Disclaimer: Nope. No rights to the Avatar characters here. Nope. Definitely not.

A/N: Just another one-shot in my crusade to make fans see and consider situations from alternate points of view.

Truce

It hurt.

I woke up with my head aching, so badly it was like there was a second heartbeat in my temple. I experienced that second of pure panic, when you hardly know who you are or what's going on. I opened my eyes, slowly, because even that hurt.

It reminded me horribly of another time when I'd emerged from the dark of unconsciousness with my face throbbing with pain. Only that had been much worse.

I was in a forest, because leaves and branches covered the sky. Twigs and dry leaves crackled under me as I shifted.

It all came back, in the rush that happens so often when you wake. The Blue Spirit. The fortress. Zhao. The Yu Yan archers.

The Avatar.

I'd been so lucky that the mask had protected my face from the arrow. Otherwise I would be dead right now. But how had I gotten into the forest? And more importantly…where was the Avatar?

"You know what the worst part about being born over a hundred years ago is?"

I would have leaped to my feet if my head hadn't been splitting. His voice, quiet and non-threatening as it was, was so startling and so close that it shocked me. I had to make do with just turning my head.

He was perched on a humped tree root, hugging his knees, and looking very much like the child he was. It infuriated me. Why was it that whenever we met, I was never in the position to capture him? And now here he was, barely feet from me, and I was too injured to make use of it.

And why was he looking at me like that, with that kind of wistfulness? Not worried, not afraid. Stupid little kid…couldn't even get out of the fortress without my help.

But he'd helped me too. He was resourceful. Not just anyone would have been able to escape from Zhao's clutches like that. Maybe that's why he had been able to avoid me for so long.

"I miss all the friends I used to hang out with." For a second, I was confused, then I realized that he was answering his own question. His eyes gazed down at me sadly, as if not having friends from his childhood was one of the worst things he could think of. Naïve little kid. I could tell him a whole lot of things that were worse. But he went on with his one-sided storytelling. "Before the war started, I used to always hang out with my friend Kuzan. The two of us, we'd get in and out of so much trouble together. He was one of the best friends I ever had."

Why was he telling me this, anyway? What did I care about some little kid he used to hang out with a hundred years ago? But he was still looking at me so intently, like he was trying to read something in it.

I resisted the urge to look away. My mother used to do something like that; that deep scrutiny, wistful, hopeful…I shoved the thoughts of her away.

"He was from the Fire Nation…just like you."

He dropped that fact like it should make all the difference. Like it should erase everything; one hundred years of war, all my ancestors, my own destiny, and make it okay. I could hardly believe it. The way he said it, the way he looked at me…was he honestly suggesting what I thought he was? How deluded was this little kid?

And why couldn't I look away? I was just lying there, helpless in the leaves, and he was sitting there, talking to me like I should understand this, like this was important to him.

He swallowed, tilting his head thoughtfully to the side. Then he said, his voice soft and thoughtful, "If we knew each other back then, do you think we could have been friends too?"

It was a twisted, backwards question, but the expression in his gray eyes unwound it for me. What he was really asking was, Do you think we could be friends now?

I felt everything drain out of me for a moment. All my anger, all my pain and bitterness and drive to capture this scrawny little kid. All of it was erased for a single second by sheer, disbelieving shock.

And what was most incredible of all was that he was completely serious. The question was innocent in a way I'd never known before. Everyone who'd ever tried to be close to me seemed to have another motive; Azula, trying to manipulate me somehow, Ty Lee and Mai, trying to be her spies, officials' children, trying to gain royal favor.

But somehow, I sensed this kid, the Avatar, wasn't looking for any of that. And my mind couldn't understand such a notion. The idea that the runty, insignificant airbender whom it was my destiny to capture and drag home in chains…he was asking, truly, if he could be my friend.

For one endless stretch the possibility hung before me. I could feel a part of me reaching out hungrily for it, shouldering aside the bitter darkness that seemed to clog most of my thoughts and emotions lately. That small part, the part that remembered feeding turtleducks with my mother and walking in the gardens with Mai and practicing with my knife and playing on the beach with my uncle.

And then I remembered the mask of the Blue Spirit, and my own reflection with its hideous burn scar. I remembered my honor. My destiny.

I remembered that the only thing "friends" ever did was let you down. That to trust was foolish, and to believe was a lie. That by allowing someone to be close to you, you were only supplying them with everything they needed to hurt you later.

And where I had seen innocence seconds before, my mind changed it to deceit. It was a trick. He may have looked only twelve, but in reality he was ancient. I had to stop seeing him as a child and start seeing him as a dangerous, powerful bender.

As always, the anger fueled my strength, and my firebending with it. It was so easy to become angry, so easy to slip into this state where you could focus on power and attack without thinking about anything else.

I lunged to my feet and shot a fire blast at him in one fluid motion. His gray eyes widened, and he leaped skyward, barely avoiding the attack. Then, faster than I could blink, he was darting away without a backward glance…free again. Friendship…hah.

Curse him. Agni curse him, for dangling such a stupid, tantalizing promise in my face. For trying to bring back a side of me I'd tried to bury long ago.

But I think what angered me most was that I knew…knew…that I wouldn't get a bit of sleep tonight. I would be haunted by his gray eyes and his childlike wistfulness, his intense gaze and his vulnerable posture.

And, with my kind of luck, my dreams would echo with the sound of his sad, half-hoping question.

Do you think we could have been friends too?

Because, to be perfectly honest…I didn't completely know the answer.