And finally, the part with the idea I originally had!

Loose Ends

By: StillThereForMe

Zuko was still tossing rocks into the water when Katara found him. When he didn't seem to notice his presence, she decided to bend the ocean water around one of the rocks he'd just tossed in, holding it up a little and making it the top of a mini fountain, with little sprays in a circle around it. Zuko turned to look at her then, smirking slightly.

"Cool trick."

"Thanks." She gave a small smile and let the water go, and the rock fell into a small wave with a tiny splash. "Is this what you've been doing all morning?"

Zuko's face turned serious again and he sat down with a sigh. Katara moved to sit near him, slightly concerned, and wanted to seem attentive.

"Kinda, just been thinking." Zuko shrugged. "Nothing to worry about."

"About the show?"

"Sorta. I'm guessing Aang or someone sent you to talk to me? I'm fine, you guys don't have to be concerned." The former prince assured her with a glance. "I just need a little time alone to sort some stuff out."

"I figured that would be your reaction. And yeah, they did want someone to come down and talk to you." Katara informed him, staring at the waves. She then looked at the boy next to her, seeing only his scarred side from her angle. "But I volunteered because I had something else I wanted to talk to you about too. One on one."

Zuko slowly turned his head towards her a bit more, allowing the waterbender to view the some of his unscarred face, as he asked in a serious voice "is this going to be another 'screw up and you've got no destiny' threat?"

Katara couldn't help herself and burst out laughing at the suggestion. "No! Nothing like that…"

Zuko, however, remained rather serious as he continued to stare. "Then what?"

A sick feeling gripped Katara in her gut, which allowed her more control over herself and to calm down. She knew what she wanted to ask about, and the answer could either be nothing, or it could be what she suspected, or something else. No matter what Zuko said though, it really wouldn't change anything. Which made her feel selfish to even be bringing this topic up, but she couldn't help it. Unlike with the Southern Raiders, she couldn't justify this selfishness either, because this wasn't seeking to avenge her mother's death or protect Aang or anything. This was her prying into Zuko's past for nothing more than her own curiosity. And for some other feeling that she couldn't quite place at the moment. But she had a nagging thought that this feeling wasn't going to go away until she had an answer.

"Well," Katara stared at the sand between the two of them, running her palm through it, unable to look Zuko in the eyes as she scrambled for the right words. "It's about the show last night."

"Oh," Zuko turned away as well, choosing to look back at the waves. "What about it?"

"It's just, I know the play was exaggerated and really ridiculous at parts, but…" she took a deep breath, and looked up at Zuko, who seemed to be trying to avoid her gaze. "I wanted to ask about your reaction to when Jet died in the show."

"What do you mean?" Zuko asked, glancing at her, then away again, both his facial expression and tone of voice defensive.

"Did you know Jet?" The question came out more as a demand, a statement, than what it was.

The banished prince bit his lip and looked down towards the sand. "…yeah. I did."

Katara wanted to know more. She stared at the boy's face, trying to image how on earth Jet and him crossed paths. The most reasonable explanation was that somehow, in Ba Sing Se, Jet had found Zuko in that tea shop and knew he was from the Fire Nation. Instead of telling the police, he probably flew into a rage and started openly accusing them right away, trying to rally other people in the shop against Zuko and his uncle. Being an Earth Kingdom city, Jet had most likely thought everyone else would be as offended by the idea of Fire Nation being there as him. Or maybe Jet just lost it at the thought and simply attacked them. But Ba Sing Se being as messed up and crazy as it was, Jet probably ended up just getting arrested instead of his claims investigated. And then in order to shut him up (since Jet would never listen to just a warning or something) the Dai Li did that brainwashing on him. And he was stuck like that until she and the gang found him.

That was the simplest and most logical explanation, given what Katara already knew happened to Jet from his Freedom Fighter friends and Jet himself. It was probably what happened. Jet would have gone nuts if he'd found out there was someone from the Fire Nation in the Earth Kingdom capital. He of course, would have thought he was doing the logical thing, making open accusations or even attacking Zuko and his uncle. They were at war with the Fire Nation, and who knew what horrible things Fire Nation people could do being in one of the wealthiest rings of Ba Sing Se? He would have had to stop them before they hurt someone. Jet always thought he was doing the right thing.

Even Katara's first reaction when she saw Iroh and Zuko in the tea shop had been to warn the Earth King. It was simple enough to figure out what Jet's reaction would have been. Jet couldn't have gone to the Earth King. And even if he could have, he would have wanted to do something right then and there. And that's probably why he got arrested.

But no matter how many times Katara repeated the logical story to herself, it fell apart looking at Zuko. If Jet had been such a random guy, who all he did was disrupt one day at his uncle's teashop, or even if he attacked, why did Zuko look so down? Why was he hurting? Why couldn't he even look Katara straight in the eye if the worst Jet did was attack him or his uncle before he was arrested?

"How did you know him?" The water tribe girl finally asked, forcing herself to focus on Zuko's reaction and answer, and not look away.

Zuko shifted, brought his knees up and wrapped his arm around them. "Well…we…it's complicated, okay?" The boy glanced at her as he finished.

For some reason she couldn't explain, that brought a small smile to Katara's face. She leaned back on her arms, and stared as a wave crashed against a boulder, as if in some futile attempt to move or drown it. "Yeah…it usually is with Jet."

Zuko followed her gaze towards the ocean and for a while, they both just sat there on the beach, watching wave after wave repetitively slam against rock and cliff and boulder, finally weakening against the sand. The silence between them was heavy, once and a while one of them would glance at the other, but end up returning to the hypnotic waves of Ember Island. Until the firebender finally made the move.

"So…was that part true?" Zuko asked tentatively.

"What part?"

"I mean…the show screwed up a lot of relationships, but…you and Jet?" The scarred boy turned his head to face her.

"Well…" Katara cursed her cheeks for heating up a little, but then smiled a little spitefully at Zuko. "It was complicated."

"Oh," he glanced down a bit guilty, before Katara quickly amended her answer.

"Yeah, we were," she bit her lip and looked at the sand beneath her dark fingers again. "At least, I think so. It was always hard to tell with him."

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Zuko nodded, and looked down as well.

And from that statement, Katara knew she wasn't going to learn anything, unless she came clean herself. Her chest seemed like was being choked tightly, and she had a nagging feeling about exactly where this conversation was going. And Katara didn't want to know. She really didn't, because Jet had caused her enough pain. And yet once again, on some masochistic impulse, when it would be perfectly okay to leave it alone, she had to get involved again.

Maybe because it was Zuko. Despite the whole Southern Raiders incident and all he had done for the group, she still couldn't help but hold a bit of a grudge against him. She'd forgiven him, but their relationship hadn't moved much past that, not even to friends. She was thankful for his help, both personally and for Aang and the group, and she did trust he was on their side. But honestly, she felt closer and fonder of Suki than she did of him. Her and Zuko, they were on the same side, and that was all. The one thing she'd ever bonded with him over—the loss of their mothers, which she didn't even know that much else about—had been quickly followed by his betrayal and the near death of Aang. And though she forgave him, that bond was no longer there.

But then of course, Jet has to come along and offer to connect them. And, no matter how painful he made things, it was always impossible to ignore Jet.

"The play wasn't totally off on how we met him." Katara began. "Except that, he had a group of kids he led around, a bunch of orphans who looked up to him. They'd all been hurt by the Fi—by the war, so they had this big treehouse thing they lived in."

"His freedom fighters?" Zuko offered suddenly.

"Yeah," Katara nodded, surprised. But when Zuko didn't say anything more, she continued. "His freedom fighters…they all really looked up to him and were very loyal. United against a common enemy I guess. Anyway, they took it upon themselves to protect their forest from the fire nation…"

"Katara…no offense but…I'm not really interested in them."

"Right." The kids were easier to talk about though. She sighed. "We ran into him after he saved us from this Fire Nation army camp we accidentally stumbled into. I thought he was…well, really impressive and inspiring. I mean, he wasn't a bender, he didn't have any family or anyone to look up to, yet he was able to lead this big group of kids and take down so many soldiers. Something at the time, me a novice waterbender, Sokka, and even Aang weren't able to do. He was incredibly confident and smart. This boy, who'd lost everything, was going around making a difference and fighting soldiers, and had inspired so many others to follow him. Right from the start, both me and Aang were pretty charmed. Sokka I guess was the only one smart enough not to get sucked in. Especially after he told us his story. He said he needed me and Aang's help filling up this dam because some firebenders were going to be coming around and trying to burn their forest down. I bought it hook line and sinker. Aang did too. But it turns out, the only reason he wanted to fill the dam, was so he and his group could break the wall holding it back, and flood the town right by the forest—killing Fire Nation soldiers, but also a lot of innocent villagers. Luckily Sokka warned them in time. But he wasn't even sorry about it. He lied to us, was willing to attack and kill innocent people, all for this twisted greater good!"

"I see…" Zuko nodded. "That's all that happened?"

"Well…most of it." Katara admitted. "We were only at his treehouse place for a little while but…I spent a lot of time talking to him. I really liked him. All these things he said, his ideas and hopes, and everything he'd went through—he really didn't seem like a bad guy. I've never been able to open up and connect with someone so quickly. He seemed he understood everything. And we…well…" She cursed her blushing cheeks that gave away more then her words did. Sokka and Aang didn't even know about this. "It was nothing that serious, but it was more than I'd ever done with a boy before. I just felt like I could really trust him. And then it turns out he's so much more twisted than I had realized. And he didn't even care. Or maybe he did but…"

"He couldn't handle it." Zuko finished, looking at her with understanding and for once, that didn't anger Katara.

"Yeah," the water tribe girl nodded. "I ended up leaving him frozen to a tree. After that, neither Sokka or Aang ever mentioned him. Which I didn't mind. When we ran into him in Ba Sing Se… he claimed he had changed but I didn't believe him and attacked him. It turns out, the Dai Li had brainwashed him, trying to get him to trick us into leaving. Luckily we ran into some of his Freedom Fighters who let us know he'd been arrested. We did break him out of it—the play didn't show that but we did—and then went after the people who brainwashed him. Unfortunately…the Dai Li were really powerful, and Jet got really hurt. I couldn't really heal him, and then he and his friends told us to go on after the Dai Li without us. We just left him there…" Katara sighed and looked down. "And that's the last time we saw him."

"So…he's not dead?" Zuko asked.

"I couldn't heal him, and he was really badly hurt," Katara explained. "And we never saw them after that. It's possible, but I can't imagine that if they were alive, we wouldn't have heard from them by now. Especially after everything else that happened in Ba Sing Se."

Zuko looked down and agreed "yeah, there's no way he wouldn't have been involved in that."

"It's just not fair!" Katara snapped angrily, annoyed as her eyes started to water up a bit. "He wasn't a bad person…just messed up. He should've been on our side. He should have been helping us. It's not even that he died…I'm not sure even if he lived, he'd have been with us. There was nothing to show that he wasn't still going to sacrifice innocent people. At least not when he wasn't brainwashed. But…it wasn't like he wasn't trying to do good. Just the way he did it…things could've been so different. But his way of helping people meant innocent people died and got hurt…"

"He was trying to change." The scarred boy interjected, stopping the other's ramble before she even realized she was. "At least, I think that's what he was trying to change."

Katara wiped her eyes, still annoyed that they teared up in the first place. "How did you meet him?"

"On the boat ride to Ba Sing Se," Zuko explained. "My uncle and I were going to hide there. Jet overheard me complain about the crappy food they were serving us, and asked if I wanted to help him steal some of the good food the captain was hiding. I agreed, and then we gave it out to all the other passengers on the ship. I would've been fine leaving it at that but…after he wouldn't leave me alone. And my uncle was so happy that I was actually making a friend, that he just encouraged it. He sat with us, ate with us, was always talking to us. His friends too, but I don't think they liked me very much. They were always annoyed whenever they were around. And then Jet started wanting to talk to me one on one. He said he could tell we were the same, both outcasts. He claimed he could tell since he first laid eyes on me. Because of my scar."

"Oh!" Katara exclaimed, it finally sinking it how Jet would react to someone with such a blatant burn like Zuko's. Of course he'd assume the wrong thing.

"Yeah," Zuko nodded, and unconsciously touched his own scar. "At first, he was really annoying. But there's not many places you can avoid a person on a tiny boat. And no matter how much I hinted at him to leave me alone, he'd still end up coming over with that stupid smug grin. And eventually, I didn't mind so much. Even though he had the wrong idea about me, the things he said…I could relate to him a lot, I guess."

"Jet was nothing if not a good talker," Katara nodded.

"That's not the only thing he was good at," he added, then seemed shocked at his own words not a moment later as his face turned red.

Katara blushed too, "well, yeah…"

"I'd never even thought about things like that before Jet…" Zuko continued, although Katara wasn't sure if he realized he was talking out loud. "There was always something else to focus on I guess. But Jet… I mean, he never hid the fact that he hated the fire nation. And he had said that he'd done things in the past he wasn't proud of." He turned to Katara, as if just remembering what his initial point had been. "He wanted to start over in Ba Sing Se. And he kept asking me what I was planning to do when I got there. And it's not like I could tell him 'oh, just lay low and hide from my dad and sister—you know, the king and Princess of the Fire Nation.' So I kept just not answering him and avoiding his question. But he never got mad." Zuko laughed bitterly. "He even asked me if I wanted to join his Freedom Fighters!"

Katara didn't know what to say, so just kept silent.

Zuko paused, before almost whispering "I was never ashamed of who I was, not even after my father banished me or my sister tried to take me prisoner. I was never ashamed, until Jet." He then looked at Katara with an expression she'd seen only twice: when in prison in Ba Sing Se, and after they rejected him the first time at the Western Air Temple. "He called me 'Li'…He never found out my real name."

"What happened?" Katara asked softly.

Zuko sighed, and rested his forehead on his knees. "My uncle."

"Your uncle?" She repeated confused.

"After we got off the ship, Jet tried to get me to join him again. I told him no, which I don't think he appreciated, but he probably would've tried again later on. Except, a few minutes before my uncle had just bought some tea, and had been complaining that it was horribly cold. When I got back to him after talking to Jet, he'd firebended his tea, to the point that it was easy to see the steam coming out of it! And my guess is Jet must have seen it. Because the next time I saw him, he was coming into our tea shop in the lower ring, his hook swords swinging and shouting that my uncle and I were both fire nation. No one believed him, which just frustrated him more. I grabbed two swords from a guard and fought him off, and the entire time he was demanding I use firebending on him, or ask my uncle to, and rambling like the twisted person I guess I always had known he was. I could hear my uncle telling him he was wrong and to calm down, and maybe he would've if I had said something. But the whole time he was wildly swinging swords at me, I didn't say a word…I guess I didn't want to lie to him. Or maybe I still felt guilty because he was right. And I didn't want him to be. Because the look on his face throughout the whole thing…it was like he couldn't help what he was doing. And then before I knew it, he was being arrested. Because of me. I mean, it's not like I could've said 'no wait, don't arrest him he's telling the truth!'"

"I'm sorry Zuko." She sighed. "That's what I was saying. Even if he had lived, I'm not sure he would've been able to help. For all his talent at talking and convincing and fighting…he just couldn't seem to control himself."

"I guess I'd always sort of hoped that I'd run into him again. Especially after I joined up with you guys." The firebender admitted. "To prove to him that even though I was a firebender, I wasn't like those guys who burned down his village. At least not anymore. And maybe he'd be okay with it." He sighed. "Although I never really believed it'd go that easily. But after Aang mentioned to you before we left for the Southern Raiders, when he mentioned 'Jet', I had really thought I had a chance you know. At least to apologize to him. But no, instead I ended up getting him killed."

"It's not your fault Zuko." Katara assured him. "I blamed myself for a while after that. Maybe I could've healed him if I tried harder, or if I'd been watching him more carefully when we were fighting. But blaming yourself doesn't lead to anything useful. You can't keep beating yourself up over it."

"But he wouldn't have gotten arrested in the first place if it hadn't been because of me!" Zuko snapped.

"So it's your fault for being born what you were?" Katara argued. "Zuko, the only one who's really the cause of all of this is Jet. If he hadn't been so twisted…seeing some steam shouldn't have provoked him to go charging in to the teashop weapons blazing."

"…you're right." Zuko admitted. "But still…"

"Believe me, I get it…" The girl looked down, eyes shadowed by her hair.

"I had really thought that it could've worked. That if I had to start over, maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I had someone like Jet to help. Which was so stupid considering I knew how he felt about the Fire Nation but…I thought, we shouldn't be able to get along so well if it isn't destined to work out okay, you know? That maybe it wasn't such a problem, maybe it was some strange way of making us both get over our issues…that for me, maybe I could have a life outside of the Fire Nation, and for him, to find out that not everyone in the Fire Nation was so bad…but I guess that was just me being stupid. Once he came into the shop, the look in his eyes…"

"Like no matter what you said, it wouldn't make a difference to him," Katara finished. "It wasn't stupid Zuko. It was just…it was Jet. He should've been on our side. He should be with us right now, on our team. But…"

"But he's not."

"And the only way he would've been able to be with us, is if he'd been able to let go of all of that anger and hate…at least enough to not be willing to sacrifice an entire town to kill some soldiers. Because he wasn't a bad guy, he was just…he was just too extreme, too wound up. But then, if he wasn't, he wouldn't have been Jet…"

"At least not the one we knew." Zuko agreed sadly with a nod. "And I get that in my head but still…"

"I know." Katara shook a little, holding back a small sob and moved over to hug the boy next to her. "I still wish he was here too."

And that's all. Reviews and constructive criticism appriciated!