A/N: Written for my bingo card. Prompt: "no one here to save." Jet/Katara elements.

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender.

Warnings: Jet/Katara, character death, Lake Laogai spoilers, and account for typos- I had no time to fully edit this.

Mourning
By: Nuit Songeur

Jet didn't want help, didn't need help. That's not why he went to Katara. No, he'd seen the flyer and saw that they'd lost Appa. If anything, she needed his help, and that's why he went to her, approached her at Ba Sing Se. Not because he needed help. He'd quit the Freedom Fighters long ago, turned over a new leaf and started a new chance at life here in the Earth Kingdom city. He only hoped that it was good enough for her. But, when their eyes met, he already saw it wasn't and it cut him deeply. He might not have needed her help, but he sure wanted her again— her trust, her friendship, even her companionship if he was lucky.

He wasn't that lucky. He was only lucky enough to receive the suspicion, anger— almost hatred in her eyes. But he knew he deserved it.

Maybe, if they spent enough time together he could earn her trust again. Slowly, of course but better than nothing. But there was something in Jet's mind that asked why he would bother so much with Katara; it wasn't like he hadn't had any other girlfriends before. What made Katara so different?

He knew what made Katara different. She was different because she cared and because he needed—

No, not needed. He didn't need her.

The hollow words sounded cruel, even to him. But that's all they were— hollow words with no real meaning behind them. He knew, deep down, that he did need her, to help free himself. And she did help— helped him regain his grip on reality after being under the clutches of the Dai Li. The freedom was short lived, though because it wasn't long before he was a puppet of Long Feng's. Still, she helped again, indirectly. His memories of her, of being a Freedom Fighter was what jolted him into his awareness, not some brain washed leech of the Dai Li's. He was a Freedom Fighter, just one that had made some bad decisions in the past. Jet still fought for freedom until his death, and, ultimately, it was that freedom that killed him.

Katara's reaction to his dying figure lying on the ground stunned him; he'd thought it would take weeks or months to regain her compassion. But, she still fought for him, still cried over him. It was then that Jet realized that she needed him too, perhaps more than he did her.

Katara was a Freedom Fighter, too.

There you are! I hope you enjoyed! Please review!

-NuitSongeur