was no longer that desperate child and never would be again. Still, it was oddly pleasant to be able to sit alongside his uncle again, despite the strange mix of emotions it stirred in him.

They sat there in silence for a long while, as the sun climbed steadily higher and higher in the sky.

After what must have been a few hours, the camp began to stir. Toph practically crawled over to the fire, plonking herself in front of it and staring blankly at the flames until Iroh set to and made a bracingly strong pot of tea. Toph was halfway through her second cup and relatively cognisant of the rest of the world when Sokka came over to join them. He sat down next to Zuko, nudging him softly in the side and shooting him a questioning look. When Zuko replied with a small half-smile, Sokka practically beamed.

Aang and Katara took much longer to wake up, and the rest of them began breakfast without them. It was simple fare, broth and bread brought to them by some random member of the white lotus; it was a little plain and the bread was beginning to stale, but Zuko was hardly one to complain, and the others were familiar enough with both hunger and hospitality to refrain from doing so either. By the time Aang and Katara appeared at the fireside, Zuko had long-since finished eating and was listening to Iroh and Sokka compare notes on everything from the current political climate to poetry. It was oddly domestic. Toph had even dragged herself awake enough to scoff loudly when Sokka started talking haiku.

Aang sat down at the fire, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his arm as Katara spooned a bowlful of broth for them both. The others stilled around the fire, watching Aang as he mechanically shovelled spoonful after spoonful into his mouth.

"So when are we getting started?" Aang asked the second he'd emptied his bowl, barely a minute after he'd begun.

"What?" Sokka asked, almost dropping the bowl he was currently heaping seconds into.

"With the training," Aang clarified; his eyes were hard and glinting with determination.

Sokka froze. The ladle in his hand was idly dripping broth back into the pot.

"…Um..." he began eloquently. "That's good, buddy…" He cautiously began to spoon the food into his bowl, seemingly just so that he had something to do with his hands. "Just…isn't this a bit-" he frowned and settled back at Zuko's side "-sudden? Don't you want to...talk about it first?"

Aang took a deep breath.

"I realised that I need to be taking things more seriously," he said, expression uncharacteristically solemn. "We only have a few weeks, and I need to learn firebending. I don't want to waste any more time."

"Well that's…good?" Sokka said, his eyes darting to Katara's and back.

What he saw in his sister's expression, Zuko didn't know, but it shut Sokka up as absolutely as a particularly tough strip of jerky.

Iroh took a long drag of his tea, finishing his third cup of the morning, and stood, clapping his hands together.

"Your determination is inspiring, young Avatar, and you are right that we should begin as soon as possible. There will be a short walk to our training area and I do not want to begin training in the height of the sun." He smiled at Aang and Zuko in turn. "Shall we begin?"

Aang nodded once, tightly. Zuko followed suit, his heart beginning to pound as it struck him that they were actually doing this; his uncle was going to teach them to firebend.

Iroh didn't seem to notice his distress, although Sokka's hand found his and gave it a quick, comforting squeeze.

"Then the first thing you will need to do is collect some leaves. There is a tree over by the main gate. Pick as many as you can carry." Iroh smiled. "You will likely go through many this morning."

Aang hurried off, pouting at the realisation of exactly which exercise he would be forced to practise. Zuko let out a long, shaky breath.

Iroh then turned to Zuko. "I will just be a moment, nephew, and then we will meet the young avatar at the gate." He drew back the canvas and ducked into his tent.

Reluctantly Zuko pulled himself to his feet, and cast a quick glance at the others.

"Are any of you coming?" He asked, trying not to look at Sokka beseechingly.

"Nah," Toph said with a grin. "We'll catch you later, Sparky."

Sokka nodded, and Zuko's heart fell.

"There's too much we don't know about this war," Sokka said apologetically. "I'm going to find their tacticians and compare notes."

Katara nodded. "That's probably a good idea, Sokka. I'm going to find the healers and see if they need any help."

Toph snorted. "Yeah, count me out, all of you. There's gotta be something around here worth doing, and I'm gonna find it."

Zuko nodded dumbly, reminding himself that this was not a betrayal, even though it felt a little like it.

"Will Aang be okay, do you think?" Sokka asked quietly. "He seems kinda…off."

"My uncle's a master, one of the best firebenders in the world; there's no one better suited to teach Aang." Zuko replied, trying to convince himself as much as the others. "He'll be fine."

"Don't sound too sure," Sokka told him.

"Relax, Snoozles," Toph snorted, "you're starting to sound like Katara!"

Zuko managed a faint smile at Katara's aghast look. He was trying to be less…paranoid about everything. It would all be fine. It would have been nice to have the others come along as a buffer. But- he reminded himself firmly- he didn't really have a reason to fear his uncle; this trepidation was likely completely unnecessary. So then why wouldn't his heart stop pounding?

He took a deep breath and forced himself to smile at the others, as his uncle came out of the tent and declared that it was time to go. They walked over to the gate in silence, only broken by Zuko's snort at the sight of Aang. The young Avatar had stray leaves tangled into his increasingly unruly hair and a mound of twigs and foliage clasped hazardously between his palms. His face was streaked with dirt, but his eyes were solemn.

"Will this be enough?" He asked

"We shall see," Iroh replied with a wry smile. "That will all depend on you, my young student."

Iroh then led them out the gate and through a series of empty fields, until they came to what looked to be a fallow field. At the far end there was a dilapidated stone structure, which looked as if it once might have been a farmhouse of some form, although it had long since gone to ruin. Whatever roof used to provide cover had crumbled or rotted away. In places, the walls barely reached Zuko's waist, the stones likely having been poached for other local building projects. Zuko feared that even looking at it too hard might cause the whole thing to crumble down to the ground. No one had used this as a home in a very long time.

It was to this structure, and to the large yard in front of it, that Iroh led them.

"What is this place?" Zuko asked, examining the remains of a flowerpot on what had once been a windowsill. Just to his left, Aang finally deposited his armful of leaves into a large pile on the floor.

"It's where we come to train," his uncle explained. "We needed somewhere outside of camp where we could practice inconspicuously. Somewhere we wouldn't risk burning all our supplies if sparring were to become too heated."

"Huh," Aang said, peering at the tightly-packed and stone-free earth of the yard. He swallowed heavily, still looking closely at the ground. "Does that sort of thing…uh…happen a lot?"

"Sometimes," Iroh nodded. "But that is why the first thing that you must learn about fire bending is control."

Zuko nodded in agreement.

"Control," his uncle repeated, "of both your breathing and your emotions is the key to mastering your fire." He paused and looked at Aang closely. "I have read that the monks taught that meditation was crucial to airbending, so I assume that the theory will not be too dissimilar."

Aang swallowed heavily, looking slightly ill. Perhaps, Zuko pondered, Aang struggled with the thought that there might be similarities between his own bending and that which had killed his people. However the young airbender gathered himself and nodded.

"I've done some fire bending meditation before, too," he reluctantly admitted. "With the leaves." He cast a sorrowful eye over the pile by the wall.

Iroh chuckled. "Then you will be familiar with the first task I will assign you." He paused and cast a speculative eye over the young airbender. "But who was it that taught you this style of meditation?"

Zuko tuned them out as he tried to control his own breathing. Aang was the priority here; he was just along for the ride, really. Still, it wouldn't do to forget the basics himself.

He took a leaf from Aang's pile and settled into a comfortable meditative position, his fingertips pressed loosely together in his lap. He gradually slowed his breathing and carefully set fire to the middle of the leaf, controlling the burn so that the flames did not advance, but merely held steady in that smouldering centre. It took all of his attention and focus, but by the time his uncle came to interrupt him, Zuko had only allowed the fire an infinitesimally small advancement beyond the original flame.

"I am sorry to interrupt you, nephew-"

Zuko allowed the flame to flicker out, feeling a horrible lurch as that little pulse of energy and life –which had been his sole point of focus for the last Agni-only-knew-how-long – died out.

"Sorry, uncle," Zuko apologised. "I thought I'd practice whilst you were busy."

"Do not apologise, Prince Zuko," Iroh replied, with a soft smile. "You were demonstrating impressive control. Perhaps you may demonstrate it to your fellow student at some point-"

They both glanced over to where Aang was glaring furiously at a rapidly burning leaf hovering between the palms of his hands. A small pile of smouldering embers and ash sat in front of him.

"-But perhaps not just yet." Iroh turned back to Zuko with another smile, this one more conspiratorial.

Trying not to think about just how much his uncle was smiling at him, Zuko nodded in awkward agreement. His uncle was the teacher; Zuko would do whatever he was told.

Iroh settled down on the floor beside him, with a low moan.

"I am becoming too old for sitting on the bare earth, nephew," Iroh supplied, rubbing at his lower back. "But we have more important things to discuss than my back! I know we spoke of it briefly last night, but we must now discuss details. Tell me, how is the state of your firebending?"

Zuko held himself rigidly, fighting back the sick, familiar feeling of shame that bubbled up from his stomach and burned like bile at the back of his throat. He could still hear the shock and dismay in Jee's voice the night before at the revelation of just how little progress he'd made with his firebending since the camp.

"Well, I…" He began, and then cleared his throat. "Um... I've been doing a lot of meditating?" He offered tentatively.

His uncle nodded encouragingly.

"And I've…uh…I've tried a couple of the…uh…basic forms," he trailed off, feeling the sudden warmth of abject mortification course through him.

Oh Agni, that was all he'd done really, wasn't it? He'd made a few half-hearted attempts to remember the few katas he'd ever been able to cram into his head or force into his muscle memory. Oh… and he'd sat and breathed for a bit. What must his uncle think of him? He was a disgrace to the entire concept of firebending. No wonder Agni had all but abandoned him in the camp. Zuko despised himself.

"Well-" his uncle began, and Zuko forced himself to focus on the present moment.

He braced himself for the coming onslaught, fully expecting his uncle's disdain and disapproval. Even at thirteen and barely able to call himself a firebender, he'd been miles beyond his current skill level.

"Your control is, as I said, impressive," Iroh said. "Meditation will have greatly helped you in that. I will run through the basic sequences with you this morning and we will establish the accuracy, power and stamina of your bending." He smiled gently, and reached out to rest a hand on Zuko's shoulder.

Zuko held himself very still, and forced himself not to flinch at the contact.

"The situation is not as dire as you think, Prince Zuko," he said softly. "I think you will surprise yourself with how quickly these things will come back to you."

Zuko nodded and pulled himself to his feet. He carefully did not mention that he'd never really had the skills there to begin with, or that his uncle had politely ignored the fact that been out of the camp for months and could barely make more than a few sparks here or there. Instead, Zuko swallowed the shame and forced himself through a series of basic stretches.

Training both was and was not what Zuko had been expecting. He was right that he'd barely remembered the steps of half the sequences. Barring one or two of the simplest routines, he had mixed up footwork between katas, and he was forever forgetting to keep his head up and not watch his feet. However he made improvement a lot quicker than he'd anticipated. With a little advice from his uncle, and a few gentle corrections, Zuko had the vast majority of the katas back up to form within a few hours. By the time that they paused for lunch, Zuko was feeling a little better about the whole experience.

"That was impressive, both of you," Iroh said, as they shared bread and fruit from a pack Iroh had grabbed from his tent before they left.

Aang and Zuko shared a look of mutual disbelief. Aang had already burnt through half the pile of leaves and the dirt on his cheeks was now covered with smears of soot. Zuko…well, Zuko thought that his firebending ability rather spoke for itself. Iroh, however, did not seem to notice the awkward silence, and merely finished his food with a bland smile of enjoyment.

Mercifully quickly, they got back to work. Iroh had decided that he would be spending the rest of the afternoon with Aang, leaving Zuko to practise the – now corrected – basic sequences. It was oddly calming, Zuko thought, to move through the steps, allowing his chi to move through his limbs and out in steady streams of fire. He practised each sequence methodically, keeping an analytical eye on those areas where his uncle had noticed mistakes, and did not move onto the next until could perform the current one without any mistakes.

The sun was beginning to dip back towards the horizon when Iroh finally called time for the day. Zuko was relieved; the muscles in his arms and legs were quivering, and he had been finding it harder and harder to spot his turns properly.

"Good work today, boys!" Iroh declared. He pulled himself to his feet with a groan, and rubbed at his back. "I want you to practice the breathing exercises with a candle tonight, Aang," he said to the avatar. "If you can, try snuffing the candle out, too. You will need to learn to put out a fire, before we will move to you generating your own."

Aang nodded, looking oddly speculative. He formed the shape of the flame with his hands and bowed deeply to Iroh. Iroh returned the gesture with a bow of his own- shallower, teacher to student- and smiled at the young avatar. Then he turned to Zuko.

"Tomorrow I will watch you run through the basic sequences once more and then I think we will move on to the intermediate."

Zuko was unable to keep the surprise from his face.

His uncle chuckled.

"I told you, nephew, your control is very good and that is the most important element of all firebending. Your fire is not the most powerful, but it is consistent, in part due to your excellent stamina."

Zuko blinked. His fire wasn't very powerful. He knew that; it never had been. Still, it was embarrassing for his uncle to have noticed it quite so obviously, even if the man were both a master bender and his teacher.

"I suspect, however," Iroh continued, casting Zuko an apologetic look, "that some of that stamina is due to your high level of physical fitness. Whilst that will prove useful at the basic level, the advanced sequences will require more rigorous and demanding manipulation of your chi. You will need to practise the basics frequently in order to be able to perform the more complicated forms consistently and accurately for more than short bursts of activity."

Zuko nodded his understanding. He had suspected that much, too. He had not really had chance to practise with actual fire, and moving chi through the body was not the same thing as swinging a sword, or digging for coal; his body was not acclimatised to what he would soon be asking it to do.

Iroh paused and watched him carefully; Zuko froze.

"With practise, you can improve upon your stamina and your power," Iroh paused once again, and Zuko's heart dropped. "Your accuracy," he continued carefully, "is the area you will need to work upon the most. You land the targeted strikes only intermittently. I'll show you some exercises that can help with that, tomorrow."

Zuko nodded. When his uncle did not continue to offer any more criticism, Zuko considered the lesson complete and bowed to his teacher, as Aang had done.

"As I said before, good work today," Iroh said, as he returned Zuko's bow. "Now, if I have judged the time correctly, we should get back just in time for dinner."

They walked back to camp in the hazy, orange light of approaching dusk. Aang and Iroh chatted casually about the meditation methods of the Air Nomads, but Zuko zoned them out. He was picking apart his performance and reviewing it in light of Iroh's criticisms. There was nothing to argue with; his uncle was right. His power and stamina weren't great and his accuracy was shit. The former two he knew he could do something about, but how in Agni's name was he supposed to do anything about his accuracy when he was essentially working with one eye? He compensated the best that he could, of course, and he was better in close quarters – but long distance aiming, particularly with the shift in his vision and balance that came after a turn or jump or whatever? Zuko was lucky if he got in the general area. He was never going to be able to firebend properly.

The revelation came just as they reached the gate to the camp. The white lotus agent standing watch outside (dressed as a poor farmer and lounging idly against the bamboo fence) knocked rhythmically against the wood at the sight of them. It was the same woman who had been at the back gate the day before, and she offered Zuko and Aang a slight smile and Iroh a professional nod as the gate swung open to admit them. Once back inside, Iroh pointed them towards the storage tents and the bathhouse.

A subtle suggestion from his uncle – that they ask the quartermaster for some fresh clothes and get washed up –sent a burning flush of humiliation to heat up Zuko's cheeks and the back of his neck. Of course they smelt more than a little ripe. Coming to think of it, Zuko couldn't actually remember the last time that he'd taken a bath; possibly back at the black cliffs, maybe before. At the very least, it was several fights, hours of running under bombardment, a trek through muddy paddy fields, and a day of training and physical exertion, since he'd last had a chance to even think about hygiene.

Zuko dragged Aang off to the quartermaster, his cheeks still burning and feeling too mortified to do more than bow politely to his uncle for the suggestion. His words had utterly left him. By the time they were scrubbed to within an inch of their lives and dressed in the faded red tunics and trousers that were the uniform of peasants and farmers throughout the Fire Nation, the smell of cooking food was thick in the air.

Zuko followed his nose through rows of tents, until they stumbled across the mess tent. For a brief moment he was struck silent and still by the sudden memory of the mess hall back at the mining camp; by the acrid taste of burnt rice and the oppressive silence broken only by the coughing and shuffling of miserable men and women.

The sound of bright laughter broke through his thoughts and he shook himself free of the memory. The mess tent of the white lotus camp was, as he had known deep-down it would be, nothing like the prison camp, at all. There were no long tables, no lines of silent, grim faces. Instead, the diners either sat on scattered cushions dotted around a number of small tables in the tent, or took their food back with them to their own quarters. Those who stayed were gathered in clusters, letting out occasional bursts of laughter or shouts that rose above the pleasant low murmur of conversation. In fact, the only similarity to that dreadful place was the scowling orderlies ladling out bowls of stew at a large table near the entrance, and, as Zuko had come to realise, they were a staple of most cafeteria-based dining.

He and Aang visited the orderlies to claim a bowl of what they were reassured, after Aang braved the wrath of the servers to ask, was vegetarian stew. Zuko didn't know if this was a gesture of hospitality towards the Avatar, or if meat at every meal was a bit of a stretch for an underground, paramilitary movement. Either way, Zuko had done without meat for months at a time and couldn't care less; he suspected Sokka felt differently.

He looked around for a table, when waving from the back of the tent caught his eye. Sokka, Toph and Katara were sat with his uncle around one of the small tables. Sokka, having spotted them, was waving energetically and pointing to the table. Zuko sighed and rolled his eyes, but a small smile pulled at the edges of his lips.

"Hey guys," Katara said as they approached.

Sokka shifted slightly to the side to let Zuko and Aang squash in between him and Katara. He accidentally bumped into Toph and she punched him in the arm.

"Ow!" Sokka protested, reaching up to rub his wound. "See Toph, this is what I was talking about. Friends don't punch friends." He sighed dramatically and shook his head. "I keep telling you: this is why people need meat!"

Iroh raised a questioning eyebrow.

"They get grouchy if they're forced to only eat vegetables!" Sokka elaborated.

"Oh, suck it up, Snoozles," Toph drawled and lifted her bowl to her lips to drink down the rest of the sauce in the bowl.

"Toph!" Katara yelped, her eyes flickering over to Iroh. "That's disgusting!"

Toph lowered her bowl, wiped her mouth with the back of her arm and let out a loud, deliberate belch.

"So how was training?" Sokka asked loudly, grin and eyes a little too wide as he clearly tried to divert the inevitable fallout of a Katara-Toph fight.

"It was… good," Aang offered with a significant lack of enthusiasm. Zuko hummed non-committedly in response.

"That's all you have to say for your first day firebending, young Avatar?" Iroh asked, an expression of exaggerated dismay on his face. He put a hand over his heart, as if he'd been struck. "I shall have to try harder to be a more worthy teacher, tomorrow!"

Aang blushed to the roots of his hair.

"Um…I didn't mean-"

Iroh cut him off with a loud laugh.

"You are not the only student who did not enjoy the initial meditation," he smiled at Aang. "Perhaps if you practise your exercises thoroughly tonight, I may be able to show you some of the basic forms tomorrow?" He winked at Aang.

Aang nodded and bowed, sufficiently admonished.

"And you, nephew?" Iroh said. "You made impressive progress today."

"Thank you, Uncle," Zuko muttered into his bowl of stew. He didn't particularly think that he had, but he wasn't about to challenge his uncle outright and call him a liar in the middle of dinner. He knew better than to make a scene.

An awkward silence grew up around them. He felt his shoulders hunching forwards over his bowl and forced himself to sit up straight.

Suddenly Sokka slapped a hand to his forehead. The clapping sound made Zuko jump, and he spilled half his stew on the table. He scowled at Sokka.

"I can't believe I forgot!" Sokka cried, turning to Iroh to offer an apologetic bow. "I was meant to tell you: the quartermaster called an emergency meeting. They're with Jee in the war room."

Iroh looked pointedly down at his empty bowl in his hands.

"You waited until just after I'd finished eating to tell me this vital piece of information?"

He eyed Sokka shrewdly. It only took a few moments for Sokka's look of innocent apology to crack.

"Okay, okay!" Sokka said, holding his hands up in surrender. "But it's not my fault! Agent Jee told me-" he frowned and tried to mimic Jee's sharp, militaristic cadence, "-that I was not, under any circumstances, to tell you until after you'd finished at least one whole bowl of stew!"

Iroh sighed long-sufferingly.

"Let that be a lesson to you all," he told them, shaking his head and heaving himself to his feet. "Do not be surprised when good officers actually behave like good officers."

He rubbed at his back and then granted them all a warm smile.

"I suspect I will be needed until much later tonight. So I will say goodnight to you all now." He looked at them all in turn. "Sleep well. I will see you all at breakfast tomorrow."

"Good night!" Zuko chorused in reply with the others.

He was, however, a little grateful that his uncle had left them alone. He was still not entirely comfortable around the man, and even if his mind was slowly coming around to the idea that his uncle did not, actually, intend to cause them any harm, Zuko still couldn't quite stop himself from freezing up when his uncle came within arm's-reach.

"So," Sokka said as soon as Iroh had left the tent entirely. "How was it really? Why do you both look so miserable?"

"It was fine," Aang objected. "It was just some basic exercises. I didn't even have to make any fire. It was just…" He glanced over at Katara and then down at the bowl in his hands. "It doesn't matter…I'll be fine. I just need to try harder."

"You'll get there, buddy," Sokka smiled. "It's only your first day."

Zuko put his bowl down on the table and, sensing that the conversation was erring dangerously close to him having to talk about his feelings, turned to Sokka.

"So what did you all get up to today?" he asked hurriedly. "Did you find out anything useful about your dad?"

"Or Appa?" Aang interjected.

Sokka frowned, his fingers tapping gently against the surface of the table.

"Sorry buddy, no news." He looked around the tent and grimaced. "They're waiting for the agents in the field to report back- apparently they should be here any day now."

"Aren't they like a secret intelligence organisation, or whatever?" Toph grumbled. "Isn't it kinda their thing to know that sort of stuff?"

Someone at the table next to them looked up and shot Toph a dirty look. Zuko glared at them until they turned back to their food.

"I know," Sokka groaned. "But what can you do?" He shrugged. "The invasion kinda upset the playing board. No one was expecting it to go ahead…" His eyes flickered to Aang, and then down to the ground. "So everyone's scrambling a bit at the moment, trying to get lines of communication back up and running."

Zuko frowned.

"So they wouldn't tell you anything? What about the Earth Kingdom? They have to be keeping track of what's going on there…" He shuddered, remembering Iroh's words from the night before: an entire country on fire. He shook himself, forcing himself to focus on the smell of cooking food and the feeling of Toph's elbow digging into his side. He was fine, he reminded himself. The acrid smell of smoke burning the back of his throat and curling over his tongue was just in his head. He shook himself again.

"…general political playing field," Sokka was saying, mouth a thin, tight line. "Might be a bit outdated, but it's better than nothing." He shrugged. "Since Ba Sing Se fell, there've been a lot of reports coming out of the city."

"None of them good," Katara muttered. "The healers only just released the last messenger today."

Sokka nodded, eyes grim.

"The most recent reports say the Fire Nation is shipping in weapons and ammunition on mass. A group of refugees in the lower ring tried to launch a guerrilla campaign…but most of the city is still trying to get its head around the fact that there actually is a war going on… and the Dai Li are helping the Fire Nation soldiers. So…well…" He shook his head, and then himself.

"Ba Sing Se can stand a siege," Zuko commented. "As I'm sure my uncle can tell you." He grimaced.

The failed siege of Ba Sing Se was the greatest military humiliation of the Fire Nation in living memory- thousands died throwing themselves against the walls. Hundreds more deserted, taking their chances with the firing squad rather than risk being buried alive by the earthbenders. They had been so close to finally taking the city when Lu Ten had died, fallen leading what should have been a routine patrol. It had broken his uncle- enough to lead him to turn traitor apparently- but he'd called off the siege and the army had returned home in shame. Six hundred days the city had been besieged- and that was with the full weight of the Fire Nation military working against them. If the Fire Lord's plan succeeded and the Earth Kingdom burnt, there was no way the fragmented resistance would ever be able to take the city back.

Sokka met his eyes for a long moment, and Zuko knew they were thinking the same thing. Iroh was right: if Ozai was not stopped before the comet, the war would be lost forever.

Suddenly Sokka turned back to the others and broke into a wide grin.

"On the plus side," he drawled, "apparently the Fire Nation has been dealing with a lot of political unrest for the past few months- uprisings across the colonies and even a few towns in the main islands."

"There's apparently a growing resistance movement," Katara added, her eyes darting over to Zuko.

"In the Fire Nation?" Zuko asked, utterly nonplussed.

He knew, of course, that plenty of people were more than a little unhappy with how the war had been going, with sons and daughters conscripted into service they might not return from, countless farms and factories left short-handed and any criticism or complaint brutally supressed by the military. There had been pressure building beneath the surface of the Fire Nation for a good many years, he had just never expected it to actually erupt.

"Well," Sokka grimaced, "there was last time the White Lotus checked in…after the invasion…well…the Fire Nation might start worrying a bit more about threats close to home…"

Zuko nodded, trying to squash the deep sense of unease prickling at the back of his neck. He knew all too well the tactics the Fire Nation used to suppress civil unrest. The camps would be overflowing.

"Uh… So what about you, Toph?" Aang asked, after the silence had crept beyond contemplative and had wandered well in the region of painful. "What were you doing all day?"

"Ah, not much," Toph smiled, waving her hand negligently. "Some agents were playing cards, so I joined them for a while. Had a nap." She shrugged. "Like I said, not much."

"Cards?" Aang asked. "How did...I mean…" He trailed off awkwardly.

"How did I know what the cards were?" Toph asked, cackling. "It's just poker, Twinkletoes. Someone offered to tell me what my cards were and to describe the game to me." She shrugged. "It's not complicated."

"Did you win?" Zuko asked, curious.

Toph's grin was downright predatory.

"I can sense their heartbeats, Sparky." Her teeth glinted in the lamplight. "They didn't stand a chance."

Zuko let out a bark of laughter; he didn't have a problem with gambling, he thought it was a lucrative way to get what you wanted, particularly when you were in control of the game. He had learnt, back in the camp, just how to manipulate the cards in three card monte, how to make the pebble dance in a shell game. He'd even learnt, when someone had somehow managed to find a full deck of cards, how to trick shuffle. He'd become dangerously good at poker, at feeding the others just enough solid hands to get them confident and then just enough terrible ones to make them irritated, all the while slipping an ace or two up his sleeve. The pot had never been very much of course, a pair of strong shoelaces, some bread smuggled from the kitchens, and maybe a blanket if someone was feeling extra confident or extra desperate. Little things, of course, but sometimes little things made all the difference.

So Zuko was genuinely startled when Katara turned to Toph, her face flushed with shock and fury.

"You weren't playing for money, were you?"

Toph shrugged.

"There's not much point playing, otherwise."

Katara spluttered for a moment, and then launched into a diatribe about how Toph shouldn't be tricking people out of their money, especially when the white lotus had been nothing but hospitable to them.

Zuko tuned the argument out. He didn't understand why Katara had such a problem with Toph more or less rigging the games. The way that he saw it, Toph had a gift, why shouldn't she use it? Particularly against the kind of people who had allowed a tiny, blind, teenage girl to play against them for money. As far as he was concerned, if you were smart enough to try and hustle, then you should be smart enough not to get taken yourself. It was fair game, beyond that point. He had other things to worry about than Katara's offended moralities.

For one thing, he wanted to know why Sokka's eyes kept dancing between him and Aang every few seconds.

Finally, after a few minutes of increasingly irate bickering, Zuko decided enough was enough.

"I'm going back to the tent," he announced bluntly, and stood.

"I'll come with you!" Sokka blurted, scrambling to his feet.

Aang sent them both a pitiful look, but he'd made the foolish mistake of agreeing with something Katara had said, and was now equally embroiled in the argument. It was every man for himself, and Aang had made his own bed. He would have to learn to lie in it.

Sokka led the way out of the tent. Zuko did not fail to notice how many other agents had had the same idea. The area close to the growing argument was emptying rather rapidly. This, at least, seemed to be pleasing the unpleasable orderlies at the stew stand. No doubt, they would be finishing earlier for the night than they had anticipated.

The mess was not too far from their tent, so the walk back was surprisingly short. Sokka did take a moment to point out the war room where he and Katara had spent most of the day, but they didn't linger.

Back at the tent, Zuko lit the lamp and closed the tent flap against the cool night air. He sat down heavily on his bed.

"So what wouldn't you tell me back there?"

Sokka blinked, and came to sit beside Zuko.

"How romantic," he pouted. "We're alone together for the first time in days and that's all I get?"

Zuko frowned and looked down at where his hands were twisting in his lap.

"Sorry," he muttered. "You're right."

"Hey," Sokka said, holding out his hand and waiting before Zuko reached out and held it back before continuing. "I was joking," he said. "It's fine."

"No," Zuko said, running his free hand through his hair. "It's just…everything is so fucked. I feel like if I just stop for a minute everything's just going to…"

"Fall apart?" Sokka supplied grimly. "Shatter into pieces around you?"

Zuko let out a heavy breath and they looked at each other in a long moment of understanding.

"Something like that," Zuko finally agreed.

"Aang's going to learn firebending, though," Sokka said, leaning his head on Zuko's shoulder. His tone was odd, strangely hesitant, as if there were a question on the tip of his tongue that wasn't quite ready to get asked.

"Maybe," Zuko sighed. "And then what?"

Sokka drew back to look at Zuko properly, although he left their hands intertwined.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, come on Sokka. It's Aang," Zuko sighed. "You think he's just gonna be able to…" He trailed off, not quite wanting to put it into words.

"Kill your dad?" Sokka finished the thought.

Zuko winced, and pulled his hand away from Sokka's.

"Now who's being romantic?" He all but hissed.

Sokka sighed.

"Sorry. That was tactless."

He ran a hand through his hair, tugging strands loose from the usual beaver tail. Finally, slowly reached out again, offering a hug. Zuko took a deep breath, forcing himself to let go of his irritation and return the hug. It wasn't fair to take out his bad mood on Sokka. He rested his head on Sokka's shoulder, and took a few deep, calming breaths. It was hardly anyone else's fault that even though his father was a tyrannical monster who had – quite literally – attempted to murder him only days ago, Zuko still flinched at the thought of him being killed. Or perhaps it was of Aang being the killer?

"I agree with you though," Sokka admitted quietly, after a few minutes. He tightened his arm around Zuko and let out a sharp breath which ruffled Zuko's hair. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I was worried I was just being paranoid…It just hit me today…"

Zuko looked up and hummed in askance.

"About Aang and…" Sokka trailed off. "Well…I guess I was just so focused on like, keeping us safe and then finding my dad... Now the whole battle plan's changed and I don't know what we're going to do."

"Aang might be able to learn firebending by the comet," Zuko said softly. "He's a freaking prodigy."

"He will," Sokka confirmed, without a shred of doubt. "And he is. But that's not the problem, is it?"

Zuko shook his head.

"My uncle said that Aang as to be the one to stop the war, that there won't be peace without him…"

Sokka frowned, and squeezed Zuko's hand.

"There won't be peace if Aang can't face the Fire Lord, either."

"So…" Zuko sighed. "We need a Plan B?"

"We need a Plan B," Sokka confirmed, and forced a smile. "I guess I know what I'm doing whilst you're off remembering how to set stuff on fire."

Zuko poked Sokka in the stomach, hard.

"That's not all firebending is, and you know it!"

"It's literally called firebending!"

"Oh and all Katara does is throw water at stuff?"

"Yes!" Sokka shouted, laughing as Zuko got more and more irate.

Then a thought stuck Zuko and he let a slow smirk crawl across his face.

"So you'll be happy if I tell Katara you said that, then?"

Sokka's face paled dramatically.

"Well…what I meant to say was…"

"Uh-huh?" Zuko's smirk grew into a smile.

"Oh shut up!" Sokka grumbled, but he was smiling too. He leant forwards slowly, and gently pressed his lips against Zuko's.

Zuko's breath caught and then he was returning the kiss desperately, his hand tangling in Sokka's hair as he pulled them closer together. Sokka shifted his weight and then they were falling backwards on the bed. Zuko broke away and took in a gasp of air, looking up to gaze into Sokka's pale blue eyes. Then Sokka leant forwards, his eyes fluttering closed as their lips met once again.

Unfortunately, all too soon, the sound of raised voices forced them apart: the others had returned. Toph and Katara were still arguing and seemed committed to keeping it up for the rest of the night. They barely even said goodnight to Aang as he ducked inside the tent and collapsed onto his bed with obvious relief.

"I am never taking sides with those two ever again," Aang groaned into his pillow. "Ever. Again."

Thankfully he was too preoccupied with his own dismay to notice how flushed Zuko and Sokka's faces were, or how Sokka was fighting back tears of pain from where he'd whacked his shin against the edge of his bed, in his effort to pretend like nothing at all had been going on within the canvas walls of the tent.

"What happened?" Zuko asked, coughing at how hoarse his voice came out. "Are they still going at it?"

"Yes!" Aang wailed. "Only they started on about respect? And Toph said Katara didn't respect her, and then that started this whole new fight."

"And this is your first lesson in life, young avatar," Sokka said with an air of affected wisdom, "never get between those two when they start going at it." He placed his right hand over his chest, and used his other to surreptitiously rub at his shin. "Believe me," he intoned heavily, "and learn from my mistakes."

Zuko snorted.

"It'll blow over soon, right?" Zuko asked, hopefully.

Aang peeled his head up from his pillow to fix him with a disbelieving look, one which Sokka mirrored perfectly. Zuko felt his heart sink.

"Seriously?" He sighed. "Aren't there bigger things to worry about right now?"

Sokka lay back on his bed, and rubbed a tired hand over his eyes.

"Yeah, that's kind of the problem," he mumbled.

"I'm going to sleep," Aang said. "Maybe I'll wake up and this was all a dream."

Zuko cleared his throat pointedly.

"Haven't you got practise to do?"

Aang's groan could probably have been heard all the way in Ba Sing Se, but, to his credit, the young avatar pulled himself to a sitting position on the bed and began working through the breathing exercises Iroh had shown him earlier.

After he had watched Aang long enough to make sure he had the basic rhythms down, Zuko lit the small training candle for him and supervised as Aang repeated the exercises, this time controlling the movement and direction of the small flame. It was impressive, how much control Aang had for a beginner, how steady he could keep his breathing, although Zuko supposed that rather came with the territory for an airbender. Still, there was something a little too tentative in Aang's bending; he clamped down on the flame whenever it started to grow more than an inch, keeping it firmly within a small, controllable limit. It was as if he were holding both it and himself back. Zuko made a note to mention it to Iroh, and then had a minor internal breakdown about whether or not he could, or should, and whether he would even be considered remotely qualified enough to give a master firebender notes on his own pupil.

By the time Zuko had pulled himself out of his own self-induced panic, Sokka had wrapped himself in blankets and was snoring softly, and Aang was struggling desperately to extinguish the candle flame. After a good ten minutes of watching Aang try and fail over and over again, Zuko called time, extinguished the candle himself and told Aang to get some sleep. Thankfully, the tents were remarkably sound proof, and if Katara and Toph were still bickering in the next tent, or even if they'd moved onto a full on brawl, Zuko could not hear.

He settled down himself, extinguished the lantern and let his mind wander. So much had happened in such a short space of time; so much kept happening, and Zuko honestly didn't know if it would ever stop. Sokka agreed with him; the White Lotus were putting too much faith in Aang, and they needed a plan for when it all went straight to Koh's lair. Only strategy was Sokka's domain, not Zuko's, and they wouldn't make too much headway with their Plan B in the short term, anyway. They couldn't do anything until the white lotus agents came back with news, until they could make a proper plan of action. Zuko knew that. They also needed Aang to train as much as he could, in the hope that when it came down to the final battle, he might actually stand a chance. Zuko knew that too. It also made sense for him to train, so that he wasn't just an awkward tag-along. So that he could actually help his friends.

Only, the problem was, that whilst Zuko knew all of these things, he couldn't shake the feeling that they were wasting time and that there was something urgent they needed to be doing just out of sight. It felt like he was caught he moment between two breaths, stuck between the action and the effect.

He turned over, trying to get comfortable.

It wasn't that he didn't trust the Whiter Lotus, either. Well, it wasn't that exactly. Zuko was willing to accept that they needed help – desperately – and that his uncle was willing to provide it. It was just…odd… really, to rely on other people – on adults – after so many years struggling through all by himself. The sense of family his uncle clearly wanted to share with him just wasn't there for Zuko. Not yet, anyway. After training with him for a day Zuko was willing to accept that his uncle was more patient and helpful than he'd been expecting. Zuko trusted the man well enough, he supposed, as master and as a leader of men. But as an uncle? The hurt of being abandoned hadn't entirely abated yet, and Zuko suspected it would be a long while before he and his uncle could have that casual closeness that Katara and Sokka shared with their father and the men of their tribe.

He lay on his back and threw an arm over his eyes.

All of this was pointless to think about, anyway. The war would be over in less than a month, unless Aang suddenly found a heretofore suppressed bloodlust and became a master firebender in the next couple of weeks. Which…Well, Zuko really hoped Sokka could come up with a convincing plan B, because Zuko really couldn't see one. Ba Sing Se was fortified, the Earth King was wandering somewhere in the rural backwaters of his kingdom with a very large bear, and the Water Tribe was either sequestered in the North Pole or hidden away in whatever Koh-damned hole the Fire Lord was shipping his political prisoners to these days. They would need a huge show of power to stop the Fire Army advancing, something that would make even the most bloodthirsty general pause long enough for the combined forces of the resistance to take a breather and realign their plans. Taking back Ba Sing Se was impossible, as was another attempt on the Fire Nation capital; they didn't have the numbers and they'd lost whatever advantage they may have gained from the eclipse. Nothing short of taking down Ozai – and just thinking that felt laughably impossible – would stop the Fire Nation taking the Earth Kingdom for good.

Zuko sighed and put his back to the canvas of the tent, once again. His thoughts continued to toss and turn as much as his body. He knew he needed to rest, that he would have to wake up to another physically exhausting day, and he'd need his energy. Still, his mind would not comply. By the time exhaustion finally let him slip away into unsettled dreams, Zuko was dreading the rapidly approaching dawn.

Despite his terrible night's sleep, the next day began in much the same way as the one before. Zuko woke early, meditated with his uncle and then breakfasted with the others around his fire. Zuko was too tired to do more than grunt at the appropriate moments, although not so much that he didn't notice Sokka refilling his teacup at least three times over the course of the meal. Aang and the girls slowly trickled out of the tents as the sky began to fully brighten into morning. Iroh made a joke about Aang joining the for dawn meditation in future, to which Aang merely nodded seriously, and bowed respectfully. It was odd. No complaining, no eye-rolls, simple compliance. Zuko and Sokka shared a look of concern.

The young avatar's strange mood continued throughout the walk to the same abandoned homestead they had trained at the day before. His silence was obviously noted by Iroh, but their teacher chose not to comment on it, instead forcing Zuko into increasingly agonising small talk about everything from the weather to the perfect brewing temperature for oolong. The minute that they reached the training ground, Zuko threw himself into his warm-up demonstrating more fervour for stretching than he had ever before. Iroh left him to it, sitting down on a low wall and watching as Zuko worked through the basic forms and Aang worked on a series of breathing exercises.

After Zuko had run through each exercise twice, Iroh declared that he was ready to move onto the intermediate forms, as he had promised the day before. Unfortunately Zuko's recollection of these was not as good as it had been for the basics. It took them a full hour to work through the first couple of sequences. There were more twists and sharp gestures than he had thought, and he essentially had to relearn each kata from scratch. Rather than progress too quickly, Iroh left Zuko to practise what they'd revised so far, and moved over to work with Aang for a bit.

Zuko forcibly ignored the sickening feeling of shame that prickled angrily at the back of his good eye, and forcibly shook off the merged memories of countless disapproving words and biting strokes of a cane across his shoulders. He knew this was part of the process; he had to train in order to get better. That was just how it worked. Still, part of him felt like he should be getting it on the first try, like Azula would have done.

The rest of the day was equally as dispiriting as the morning. Iroh split his time between Zuko's slow crawl through the intermediate forms and Aang's increasingly frustrated attempts to light a candle on more than two out of every five attempts.

By the time that they finally stopped, Zuko was exhausted and dripping with sweat. He'd got about half of the intermediate forms to a standard his uncle was more or less happy with. He'd also spent a large portion of the afternoon sending controlled burst of fire at the walls of the old farmhouse, to try and improve his accuracy. It had, so far, done fuck all to help. Zuko knew that he'd need to do countless hours of practice to see any actual improvement, but it was hard not to feel disheartened when he'd failed to get within a foot of the mark all afternoon.

Aang, however, had shown some improvement and, by mid-afternoon, had been able to light and extinguish the candle flame at will. He's progressed so quickly, in fact, that he'd been able to coax Iroh into letting him try a few of the basic katas. Both Zuko and Iroh had been surprised and slightly alarmed by just how quickly Aang had picked up the footwork. Even though he was running them dry and would need to learn to combine bending with the actual steps, Aang had grasped the footwork for four whole sets, just by watching Iroh a couple of times. When Iroh finally told him to stop and join Zuko in cooling down, Aang was beaming brightly and practically radiating with his own success.

It was, Zuko noted with a sick sense of familiarity, eerily like watching a young Azula. His sister was a prodigy; she had picked up everything, from firebending to calligraphy, with an ease and confidence that Zuko had never possessed. He had had to work so hard just to grasp basic principles that Azula seemed to have been born knowing. She was incredibly and terrifyingly competent, and it seemed that Aang was the same. Then Aang let out a burst of laughter, real and genuine and bright, and the image shattered. Aang was not Azula, but he was a prodigy.

Perhaps it was something to do with being the Avatar, but Zuko somehow doubted that. Hadn't the old avatars studied for years before they mastered all the four elements, and didn't they only start to learn their second element at the age of sixteen? Aang, all of twelve, a hundred years in the future, in the middle of a war, and on the run, had managed to master two elements in a matter of months and with precious little actual daily practice. No, Zuko realised –as they walked back to the White Lotus camp, Aang practically bouncing as he chattered at Iroh – it wasn't an avatar thing; Aang was an actual prodigy. Zuko didn't know why it took him being slapped over the head with the boy's competence for him to actually realise this.

He started the evening subdued, grateful that Katara and Toph seemed to have made up enough to be back on speaking terms. It was mainly because – as Sokka muttered into his good ear, under the futile impression Toph wouldn't, somehow, over hear them –most of the White Lotus agents were seasoned in espionage, communication and trickery of all forms. Toph had tried to repeat her performance of the day before and had been laughed out of every poker game she had tried to join. She'd have to wait until they changed camp locations before she could go scouting for any new marks. Katara had been proven right and was magnanimous in victory; Toph was being polite to avoid hearing 'I told you so'.

It also helped that both the girls and Sokka had been roped into helping with laundry, a task which had taken up a surprising amount of the day and their energy, whilst also giving them something to complain about together. United in exhaustion, with sore backs and red hands, all of their combined ire had been successfully channelled into scrubbing mud from pure white robes, leaving very little for continued arguments. Whoever had thought of that task, in Zuko's opinion, deserved a very large, very shiny medal.

Zuko's mood slowly improved over the course of dinner, with the realisation that they were not going to be ambushed by his uncle or any of the White Lotus agents, as he'd feared. Instead, they were able to just sit and talk. To make jokes and poke fun at one another and not have to watch their portion sizes or draw straws to decide who took first watch. Toph and Aang were laughing and bickering like actual kids for once… and Agni but it made something in Zuko's chest ache. Because they should have this all the time. What did it say about all of their lives, that the closest any of them had come to just hanging out with friends…well…ever…was in the middle of a secret paramilitary organisation's hidden base camp, in the middle of a war? It was so fucking unfair that it made Zuko want to punch something.

At his side his clenched fists started to smoke. Sokka leant over and placed his hand on Zuko's, wincing at the unnatural warmth. Zuko took a deep breath and let it go, until he could unclench his fists and surreptitiously shake the smoke and sparks lose from his hands.

It was a good night. They stayed up far later than they should have done, well past the point that Aang's yawns were beginning to look painful and Toph had started leaning a little too heavily on Zuko's shoulder. It was only when the orderlies started to clear up around them that Sokka and Zuko finally called time and forced them all to trudge back to their tents. There wasn't space for a proper campfire out front, but none of them quite felt ready to go to sleep just yet. Instead, Zuko gathered a small fire between his palms and the others all huddled around him, their backs against the stiff canvas of the boys' tent.

"I miss Appa," Aang said after a long few minutes of contented, sleepy silence. "And Momo."

"I miss my mom," Zuko said, staring up at the stars.

"I miss dad," Katara said.

"Me too," Sokka said. He sighed. "I miss all our friends."

Toph, her face pressed into Zuko's right bicep muttered something incoherent.

"You'll see them all again," Zuko said, trying to keep his thoughts away from turtleducks and gentle, comforting smiles. Toph shuffled against his arm and he looked down at her briefly, before he turned his eyes back to the sky.

Slowly, one by one, the others fell quiet, their breathing slowing and deepening. Zuko sighed; they couldn't fall asleep out here.

"Hey," he said, jostling Sokka where their shoulders were pressed against each other.

"Huh?" Sokka said blearily, face twisting into a yawn.

"I think we should go inside," Zuko said. "We can't stay out here all night."

"Yeah, sure," Sokka mumbled, and aided him in coaxing the girls and Aang back to bed. Toph looked on the verge of biting Sokka when he shook her awake, but thankfully refrained. When everyone was safely in bed, Zuko lay down on top of his blanket and extinguished the lantern with a twist of his wrist.

In some horrific irony, he managed to fall asleep almost as soon a he'd closed his eyes, but startled awake what felt like minutes later, the memories of that night making themselves known. Azula always lies, he reminded himself, as he settled back down, still shaking slightly. But the look on his mother's face as she hugged him that final time continued to haunt his dreams for the rest of the night.

When dawn broke, Zuko was already up and about. He had barely slept – again – and he knew he wouldn't be able to shrug this off with too many cups of tea, as he had the day before. His eyes were already aching and he felt restless and agitated, as if the smallest inconvenience might make him snap. He tried to go through some morning meditation, but he couldn't get his thoughts to still for long enough to actually centre himself, and he found his limbs felt twitchy and uncomfortable no matter what stance he tried to settle into.

He gave up the whole thing with an irritated huff. Protocol said he should probably go and sit with his uncle, as he had for the past couple of days, but he didn't feel like he could stand sitting on ceremony or making small talk about tea.

The sound of footsteps startled him from his thoughts. He shook himself and realised that the camp had begun to wake up around him. He had found a quiet spot out by the rear gate where he could try and make sense of his thoughts in private. It seemed, however, that his time was up, and he would need to face the day. Pulling himself to his feet and with a deep groan, Zuko set off towards his uncle's tent. With luck – not that Zuko usually ever had any – the others would be awake, and Zuko would be able to hide behind them until he felt like an actual human being.

When Zuko got to the tent, however, Iroh was nowhere to be found, nor were any of the others anywhere in sight. He cautiously sat down, glancing around him in case he was missing anything obvious.

"Good morning, Zuko! I've been waiting for you!"

Zuko glanced up to see Jee walking towards him. He raised a hand in reply.

"Where is everyone?"

"The rest of your friends are still in bed," Jee replied, coming to sit down next to Zuko. "Your uncle is in a meeting." He grimaced and glared at the empty tent behind them. "One of our scouts failed to report in last night."

"Oh…" Zuko frowned, trying to remember how his uncle had seemed yesterday. He hadn't seemed tired at all. "So, he's probably not going to be training us today then?"

Jee turned to Zuko and fixed him with a very dry expression.

"Not if I have anything to do with it," he said. "I don't think he's slept in days." His expression softened minutely, a relaxing of his jaw that had Zuko's own shoulder's dropping. "I'll take you both out this afternoon. I've got to join the debrief this morning, but I expect you could do with a morning off anyway."

Zuko frowned.

"Have you been sleeping?" Jee fixed him with a very stern look.

"You're obsessed." Zuko grimaced and crossed his arms, looking away. "I've been sleeping enough."

Jee just hummed knowingly in reply, but thankfully let it go.

"Have you had breakfast, yet?" He asked instead. "Why don't we go and grab some in the mess?" He raised an eyebrow. "Just like old times."

"When did they ever feed us breakfast?" Zuko snorted, but his lips couldn't help twitching into a brief smile. Perhaps this day wouldn't be as bad as he'd thought.

They ate quickly, Jee having to rush off to his meeting, but it was nice to talk to the man again. Zuko hadn't known quite how to reconcile the prisoner he'd known in the camp with the agent who brought them into his uncle's secret society. Was he supposed to address Jee as a friend, or as a superior, especially since the man was now to be training him? Whatever worries he'd had, however, were swept away over the course of the meal; Jee was a straightforward man, a soldier at heart, and made it very clear to Zuko that nothing had changed between them.

When Jee had to leave, he made his apologies and left Zuko with an instruction to meet him after lunch at the main gate, and to bring Aang along with him. It seemed that Jee was determined to make Iroh sleep for at least a few hours that afternoon.

Zuko ambled his way back through camp, stopping briefly at their tents to see if anyone was awake yet. They weren't. The late night had clearly taken its toll on them all. Zuko contemplated waking them up, but decided against it. They'd had a long few days; a lie-in might do them some good. He very pointedly did not think about how tired he felt, or about the headache growing behind his eyes. It wasn't as if he'd be able to sleep if he tried, so why bother?

He didn't quite know what to do with himself, without a mission or a task to do; he wished that Jee had given him some direction, but the other man seemed content to let Zuko occupy himself. Zuko wandered around camp for a bit, popping his head into the mess tent and the supply tent, to see if the cook or the quartermaster needed any help. But neither woman wanted anyone new messing with their finely tuned operations, and Zuko did not press too hard. He wasn't a child; he could find something for himself to do. Agni, but he wished he still had his dao, it would have been the perfect time to run some katas.

He finally decided on trying meditation again, thinking that at least it might be somewhat productive. He settled down in front of their tents, just in case any of the others woke, and tried to relax his breathing and focus on his chi. Siting still was just as difficult as it had been that morning, and Zuko gave up very quickly, lying on his back and staring up at the sky. He felt so agitated and on edge, his fingers drumming restlessly on the ground. Why was it so hard to do nothing? Only a few months ago Zuko would have given anything for just t a moment's rest, for some time –however brie –, to himself, where he didn't have to be doing something or going somewhere. Only now he had that, and his brain wouldn't let him enjoy it. His thoughts kept circling through all of their problems: Appa, Aang's training, the looming deadline of the comet and the destruction of the Earth Kingdom, his Uncle and what the White Lotus wanted with him, his father, Azula…

"Morning Zuko."

"Katara, you're awake!" Zuko sat up and greeted her with a little too much relief.

"Uh…yeah," she replied, smothering a yawn, as she came to sit by him. "What time is it? Have we missed breakfast?"

Zuko filed her in on the news about Iroh, the missing scout and their morning off. She decided to wait for the others to wake up, so that they could get breakfast together. Zuko tried to pretend he wasn't pathetically grateful she hadn't left him to his thoughts.

The sun rose higher and higher into the sky, and Katara and Zuko debated for a while about waking the others, but eventually decided against it. It was strange, just chatting with Katara. They hadn't really had the chance, what with her initial distrust and Zuko spending any downtime their group had had with Sokka. At first it was a little stilted, but as soon as Zuko got Katara onto the subject of Aang's training, it was hard to get her to stop. She confessed that she was worried about the young avatar and how he differently he'd been acting since the revelation about the deadline; she asked Zuko to keep an eye out for him, which Zuko was more than happy to agree to.

"He'll do it," she said, her hands worrying with the stopped on her water flask. "I know that. He learnt Earth so quickly and that was his opposite element. Fire will be easier. He'll do it."

"You don't doubt him at all?" Zuko asked.

"Never." Katara shook her head vehemently. "Aang's going to save us all, Zuko. I just…I worry for what it's going to do to him. He's not a killer."

"No," Zuko agreed, "he's not."

"This war's taken so much from us all already. I don't want him to lose himself."

"He won't."

"You're so sure?" Katara looked at him, eyes wide and beseeching.

"Yes," Zuko lied.

Katara smiled gratefully, and they lapsed back into silence. Zuko lay down in the grass, looking at the sky and trying to time how much longer he could let Aang sleep in, without them having to skip lunch before training. Katara, however, was still on edge, her hands fiddling with her water flask. From the corner of his good eye, Zuko could see her darting glances at him.

"You want to ask me something else?" He asked, her restlessness starting to get on his nerves.

Katara froze and turned to look at him properly. She was silent for a long moment, and then she spoke.

"You said 'you'll'",

"What?" Zuko sat back up, frowning.

"It's just… Last night, when we were talking outside the tent? We were all saying who we'll miss, and then you said 'you'll see them soon'."

"Oh…" Zuko thought about this for a minute. "Yeah, I guess I did." He frowned again. "So what?"

"It's just…" Katara was pointedly looking somewhere over Zuko's left shoulder, her cheeks blushing an angry red. "It's just you said you missed your mom and…"

"Ah…" Zuko turned away.

"It's just…" Katara said quickly. "It's just…well I miss mine too. She was murdered in a raid when I was little… She saved me. There was a soldier in our house. She told me to leave. I ran as fast as I could to my dad… But by the time we got back she was gone…" Her voice caught and she took a few breaths to steady herself. "I was just wondering…"

Zuko swallowed heavily.

"She's not officially dead," he said as dispassionately as he could, "but she's been missing for years." He shrugged, as nonchalantly as he could manage, and pulled at a few blades of grass at his feet. "Since grandfather died and my father became Fire Lord, actually." He idly twisted the grass, braiding it together into a stubby little plait, before letting the ends go, watching as the strands slowly unravelled. "Azula said…they were going to…well…"

He cut himself off suddenly, not able to voice the horrific theory he'd been cultivating over the years, in his darkest moments. The theory that maybe Azula hadn't been lying that night and that Azulon had ordered their father to…and his mother had…in order to save him. Because there was no doubt in Zuko's mind that his father could have killed him, he'd nearly succeeded in the Agni Kai arena and then had sentenced Zuko to the closest thing he could find to a death sentence. Ursa had never been able to protect them from their father, not really. But maybe, that night…

"Maybe she's still out there somewhere?" Katara reached out and put her hand on the ground, almost touching Zuko's. He let go of the grass and watched it dance away on the wind.

"Maybe..." Zuko sighed. "I hoped for a while, but…" He shrugged once again and stared at the ground. "Logically, I think she's gone. I think she…" He trailed off.

Katara cleared her throat gently, and Zuko shook himself.

"Well," he said, trying to ignore the hoarseness in his voice. "No one who disappears in the Fire Nation ever comes back."

"You did, Zuko," she said gently. Her eyes were glassy, full of the same anger and agony he knew were in his.

He grunted in reply and tried to fight back the stinging in his good eye.

"If I knew who killed her," Katara said, finally. "I'd hunt them to the end of the earth and I'd make them pay."

Her eyes were hard like granite. She stared Zuko down, challenging him to say anything against her.

"If you knew who killed her," Zuko replied. "I'd help you do it."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, before Katara shook herself and declared it was time to wake the others. By the time she'd corralled them up and out of their tents, Zuko had himself more or less back under control. He ruthlessly shoved any and all thoughts about his mother to the back of his head and forced himself to think about the rest of the day, instead.

Thankfully, that was easier than he'd thought. Aang was in a panic about oversleeping and missing training, and Zuko had to reassure him about twenty times that training had been postponed, Iroh was in a meeting, and that they had at least an hour before they'd need to meet Jee.

"So…" Sokka said, using his fingers to comb his hair into a messy version of his usual beaver tail. "What do you say about putting this unexpected free time to good use?"

Zuko felt the heat rise in his cheeks and looked away.

"Maybe," he coughed.

Sokka shot him a wink, but his smooth façade was broken when a grumpy, half-awake Toph, knocked him off his feet as she stomped out of her tent. He yelped and fell to the ground, rubbing at his ribs, where her elbow had caught him.

"We need to eat!" Katara declared over the brewing argument, her voice quickly quelling whatever protests they had been thinking of making.

Then, somehow, she managed to get the whole group of them to the mess hall and sat around a table eating lunch, without a single argument. Not even from Sokka. Zuko was impressed; he took notes.

When it was finally time to meet Jee, Zuko was surprised when Toph, Katara and Sokka all stood to join them.

"You know we're training, right?" Zuko asked hesitantly, as they set off walking to the gate. "We're not going on some badly thought out trip to a local market for cabbage cookies."

"They were kale cookies," Sokka corrected, raiding his hands in surrender, "and I was not the one who had to have them right then and there." He looked meaningfully at Katara.

"We don't care if you're training, Sparky," Toph chimed in. "We just don't want to get stuck doing chores again all day whilst you're off blowing stuff up."

"Firebending doesn't blow stuff up!" Zuko argued, the irritation from earlier rising back up in force.

"Tell that to Sparky-Sparky-Boom-Man," Sokka grumbled.

"Who?"

"I might even get some practising in myself," Toph continued loudly, as if neither boy had spoken. "I've been throwing rocks around so much; I could do with some precision detail." She cracked her knuckles and stretched her arms out behind her back. "Not that I mind throwing rocks around," she elaborated, as they neared the gate, "I love throwing rocks at people. Just that you can't neglect the detail. Don't forget that, Twinkletoes."

If Jee were surprised to find his two students accompanied by an entourage, he didn't comment. Instead he merely raised an eyebrow, took in the petulant look on Toph's face, Katara's crossed arms, and the set of Sokka's shoulders and decided to let it go.

"I am not doing anymore laundry," Sokka whispered in Zuko's good ear, as they set off through the fields. "I don't care if we have to set the whole lot on fire. I'm not doing it again." He paused, and turned to face Zuko, walking backwards as he continued to talk. "I mean, can you do that yet?" He asked. "Set the laundry on fire."

"Yes," Zuko admitted warily, not sure what, if anything, he was agreeing to. "But then most of the camp would be walking around half-naked. Are you sure you'd want that?"

"Well it depends which half of the camp," Sokka said, smirking at Zuko. "Are you saying you wouldn't want to see me shirtless?"

Zuko felt his cheeks burn. How in the name of Agni was he going to be able to focus on his bending with Sokka saying things like that to him all afternoon?

"Keep up you two!" Toph ordered from the front of the group. "Stop dragging your feet."

Sokka scowled, but fell back into step beside Zuko. They still languished behind everyone else, though- to make a point.

The sun was high in the sky and the air around them was heavy and humid. Zuko swatted at a mosquito that was a little too interested in his sweat-soaked skin. The walk to the training field took less time than usual, Jee setting a much brisker pace than Iroh, but it felt just as long with the sun streaming down on them.

"Sit over there," Jee ordered their audience, pointing to a spot a nice, safe distance away from where two novices would soon be throwing fire. "I don't want any of you within teen feet of us until I tell you it's safe."

"Ten feet?" Toph asked, and cracked her knuckles. "Okay!"

She stamped her right foot and a shallow ditch appeared in the ground, spreading to form a perfect circle in a ten foot radius from where Jee stood.

Jee stiffened minutely at the display of earthbending. He let out a slow breath.

"Impressive," he said finally. "But please refrain from any further bending whilst you are out here."

Toph cocked her head, considering, but then nodded her agreement.

Jee walked over to guide Aang through some warm-up stretches, but –Zuko noticed – it was a long time before he turned his back on Toph.

It was difficult to concentrate on the steps that Jee was drilling into him, with his friends watching him. He'd stumbled a few times during his review of the basic katas, and his mind had gone completely blank when Jee had asked him what the breathing pattern was for the roundhouse fire-kick. It has been one of the last intermediate forms his uncle had shown him the day before, but even so, it was embarrassing that Zuko couldn't remember.

Aang, on the other hand, was flying through the basic forms. He had the footwork down for almost all of them. He still couldn't integrate fire with them at all – every time he tried, in fact, he could only generate a weak, yellow flame that fizzled out the moment it appeared – but that was hardly the point. Aang was terrifyingly gifted. He performed each kata he learnt so perfectly, it was as if he'd been practising them for years.

"It's weird, " the young avatar commented to a cheering Sokka and Toph, once he'd landed the fire punch kata on his first try, "Some of the movements are really similar to the other elements. Like that last section- just before the punch? That's really similar to an earth bending move!" He looked over at his earthbending teacher. "Right Toph?"

"Meh," she yawned, lying back and chewing on a stalk of grass. "Close enough, I guess."

Zuko frowned, and turned back to the intermediate kata he still couldn't get down. With his luck, Aang would be on the advanced forms within the week, whilst he'd still be languishing on a fucking move he'd been able to do at the age of eight. He growled and ran through the steps again. He just needed to come out of the jump/spin combination with his weight on one foot, so he could transfer the chi out through the other. Why was this so hard?

Doing his best to ignore the cheering from Aang showing something off to the others, Zuko gathered his chi and began the sequence again. Step, slide his left foot along the ground, jump, snap his feet together then land on his right foot and- Zuko overbalanced, collapsing onto the floor in a jumbled heap. The laughing from the others cut off quickly.

"Zuko!" Sokka yelled. "Are you alright?"

Zuko drew his knees up and rested his elbows on them, head hanging low. His hands grasped at his hair, tugging at the roots in frustration. Why couldn't he do this?

"Stay behind that line!" Jee ordered. "I told you, it's there for a reason." He walked over to Zuko, keeping his footsteps loud and heavy, and approaching on Zuko's right.

"Zuko," he said quietly. "Are you alright?"

Zuko took in a deep, shuddering breath and shook his head.

"…I can't do this," he admitted through clenched teeth.

"Is it your eye?" Jee asked, crouching down to Zuko's level. "Or your ear?"

The breath left Zuko's lungs. Had it really been that obvious?

Jee waited him out, seemingly content to squat awkwardly until Zuko remembered how to speak, or breathe.

"My balance is fucked," Zuko said finally. "And my coordination." He snorted bitterly. "So both. Either. Who fucking knows?"

"I see," Jee replied, face professionally blank. "Did your uncle speak about this with you?"

Zuko shook his head.

"He's got me doing these distance target exercises, to improve my coordination," his hands tightened in his hair.

"I'll speak to him," Jee said tightly. "That's not likely to be of much help if the problem is your vision. We'll need to look at a different training regime too…"

Zuko nodded, feeling like Jee had just stabbed him in the chest. He'd known that himself, deep down. But to hear someone else say it, felt different somehow. He wasn't ever going to be able to firebend properly. His father had taken away so much when he'd burnt him in the Agni Kai arena: his home, his title, his freedom…But to know that he'd done…this…that he'd taken away Zuko's ability to firebend….He was never going to be good enough! He was such a fucking failure. No wonder his father had thrown him away…!

"Zuko, breathe!"

That was Sokka's voice. Wasn't Sokka meant to be behind the line? Wasn't it dangerous for him? He might get burnt!

"Sokka," he managed to wheeze out, and pried his eyes open. He hadn't realised he'd even closed them.

"That's it," Sokka encouraged, his eyes warm and worried. "Come on, breathe with me."

Zuko forced a gasp of air into his lungs, and focused on matching Sokka breath for breath, until he'd calmed down enough to stop shaking.

"I think maybe that's enough for today," Jee said loudly. "Why don't you take him back to camp?"

"Sure." Sokka nodded, eyes still staring deeply into Zuko's. "Come on, Zuko." He held his arm out and waited for Zuko to grab it. "There we go…" He hauled Zuko to his feet, and slung his arm around his shoulders, keeping him grounded and stopping him from falling back on his ass.

"Are you going?" Aang asked Toph and Katara, and they both shook their heads.

"Not yet," Toph drawled. "I'm too hot to move."

"We'll stay until you're done," Katara added, shooting a quick look over at Sokka.

He nodded, and Zuko found himself feeling pathetically grateful that they were allowing the two of them this moment of privacy. He had noticed the odd look Katara was giving them both, but he decided that was a conversation Sokka could have with his sister. If she was only just realising that they were together… Zuko didn't have the energy for that discussion.

The walk back was haltering, Zuko's every step felt like lead. Agni he felt exhausted, and not just physically. It was like there was a stone in his heart he was dragging along behind him. He was never going to firebend properly. He'd survived the camp, he'd dragged his fire back from nothing and he was going to be stopped because of something his bastard of a father had done to him. Something he'd put behind him years ago!

"Hey, c'mon, man," Sokka told him sternly, jostling his shoulder. "Don't do that, just focus on your feet. We're nearly there."

He didn't remember the rest of the journey, or at least, nothing more than a few blurred images and Sokka's voice urging him just a few more steps down the path. The next thing he knew, he was being tipped into bed. He curled in on himself and tucked his knees in tightly to his chest. There was a sharp burning behind his eyes, like he might cry. But the feeling was detached, barely a physical sensation, and with no emotion behind it. He felt odd, like the world around him wasn't real, almost as if it were a mirage made from the heat haze. It seemed as if, if he were to reach out and wave his hand, the entire world would dissipate around him.

He'd felt like this before, he noted. Usually after a bad panic attack, or a beating. His mind just…retreated. His thoughts were hazy. Fragmented. It was hard to keep track of where one began and another ended.

Sokka sat down on the bed next to him and placed a hand on his back, rubbing slow circles. He was saying something, but Zuko struggled to focus on his words. Instead, he listened to their cadence, to the low, comforting pitch of Sokka's voice. Slowly, Zuko's eyes drifted shut, and he fell asleep.

When he woke, the sun was beginning to set, and Sokka was gone. Instead, Toph was sat at his bedside.

"A messenger came in whilst you were asleep," Toph told him. "They called everyone in for a meeting."

"Why didn't you go?" Zuko mumbled, pulling himself into a sitting position. He was feeling a lot clearer than he had earlier, and his cheeks were beginning to burn with humiliation.

"Sokka wouldn't leave you," Toph shrugged. "I think Katara's finally figured it out. He wouldn't let go of your hand. I had to swear not to move from this spot until you woke up to get him to go."

"Huh," Zuko said, a strange warmth seeping through him. "Why you?"

Toph snorted.

"Would you rather Katara or Aang?"

Zuko shuddered. No. He couldn't handle that much concern.

"Besides," Toph continued, "Sokka's the best at all the strategy stuff, he's more use there than I am. And…well…they mighta had news on his dad…"

"Ah," Zuko nodded slowly. That made a lot of sense. He really hoped that the messenger had some good news; Agni only knew that they needed it.

"Come on," Toph said, sternly. "I've been sat here for an hour; we're going to get some food."

Zuko struggled to his feet and followed obediently.

Not too long later, they were sat at the fire in front of Iroh's tent, each holding a bowl of broth brought to them by a very terrified looking young man whom Toph only addressed as "two-pair". She smirked at Zuko's confused silence for a good few minutes before finally elaborating. Before the camp had learnt of her card-sharping ways, the young agent had – very cockily – bet his entire coin purse on a two-pair hand. Toph had had a full house. He'd not taken the loss particularly gallantly and had made a few remarks about Toph's parentage, demeanour and disability that had Zuko spitting sparks to hear. In punishment, Toph was leveraging the money against the bastard to get him to perform menial tasks she was too lazy to do for herself.

"I'll stop when he apologises," Toph said blandly. "I just wonder how long that will take him…"

"You should have punched him," Zuko told her flatly. "In fact, I'll do it for you, if you want." He put down his bowl and went to get to his feet, but Toph pulled him back down with a laugh.

"Hold on there, Sparky," she said. "It's fine. I've got this."

Zuko looked at her for a long moment, but she didn't seem too upset. He let it go and went back to his food.

"So what happened today, Sparky?" Toph asked after a long period of companionable silence. "You shouldn't feel bad. Everyone messes up every once in a while."

"It's not like that." Zuko looked down at his feet, his dinner already turning itself over in his stomach.

"Then what is it?" Toph asked, leaning back on her hands. "It's not Aang, is it? Because he can learn all the fancy footwork he likes. Won't make a bit of difference if he still can't get over his fear of fire."

"You noticed that too, huh?" Zuko huffed, but shook his head. "It's not about Aang, it's…well it's nothing."

"Yeah?" Toph's voice was soft. "Didn't seem all that much like nothing before."

"It's stupid, really," Zuko swallowed heavily. "I should just get over it. Face the fact that I'm never going to learn this stuff." He looked up at the sky, watching the last rays of the sun slowly sink below the horizon. "It's just…all my life I tried so hard to be a good enough firebender. And not just for my dad, I wanted to firebend, what kid doesn't? And I was a prince, I couldn't just be mediocre; I had to be a master, like my dad, my uncle, my little sister. But it was like nothing my tutors ever showed me got through." He stopped, surprised by the passion in his own words. He swallowed thickly.

Toph didn't reply, but kicked her foot against his to tell him to continue.

"I don't know….Just…After everything at the…at the camp." He swallowed again. "I thought I'd never be able to firebend again. And then I… my fire came back… and my control is better than it ever was…but now I can't even do forms I learnt as a kid!"

"If you did them before, you'll do them again," Toph shrugged. "You just need to practise, right?"

Zuko took in a deep breath, ready to argue, but somehow couldn't find the will. He let it out with a deep sigh and slumped forwards, putting his head in his hands.

"That's the problem," he sighed. "I don't think I can."

"And just what's that supposed to mean?"

"I just can't alright!" He barked. "I can't see properly and my coordination is fucked!" The words were spilling out now, and he didn't think he could stop them. "Even Jee agreed! They can't train me normally. I can't do any of the katas properly and I'm never going to be able to firebend again and-"

"Why's that?"

"I just told you Toph! I can't!"

"No. I mean," she shrugged. "Why does doing the katas the right way matter?"

"Because I can't firebend if I keep falling over mid-move!"

"Okay…" Toph said, slowly, as if she were talking to a particularly dull maggot slug. "So, why don't you just find a different way?"

Zuko blinked, processed what she said, and then blinked again.

"A different way…to firebend?"

"Uh-huh."

"But…it's firebending; it's been practised the same way forever." Zuko frowned, completely nonplussed. "We've been learning the same forms since the ancient masters were gifted the ability by Agni himself!"

"Then you'll be the first to try something different," Toph said matter-of-factly, like she hadn't just told him to try sieving salt from the sea.

"Toph, you can't just-"

"Zuko," she said very seriously. "How do you think I learnt to earthbend?"

He shrugged. He hadn't thought too much about it, but she'd come from a rich family, that much he knew so…

"Tutors?"

"Ha!" She snorted. "They never taught me anything useful. They were convinced the little blind girl was too weak and dainty to have any proper skill."

Zuko frowned.

"But you're the greatest earthbender in the world-"

"-damn right!"

"So how did you...?"

"Badgermoles…"

"Excuse me?"

Toph snorted again.

"Badgermoles," she repeated. "I ran away one day and I found the badgermoles: the original earthbenders. They were blind like me. They taught me to use earthbending as an extension of myself."

"Oh…" Zuko had no idea that was how she'd learnt. He hadn't thought he could respect her any more than he already did. She continued to surprise him.

"They were the original earthbenders," Toph continued. "What about the original firebenders- maybe they could help you?"

"The original firebenders were the dragons," Zuko said, looking into the fire, "and they're extinct…"

"Ah," Toph said eloquently. Then, after a moment, she shook herself and continued on. "Still, it's not like people firebend the same way the dragons did, right? That's impossible."

Zuko shrugged.

"I guess…"

"So then you can find your own way." She knocked their feet together again, encouragingly. "I bet you'll be the best firebender in the world!"

Zuko smiled half-heartedly.

"Yeah, maybe…"

"It's worth a shot, right?"

"I guess…"

Toph sighed dramatically and rapped her knuckles against the ground, as if asking the earth for some patience.

"Look," she said, after a long moment. "I'm only gonna say this once. But Sparky – Zuko – sometimes being different is what makes you stronger. Doing things the way they've always been done might be the easiest way, but that doesn't mean it's the best." She picked up a rock and started twirling it between her knuckles.

"Huh…" Zuko didn't know what else to say, not quite sure how to respond to that. He could see how that would make sense for her. She was incredible, a genius earthbender, tough and resolute and determined not to let anyone tell her what she could or couldn't do. Toph didn't cower from the world; the world made way for her.

"Whatever they told you," Toph said after a long moment, "it isn't true. You know that, right? You aren't lesser or weaker or whatever."

"I…" he trailed off. He didn't have the words to respond to that and they were not wading into that territory…well…ever. Not if Zuko had anything to say about it. In the end he just settled for clearing his throating roughly.

"Thanks Toph," he said, eventually. "And uh… you know…uh…those things you said…you-"

"Not going there, Sparky!" She warned. "This is as much of the gooey emotional stuff I can handle for one evening."

Zuko let out a sigh of relief. He was always crap at this stuff. He was getting better with Sokka, sure, but even then he still felt like an emotionally repressed turkey duck anytime he opened his mouth about feelings.

"So…" Toph said after a comfortable silence. "Are you gonna try it, or not?"

"What?" Zuko asked, startled.

"Finding your new way?"

"Yeah…I guess…" He sighed. "I just don't know how to begin…"

"Meh…just experiment a bit," she told him airily. "Mess around with it. You'll know when something works."

"Really?" Zuko asked, sceptically. "Just…try something different and see what happens…"

Toph tilted her head, and shrugged once again.

"It's how I invented metalbending…"

"Ah," Zuko replied, but Toph was a prodigy and a genius and the best bender of her element in the world. Zuko was…not. The look on her face, however, warned him not to try and argue with her, so he let the point drop.

They sat in comfortable silence, as the fire crackled in front of them, sending sparks dancing up into the clear night air. Zuko watched the smoke twisting up from the smoking logs as he thought long and hard about what Toph had suggested. In a weird way, it did sort of make sense. He'd brought his fire back form nothing all by himself, and there was that move he'd used against his father, back in the Fire Nation capital. That had been a waterbending move, hadn't it?

Humiliation racked over him as he realised exactly how stupid it had been arguing against something he'd literally already done. He glanced over at Toph, feeling a spark of hope in his chest for the first time in days. He stoked the fire and smiled at the dancing flames. Toph was right: if the traditional forms weren't working, why not try something new?

The sun had fully set and the stars were shining brightly in the pale light of the young moon by the time the others emerged – bedraggled and exhausted, but smiling –- from amongst the sea of tents. Zuko shot to his feet as Sokka ran over to them.

"You're up," he said, reaching out to pull Zuko into a hug. "I'm glad. You had me worried."

"Sorry," Zuko said into Sokka's shoulder, guilt gnawing at his stomach.

"Don't apologise," Sokka said. "Besides, we have good news."

Katara and Aang walked over, and Sokka released Zuko from the hug, turning to face the rest of the group.

"The messenger came straight from the capital. We know where they're sending dad." Sokka beamed.

"The White Lotus said they can help us find a way to break him out," Katara added, her smile wide.

"Where?" Toph asked, sitting up straight to hear the news.

Zuko leant forwards, eagerly. He might not particularly like Hakoda, but he wouldn't wish Fire Nation prison on anyone. For Sokka's sake, he hoped it would be one of the holding jails, somewhere they might be able to bribe the right guard to let a man or two slip away in the night. Perhaps one of the smaller camps? There was a farm out on one of the northern islands that was notorious for escapes. Maybe…

Sokka rubbed at his hair.

"Someplace called the Boiling Rock," he said, airily. "Isn't this great news?"

Zuko's heart sunk to his shoes, as he forced a smile to his lips.

Well, he thought to himself. Fuck.