It's been a year since I've updated this and I am a huge douche. If anyone is still following this story, feedback is greatly appreciated.

Bullets coming down like rain. Looking down the wrong end of a loaded gun. Sitting underneath a giant powder keg and lighting the fuse when you were hurt and trapped and a million miles from nowhere. None of these things had Sokka crapping his drawers like riding through a hospital corridor- more specifically, this ride through a hospital corridor.

Maybe asking a blind kid push you around in a wheelchair wasn't the best of decisions.

His knuckles blanched pure white under his armrest death grip. His chauffer had given him her name but it was long gone, lost somewhere in a haze of panic and a metric fuck ton of painkillers. Getting through the next few minutes with fewer injuries than he had going in was all he could focus on at the moment.

As a whole, that possibility wasn't looking too likely.

"Rightrightkeeprightholyshit!"

An empty gurney came a lot closer than Sokka would have liked. He took some pride that he flinched only a little. "Fuck!"

"Are you always this whiney?" Lil' Miss Ball Buster had a formidable cackle, sprinting to set a pace that had the whole damn place in a blur. "We're almost there and I haven't hit a damn thing, so quit yer bitching!"

"How about you make this a little more "Driving Miss Daisy-" he tried, clinging to the chair for dear life. "And a little less 'Grand Theft Au-oh my god!"

She took them both around a corner on two wheels and it put his stomach in his throat. A hard thud as he returned to Earth put his organs back where they belonged a little more forcefully than was absolutely necessary and they plowed on.

By the look of things, someone up ahead was going to experience the word 'plowed' a bit more literally in the next few seconds.

Not too many full birds on post but not fifteen meters away was the man himself, rail thin and sporting a stringy mustache that only an officer could ever wear without getting tossed out on his ear. The poor bastard was blissfully unaware of his impending doom, too involved in raiding a candy dish at the nurses' station.

Visions of courts-martial danced in Sokka's head and a question squeaked out of him, full of as much wretchedness as he could muster- which at this point was more than plenty. "Can we slow down a bit? I'd rather not TK a colonel today-"

"Colonel?" the girl echoed softly in his ear, the first hint of hesitation in her stride.

She hit the brakes full on and it hit Sokka hard. Momentum didn't like him very much either, nearly turning him into a human projectile when his chair came to a sudden halt while he didn't.

"Do we need to review the definition of 'a bit'?" he yelped before his squirming had him sucking in a breath between his teeth, wounds flaring up in sharp reminder that moving wasn't such a good idea.

"Shut yer yap!" was the hiss in his ear. "D'you want him to see us?"

His world got thrown into hard reverse and Sokka tried to keep his stomach from doing the same as the tiny girl threw a whole lot of guy into a full 180 before hauling ass in the opposite direction.

"Friend of yours?" Sokka asked weakly, concentrating more on his guts' attempt at open rebellion.

"Kind of!"

He'd been in plenty enough trouble growing up to know her tone by heart "That's your dad back there, isn't it?"

They took the turn from hell again and it had Sokka nearly biting off the tip of his tongue.

"What's the big deal?" he tried as they rattled back the way they'd come. "You said you're supposed to be here. Keeping your nose clean, right?"

There was a falter in her step but soon their pace accelerated. "Yeah.. about that…"

Well, fuck. Maybe 'suicide by colonel' would have been the better option.

"C'mon! Spill it!" he demanded. "If he finds me with you, I'll be hip deep in it too-"

"Okay, okay!" the girl shot back with the words he knew were coming. "I fudged the truth. A bit."

Together they bore down towards a large pair of automated doors with a blocky 'D' stenciled beside them and Sokka had to set his questions aside for a moment, making a desperate bid for a big red button that got the motor whirring everything open for them.

In the end, he didn't need to ask anything anyway, the girl's confession spilling out of her without any of his urging.

"I'm not supposed to be here at all," she murmured softly, this one moment leaving her stripped of all bravado. "He wants me cooped up, kept in my own little glass cage at home, so I bust out whenever I want." She laughed but there was no humor in it. "It was sort of a game. "

They plunged into an artificial twilight the instant they passed through the bay doors, the light kept much dimmer here than anywhere else they'd been and the girl slowed to a halt as soon as she stepped across the threshold.

Sokka knew why without really knowing why, could feel it like a cold, hard slap in the face that had nothing to do with the darkness.

It took him a few seconds but he figured it out.

It was the beeping. Bells and dings and all sorts of noises from machines that Sokka couldn't identify but he still knew them for what they were- monitors shouting out signs of life, some of them doing a little less convincing job of that than others.

There was no way to shut it out no matter how much Sokka wanted to and god damn it, he wanted to.

"It was sort of a game at first-" the girl repeated and she was trapped in the same fugue. "But it turns out there's no game here."

Nurse after nurse whizzed past them, effortlessly sidestepping anything in their way, fully comfortable in what must have been a terrible, old dance. A sprinter jangled past at a new alarm, a young doctor barking orders over her shoulder with her stethoscope swinging like a pendulum in her haste.

Swallowing was tricky with Sokka's throat turning to sandpaper. Zuko was here somewhere and Sokka needed to find him.

Now.

D102. D103.

D104

The room had a little etched plate mounted by the door, its only purpose in life to hold a simple index card with the name of its current occupant.

PFC Gōjun, Z.

Sokka traced the sloppy script on the hand written card, a shiver passing through him all the way through to his fingertips. Messy and rushed as if the person writing it had little time to spare before having to move on to the next patient. The metal that ringed the card was horribly worse for wear, gunked up at the bottom with years of sticky nastiness from tape that had never come cleanly away between one patient and the next, between one life and the next.

The enormity of this place suddenly slowed his rush, feeling the weight of the story behind each layer of tape.

How many injured had been housed within these walls? Some left for better things. Some left in a body bag. Some never made it to this place at all.

Those like his mom.

Realization hollowed out a pit in his stomach. He'd always been the kid who missed his mom, with a child's awareness that his dad missed her, too. But Sokka never got it, never really knew what it meant to lose the love of your life.

Now, though- Sokka understood.

A nudge to his wheelchair reeled him back from heading into a tailspin.

"Get in there!" His personal savior had little patience for his bullshit. "I didn't cart your sorry ass here for nothing."

Sokka wet his lips, grateful for whatever bit of luck sent him this force of nature. "Gimme a hand."

The room was small and crammed with all sorts of equipment that Sokka didn't really want to think about. It was dark here too, but a little light stole over the frighteningly pale figure sleeping propped up against a wealth of pillows and blankets, suspended in a web of tubes and wires.

A willing shoulder offered Sokka support and he left the wheelchair behind, hopping to the frayed, padded chair already sitting in vigil at Zuko's side. He looked to the girl who'd brought him so far, hoping she could do just one more thing.

"Can…" he pleaded, the weight on his chest weighing him down. "Can you give us a sec? Just me and him. Please?"

There was no quip from the girl. No smart ass remark. "Got it," she said, in all solemnity.

That lasted for a grand total of three whole seconds before her smirk returned.

"I'll go park your ride," she finished smoothly, retreating with the wheelchair to afford them some small privacy.

Footfalls echoed through the corridors but none of that mattered. Zuko looked frail, machines keeping a tally on just how close to reality that was. Sokka forced himself to watch the rise and fall of breath, eking out some reassurance that it was far and away better than when he'd seen it at its worst.

He caught the hitch in rhythm and he immediately looked up to find eyes slowly opening, just as slowly gaining focus and-

A smile.

Weak and pale but there and it was so, so sweet.

Too many emotions hit the floodgates all at once, arriving together in a mishmash too tangled to unwind. Laughter, crying, shouting, or maybe all three wanted to come out together but it was too big, too much.

"Hi," Sokka ground out instead, chest heaving.

Zuko drew a harsh breath, lungs rattling in the effort to speak. "You… okay?"

It came drawn out, the words jagged and raw and when Sokka answered, it came out much the same. "Am now."

An urge to hold on, to have something tangible between them had Sokka reaching out, even with Iroh's warning buzzing in his ear. Some things simply needed doing.

His hands had nowhere to go, nowhere safe to land in the myriad of bruises and tubes and god knew what else.

He drew closer, contorting himself to lay his head alongside Zuko, sharing a pillow so that he was near enough to whisper. "Thought I'd lost you."

Fingers sought him out, curling around the back of his neck and Sokka closed the distance, Zuko guiding him in. Their foreheads came together and Sokka shivered at the soft answer tickling his mouth, lips light as a feather against his own. "Not a chance."

The dam broke and there were smiles and tears and laughter that emptied the world of everything else, so much so that they never heard the heavy tread of approaching boots.

"Okay, Private Pain In My Ass!"

A giant of a man strolled in, the sergeant too absorbed in grumbling and jotting down notes to notice Sokka draw away. "You gonna take your meds without a fight this time or do we find out together if you can take this stuff recta- oh… hello."

Silence stretched into infinity. Sokka knew he was a bleary, streaked up mess; his eyes rimmed in red with Zuko looking much the same.

"Sir," Sokka started, trying to keep the shake from his voice, his tongue tripping over the litany of excuses. "I was just… We were-"

The sergeant waved a hand before going back to writing his notes as if some gnat was annoying him. "Private, I don't give a rat's ass what's goin' on in here, but if you can get this stubborn motherfucker to behave for one goddamned second and let me do my goddamned job like I'm supposed to until we ship his sorry ass out of my ward, I'll fucking kiss you myself."

He finally tore himself from his clipboard and his glare could have started a forest fire. "With tongue. Now, get your scrawny ass out of my way so I can get shit done."

A swirl of movement by the door caught the big man's attention. "Well, shee-it, this place turn into Grand Central Station or somethin'? This ain't no hide and seek. Get your ass out here, whoever you are."

The cause of his distraction sheepishly revealed herself. The girl sidled in, her head still cocked to one side as she tried to catch any scrap of information. "Sorry, Sarge! How's it hangin'?"

The sergeant sighed with his whole body. "Kid, you're usually better at sneakin' around than this. Your dad's around here somewhere and you're gonna get us all in a world of trouble if he finds you."

"I know, I know!" she shot back, hair flitting over her eyes. "Just needed to make sure these guys were all right. Can't do a thing without me-"

A new voice filtered in from behind her and it threw her into paralysis. "Goodness, what on earth is going on here?"

The room went from night to the brightness of a mid-day sun and Sokka threw up a hand to ward off the burn to his retinas. Dancing ghosts cleared to reveal a colonel – that colonel- one hand still hovering over the light switch.

There was little family resemblance; the colonel a thin and wispy beanpole that would blow away in a stiff wind with his daughter built like she could take on a damned fireplug. His ridiculous mustache neutralized whatever look he was going for when the colonel drew himself imperiously straight. He shifted a stack of binders under one arm to the other to tower over his daughter with deliberation.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded without ceremony.

"Dad, I-"

He wore his lack of patience on his sleeve. "We'll talk about this later. Home. Now."

"Sir!" Sokka struggled to his feet, no way he could sit idly by though his wounds gave him a warning. "I asked her to help me, sir!"

Sokka took the direct hit of a colonel's ire face on and hobbled forward, desperately trying to stand at attention though he teetered on one leg in preparation for the oncoming shit storm. "I needed to see my squad mate and sir, she can handle a mean wheelchair, sir."

"Is that so, Private…" Squinting for a name tag only made the thin, spindly man turn into more of a lizard. "Amaruq?"

The name cast a magic spell on the colonel's demeanor, the ire disappearing as he ignored them to flip through the binders he'd brought with him.

"Amaruq… Amaruq…" he spoke aloud, going through each set one by one. "Ah! Here we are!"

Sweat broke out down Sokka's back at the thought of the colonel knowing his name. That storm got upgraded from a light sprinkle to a category four shit hurricane.

The colonel took up the result of his search, setting the other binders aside. He reached into his pocket to pull out a snappy, blue leather case. With much formality, he popped the case open, revealing a small bit of burnished gold and purple with a simple twist of ribbon.

"You've been awarded Purple Heart, son!"

A medal. They wanted to give Sokka a medal.

It was an honor, a token of appreciation that no one ever went out looking for. A badge of distinction to mark the time he'd gone out and very nearly hadn't come back.

Except he hadn't been alone and that was something Sokka wouldn't ever forget.

"Sir," Sokka started, sure everyone could see his pulse hammering its way out of his temple. "Before you start, could I ask you a favor?"

The smile he got in return had Sokka suddenly wishing for a shower. "Certainly, Private!"

"My squad mate and I…" His eyes locked on Zuko and Zuko watched him right back. "We earned this together. The right thing is if we receive ours together, too."

"Of course!" The colonel's reptile smile widened. He reached for his stack of binders with his eye on Zuko. "What's your name, son?"

"Private Gōjun, sir," Zuko breathed out softly.

But was no magic this time.

No magic at all.

The colonel turned on his heel, all trace of good humor gone. "I'm sorry, son. I've got nothing for you."

"What?" The angry question escaped Sokka far too quickly for him to take it back. "Sir, that can't be right! We got hurt at the same time. We came in together! If I'm getting one, he deserves it more!"

A warning full of gravel came soft enough for only Sokka to hear. "Sokka, don't-"

The plea brought Sokka back down from the stratosphere but it was already too late.

Sokka put on his best: eyes front, chin up, chest out, shoulders back, stomach in. His leg screamed in protest but he pressed ahead. "Sir! With all due respect, sir! There must some kind of a mistake-"

"There has been no mistake, Private," snapped the colonel, emphasis coming out as a snarl.

"From what I've been told-" the colonel began again, tightlipped and his grim face going grimmer. "Information has come to light that suggests Private Gōjun's injuries were not conclusively due to enemy action."

The room turned forty degrees colder.

What the hell was going on?

"The matter is still under investigation. Now if I may continue-" The colonel had a twitch to his jaw as he opened the binder in his hands. "All military at attention!"

"To all who shall see these presents, greeting-" the colonel rattled off, rigid in his formality. "The President of the United States of America has awarded the Purple Heart established by General George Washington at Newburgh, New York, August the 7, 1782 to Private First Class Sokka Amaruq for wounds received in action in Afghanistan."

Sokka limply took the binder, waves of nausea hitting him full force. He went through the motions. Salute. Something being pinned to his chest. Handshake and the deed was done.

"Congratulations, Private Amaruq." The colonel was terse, keeping it all business. "And as for you, young lady, you are to go home right -"

He turned on his daughter with thinly veiled fury but she refused to shrink away. "I'm not going. "

"Of course you are! This is neither the time nor place to discuss it. It's not safe here! You could… you could-"

"Sit in my little glass cage and do nothing? Act like there's nothing big and scary out in the real world?" she shot back.

The man was a hair's breadth from exploding but his daughter would not yield, pointing unerringly in Sokka's direction. "He needed help. I gave it to him. How is that's a bad thing?"

A cough from the burly sergeant startled everyone. "Sir, you raised a tough little kid. This ain't a pretty place but she keeps coming back for more. Soldiers could use a friendly face around who ain't here to poke and prod 'em, if you don't mind me sayin'."

That set the colonel back on his heels but his discomfiture disappeared under an illusion of composure. "We will…" he began in all gruffness but his daughter stood before him, free of fear.

There was a careful appraisal and the colonel softened from his rigid stance.

"Take the private back to his room," he finished softly. "We will discuss this later."

He retreated from the room with as much dignity as he could manage.

Some minutes passed before anyone could move and it was the girl who let out a great whoop, her smile threatening to split her face in two. "He didn't straight up kick me out! I'm gonna take that as permission to stay!"

"You're crazy, kid." The meaty sergeant laid a congratulatory hand on the girl's shoulder that weighed more than she did. "You fit in perfect 'round here."

Sokka let out a dazed laugh and sank into the refuge of his battered chair, new purple ribbon thumping against his chest. Fresh fear stole what energy he had left and Zuko met his gaze with a knot of worry building up between them.

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, MD.

A bit of a breeze was a welcome thing, even if it was from a simple stroll on the hospital grounds.

"You know," Zuko wheezed, every word a battle for breath with his sternum still in pieces. "You'd make it back… before me… if you used crutches like you're supposed to."

"No way am I using those things!" Sokka thumped along with his wooden cane, the fire coursing up his leg keeping him at the same snail's pace. "Canes are totally badass!"

The unspoken truth was that there was no point to going faster if it meant leaving Zuko behind and they were both grateful for it.

Sokka shot Zuko a devil of a smile, taking that harsh reality away. "Plus this bad boy is a hit with the ladies down in reception so the cane's here to stay."

The laugh Zuko gave in return was rough around the edges but to hear it at all made the pain worth it.

It had taken some cajoling to get green grass beneath their feet but they got their victory lap around the path that ringed the hospital. First taste of fresh air since they'd been shipped back to the States and their time here had been…. rough. Progress was slow- not just physically but mentally brutal in the hours spent scouring for anything that would tell them more after Landstuhl.

There was nothing. Investigation ongoing. Details on a need to know basis. Zuko hadn't even been interviewed and that was all kinds of fucked up.

Signs pointed to something going on and none of it looked good.

The rest of their time was consumed by evaluation board bullshit, with more than one doctor bringing up the possibility of a medical discharge. A ticket out of the army for being too broken to return but that didn't mean jack shit with a cloud over Zuko's head.

Or a target on his back.

They made their way back, creaking up the hospital entranceway like decrepit, old men. Dinosaurs still walked the earth when the hideous vomit green tile that lined the interior was last in style but this was home for now and it sure as hell beat the battlefield.

Zuko's room was always the closer of the two and they made their way to it. Only when they were behind locked doors did they get the chance to speak what was really on their minds.

"Your dad…. find out anything new?" Zuko asked, washing up in the tiny bathroom sink.

"Nada." Sokka set his cane aside, bouncing on the cramped bed as he flicked open the beat up laptop Katara had brought for him. "He said there's a lot of noise on official channels but no one's talking."

Google, google, google. Usual prowling grounds came up empty.

"You'd think stockpiles of weapons being kept in a secret bunker would be in the news but we've got jack," Sokka murmured off-hand. "An American citizen getting captured as an enemy combatant should be front page stuff but there's nothing on your sister, either."

Sokka chewed at his fingernail at hitting the same brick walls they'd hit every day. "Iroh still MIA?" he asked, the question raised from force of habit.

"Yeah." Zuko's answer was full of melancholy. "Nothing since Germany."

"Dude's got to have a good reason to go underground, right?" Sokka insisted, tabbing through page after page of useless results.

"Right?" he repeated on rote, but there was still no answer.

Water blasted from the tap but Zuko did nothing with it. Instead, he stared off into nothing, all of his weight leaning into the sink's edge.

Pain flared up but it went ignored when Sokka moved by necessity and he was at Zuko's side faster than he'd gotten anywhere in days.

"I'm sure he's fine," he whispered, peppering the other man's temple with the tenderest of kisses. "We'll find something, we just gotta keep looking-"

The jiggle of a door handle could have been imaginary in that it was soft and subtle, easily missed.

Except that it happened again.

Someone testing the lock. Not a nurse or a doctor. There was always a knock from them. Who, then?

The two men kept to their silence, the rustle of fabric clearly heard through a paper-thin door. Light slipped through from just underneath the frame to cast complex shadows.

Then there was more.

Something slid under the gap, smoothly gliding across the tile floor-

A large manila envelope that was fit to bursting was delivered and with that, the shadow vanished, setting both men in motion. Zuko tossed the cane over just as Sokka flung the door wide.

Zuko let out a hoarse bark of "Go!" and Sokka offered a curt nod, tossing the envelope to waiting hands before giving chase.

There was no sprinting here, no running, no matter how much Sokka wanted, but that runaway shadow held a clue to something big and the need to know pushed him to his limits. Looking left, there was nothing but clear hallway. Looking right-fuck! The flutter of long, black coattails turning a corner was the last part of their visitor Sokka could see.

He was in agony but Sokka pressed on. Piece of shit elevator was on the first floor so not that way. He hit the stairwell hard, his objective audible far below him, sprinting down the staircase with an unfamiliar tapping that sounded nothing like boots.

Sokka caught one fleeting flash of a feminine outline two stories below and he knew damn well it was who he wanted, black trench coat flaring out behind her like wings preparing to take flight.

She was too far ahead and he was all desperation. "Hey!"

Everybody had instincts and this person was no different. His call gave her the pause he wanted and she looked up to finally meet him eye to eye.

His first thought was of Azula but even with the huge sunglasses and broad brimmed hat masking most of her pale face, it became clear that the resemblance was purely superficial.

Where Azula had been hard and haughty, this woman was all edge and sharp angles, her outfit the pinnacle of style. The coat alone looked like it could have eaten his whole paycheck in one go with room for more. High heeled shoes looked more suited to stepping right out of some fashion magazine's photo shoot rather than taking off faster than a jack rabbit when she'd been busted pulling covert ops in a military hospital.

Sokka tried to memorize every last detail but the brief moment he'd won was over and in seconds, she was gone.

The way back was a long one and doubts plagued Sokka every step of the way. Their first break and he'd let her slip through his fingers. He limped through the doorway, disheartened.

"Lost her," was what Sokka wanted to say but he looked up and his train of thought completely derailed.

Zuko sat amidst a pile of papers, remnants of the envelope at his feet, a slow, creeping horror stealing over his face. He sifted through pages scattered around him as if he were piecing together a massive jigsaw puzzle, each scrap of information he found leaving him more apprehensive than the last.

"What?" Sokka demanded, the woman in black shifting into afterthought and Zuko showed him.

He could see there were numbers-lots of numbers with lots and lots of zeros after them with little explanation, utterly meaningless if one knew nothing of the letterhead containing a red circle with a tiny, stylized flame. "What is it?"

Zuko swallowed hard, the sheet starting to crumple as his hands slowly turned into fists. "We need to find my uncle."