Chapter Text
Despite Aang’s frustrated insistence ten minutes earlier, Sokka is not beach moping. He’s sitting, calmly, thinking very hard about how miserable he is. There’s a difference. And it’s not even a beach. Agna Qel’a doesn’t have anything that really passes for a beach anyway, just what feels like an endless amount of docks and ice, so there.
Not beach moping.
Impossible to be beach moping, technically.
“Are you still beach moping?” Katara, behind him, already sounds exhausted. More than that, she sounds pre-done with Sokka’s feelings, and they’ve barely spoken today. This is just some task she needs to check off before she can go to sleep, and the idea of being that much of an annoyance makes something desperate curl in Sokka’s stomach with panic.
Emotions are inconvenient, and Sokka isn’t allowed to have a breakdown. He has to be the one that’s holding the group together. Because Sokka is funny . That’s what he does. He keeps up morale. He’s not a beach moper. Katara is. Aang is. Sokka can’t be. Dad pretty much assured him of that when he left the entire tribe in Sokka’s hands at thirteen.
And he can’t be mad about that either.
Even though Sokka is only fifteen, and he has no idea what the hell is going on, and he’s miserable and there’s a feeling that’s wedged its way inside his chest that feels awful and it won’t go away. Grief he’s familiar with, he’s carried that every day since Mom died. This is different.
It’s…cold.
Sokka scowls out to the ocean, through the broken gates of the entrance to Agna Qel’a where the Fire Nation’s ships blasted through two days ago. He doesn’t look back at his sister. He can already picture her expression perfectly, all the concern and exasperation, and Tui and La, he doesn’t want to do this .
“No, I’m not beach moping,” Sokka says, the words more biting than he means for them to be. “I’m not a beach moper. Do I look like a beach moper to you? Because that’s rude. Don’t go telling people they’re beach mopers.”
Katara takes a seat next to him on the edge of the dock, letting her shoes dip into the freezing cold water. Sokka has to bite his tongue to stop himself from telling her not to do that so she doesn’t get frostbite. His little sister bested a master waterbender publicly a few days ago, she really doesn’t need him nagging after her anymore.
That dark twisty feeling sinks deeper.
Katara looks over at him, studying his profile. Sokka looks away.
“Aang sent you, didn’t he?” Sokka asks at last, annoyed. Couldn’t come by yourself, could you? He doesn’t say, but the thought pools in his psyche like rot. It’s not fair and he knows that. The last few days have been miserable for everyone. Sokka isn’t the only person whose beach moping. Katara’s probably beach moped. Cheif Arnook probably has to have the not-beach scheduled out for all the moping.
“He was concerned about you,” Katara says carefully. “He said you weren’t talking to him.”
“He said I was beach moping. Why would I talk to him after that? It was rude.”
“Sokka.” Katara rests a hand on his knee. It’s warm. Everything in the Northern Water Tribe is freezing and wet, and Sokka leans into it on instinct. He hates it here, he’s decided. Whatever beautiful spirals he saw when they arrived have turned dull and lost luster.
“What’s going on?”
Sokka breathes out, and watches it plume into the air before tenting his knees and resting his head on them, arms pulled tightly across his shins. It makes him small, and that’s good. Sokka feels small. Like he could squeeze into the world's smallest box and there would still be room for something else.
“Are you going to talk to me?” The edge of impatience slides into Katara’s tone and panic seizes Sokka’s chest.
“I spent all morning helping find dead bodies.” Sokka blurts. Katara’s hand stills on his leg.
“You-- what ?” Katara sounds horrified.
“Nevermind,” Sokka says quickly. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t say anything.”
Sokka bites the inside of his cheek. Why did you say that? Shut up. Shut up, shut up. Katara isn’t supposed to know about that. The failed siege was just supposed to be some property damage and that’s the extent of it. Hahn was pretty clear that the women and children shouldn’t know yet, and it was the one bit of sexism that Sokka was fully supportive of.
Yue’s dead, Zuko’s missing again--but will be back because it’s freaking Zuko and nothing can stop him--and there are dead Fire Nation soldiers floating down the streets. There are dead Water Benders and dead civilians and so many dead people everywhere and Sokka didn’t realize how many people were dead until he was helping scoop them out of the streets to give them a proper burial at sea.
And it wasn’t all the Fire Nation’s fault. Aang helped, probably a lot more than he realizes. The Spirit of the Ocean or whatever on the Spirits name that glowing fish-thing was destroyed and massacred and ruined and Aang walked away assuming that all he did was destroy some Fire Nation ships.
Sokka would give anything to have that innocence. He would give anything to keep Aang’s innocence about this. The kid doesn’t need to know. The kid can’t know, Sokka decided, somewhere between digging out a water bender with half his face missing and another who was in parts.
“Sokka,” Katara has her concerned voice now. Sokka hates himself just a little more. “What are you talking about? Who asked you to help with that?”
Sokka digs his chin harder into his knees. The misery, he knows, is radiating from him, but maybe he’s earned just a little beach moping. “Cheif Arnook. He wanted all the able-bodied men to help,” Sokka mutters. “I wasn’t doing anything important, so I don’t know, I figured…”
When he looks at his sister, he can see that she’s fighting back nausea, and Sokka mentally kicks himself. Dead bodies are a no-go topic. Sokka knows that. It took Dad months to get Katara near an animal carcass after Mom without panicking, and Sokka knows that didn’t really get better, Katara just got quieter about it. He has to listen to her wake up sobbing every couple of months, not Gran-Gran, certainly not Dad.
“Sorry,” Sokka says, his chest heavy. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just…”
“No, I want to help.” Katara says, even though she looks like she very much does not, “I didn’t realize…I guess I just thought that the casualties were…smaller. Yue’s body just sort of--”
“Disintegrated into nothing?” Sokka mutters. He’s still bitter about that, and the Moon doesn’t get a free pass just because it’s not dead. Screw the Moon, this grudge he’s taking to his death. At least he got to bury Mom.
“--vanished,” Katara finishes politically. Sokka wonders if she understands the weight of that. What it felt like to hold Yue’s corpse and then for it to just go. No closure, no second-guesses, no nothing. Sokka was left scrambling to hold air with a hysterical, horrible feeling consuming him, but nothing tangible to validate it. “And I’ve been so busy helping in the healer’s wing I didn’t realize the body count.” Katara adds. There’s a very small hesitation, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Yes.
“No,” Sokka mutters. “I’m fine, Katara.”
“You don’t seem fine.”
“I have to be!” Sokka snaps, meeting her eyes for the first time since she sat down. Those tired gray smudges stop him short. Sokka swallows hard. “We should go. I have to get up early to help tomorrow. Chief Arnook is trying to get as many bodies as possible on a ship so he can do a mass burial. He’s doing a funeral in a few days.”
Katara looks stricken. For a moment, she looks fourteen instead of older-- always older --and it makes Sokka’s stomach clench violently. Neither of them are strangers to war, but it’s different to be in the middle of the bodies than to hear about it from afar. It’s just…It’s big , that’s what it is. The war doesn’t feel like this distant concept they’re running from anymore. It’s not this thing they’re prepping Aang for, but still Big and Bad and Far Away. No.
It’s at their doorstep.
It’s bodies floating down the street.
They always fled whatever disaster they ended up in before they could help clean up. Sokka knows this isn’t the only trail of bodies they’ve left behind. Aang does that. Death follows him like a big, ugly shadow with greedy fingers.
Katara doesn’t move. “There’s that many?” Sokka doesn’t answer. Katara grabs his shoulder. “Sokka, how many are dead ?”
“Best estimate so far is nine hundred for the water tribe,” Sokka says. “Hundreds of Fire Nation soldiers, too.”
Katara pales. “Oh,” she whispers. Her voice is very quiet. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Sokka agrees.
“Does Aang know?”
Sokka shakes his head. “He’s not stupid. He knows there was a body count, but I don’t think he realizes how big it is. I don’t want to tell him. He already feels like this entire thing is his fault.”
It is. Sokka is trying to be objective about that, but there is a teenist, tiniest seed of resentment in him that if Aang hadn’t been here, Admiral Zhao wouldn’t have attacked, and Yue would still be alive and not the Spirits forsaken Moon. There wouldn’t be bodies in the street. In reality, this isn’t Aang’s fault. It’s the Fire Nation’s. No one made them attack.
Aang existing isn’t enough justification for Sokka to resent him.
“It is the Avatar’s fault.”
Sokka and Katara jump at the voice, Katara nearly spilling off the deck into the ocean. If not for Sokka’s reflexes--honed from years of practice catching his baby sister from falling off of everything--she would have. Both of them look back to see Hahn standing there, his expression dark. He’s bundled up in a coat, but he’s still wet, and Yue’s ex-finance looks just as grumpy as he did when Sokka was let off shift several hours ago.
Katara’s eyes narrow. “It’s not Aang’s fault. He didn’t know that the Fire Nation was going to attack. How could he?”
Hahn scoffs, stepping closer. Sokka tenses all over. “How could he not? Even if the Avatar is a child, you aren’t.” That is directed at Sokka. “The Fire Nation has been following you everywhere, hasn’t it? Did it not occur to you that we would be the next target? Everywhere you go, you slaughter people by the dozens . How could you let him come here and put thousands of people in danger!? How could you let the Fire Nation do this to us!?”
Sokka flinches.
Katara gets to her feet, her fists clenched. “The Fire Nation attacked you, not us--”
“I don’t care! ” Hahn shouts. There’s something wild in his face. “You knew there was a target on your back and you didn’t care, and now I’m burying my mother!” Sokka and Katara freeze, and Hahn sucks in a gasping breath, somewhere just above a sob, “They just found her body. My father is broken and my sister is devastated. My life was perfect before the Avatar came here. Everything was perfect before you!”
Sokka sinks into himself.
Katara doesn’t. She doesn’t absorb things. Not like him. It doesn’t crawl to the bottom of her psyche and stay there, because Katara doesn’t let people bully her. Katara gets in Hahn’s face, her finger jabby and angry. “You want to be angry at someone? Be angry at the Fire Nation. They did this to you. Not us. Aang is doing his best to stop them, and he needs a bending teacher.”
“Your excuses won’t bring my mother back.”
“The Fire Nation killed my mother, too, Hahn, but I don’t--”
Their fight quickly dissolves into something sharp and acidic, but Sokka isn’t paying attention to them anymore. He spent all afternoon looking for bodies, and the distant piece of ice immediately grabs his attention. There are two more bodies, clinging to a floating piece of ice, still and badly sunburnt.
Fire Nation.
Sokka vaguely recognizes the old man, but the kid next to him, with the massive scar taking up the left side of his revealed face--yeah, that’s a little harder to miss.
The icy terror that crashes through him sends Sokka scrambling up to his feet. Zuko took Aang. He took Aang in the middle of a fight, and he didn’t care and he fought them and he burned Katara and he chased them all over the world and no matter how much Sokka pretends not to care, Zuko is a monster and Sokka is terrified of him.
“Spirits,” Sokka breathes. His voice is strangled.
The ice patch is getting closer, the tide bringing it to the dock. Sokka is given yet another reason to hate the Moon forever.
“Guys,” Sokka says. Katara and Hahn ignore him, still going at it. “ Guys !” Sokka reaches back, patting open air until he gets a fistfull of Katara’s clothing and yanks on it. Katara makes a disgruntled noise, but finally looks back.
Sokka points. Then points harder.
“Is that--?” Katara starts to ask.
“Prince Zuko.” Hahn sounds far more delighted than this situation calls for. “Is he dead?” That, too, is said with hope. It’s hard to tell from this distance, but neither Zuko nor the old man are moving. That doesn’t mean they’re not breathing. There’s just no wiggling.
Spirits, please let them be dead.
They found Admiral Zhao’s body this morning, mangled and disfigured, but ultimately still recognizable. Sokka isn’t afraid to admit he felt some relief and even a little joy at the sight. This...isn’t like that. Sokka is frozen and nausea is making his throat burn.
Hahn brushes past him toward the edge of the dock. “I think they’re alive,” he announces after studying them. Sokka’s chest sinks. Hahn looks back, “Waterbend them to the edge of the dock, Kapara.”
Sokka’s teeth grit.
“ What! ?” Katara snaps. “Are you insane?!”
“Just leave them out there to drown,” Sokka suggests, forcing something light into his voice, even though he’s deathly serious. “Makes life easier for all of us. No more Zuko, no more Zhao, no one chasing the Avatar anymore. Win-win.”
Hahn looks between them like they’re some of the stupidest people he’s ever been forced to witness. “Do you not understand the opportunity we have here? That’s the crown prince of the Fire Nation. He’ll have information about battle strategies, the capital city, the Firelord --he’s a treasure trove about the Fire Nation. Cheif Arnook will want to interrogate him.”
Sokka can’t help the derisive snort. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but I doubt Zuko is going to be much help. He’s got a one track mind. If it doesn’t have to do with hunting down the Avatar, I doubt he’s retained it. I don’t even think he eats food.”
Hahn rolls his eyes. “Waterbend them closer, girl.”
Sokka’s jaw is beginning to hurt from how tightly he’s clenching his teeth together. “My sister’s name is Katara.”
“Yes, yes, that’s what I said. Kamara. Now, before we lose them.” Hahn snaps, not looking back at them. Katara looks at Sokka for direction. Sokka has no idea what to tell her, and his breath catches. His mouth moves for a moment, and he looks over at Zuko again, trying to think.
Leaving Zuko to die is his first instinct. Turning around and pretending he didn’t see is his second. He would have done that-- gladly-- in the blizzard, but Aang had to kick around stupid morals.
Aang and Katara are good. They’re good in a way that Sokka never can be. He’s not a good man, he’s not a good soldier, he’s just a desperate kid willing to bloody his hands if it means his family is safe. And Zuko dead? Well, that keeps his family safe.
But Hahn is right. Even if Zuko is Zuko, he has to have some information about the Fire Nation, right? If anything, he lived there, so he might be able to draw them a map or something. That’s more information than they’ve had in a long time. And wars are won by who has whose maps, so it wouldn’t be for nothing.
Zuko will probably have something, and they need something --anything, really--that will help them with this fight. Aang alone isn’t going to be enough. The fiasco of the last few days proved that.
Sokka gives Katara a very slight nod. His sister, always so trusting even though Sokka doesn’t deserve a fourth of it, nods back and raises her hands. It only takes her a few hand movements before Zuko and the older man’s ice block are bumping against the edge of the dock.
Between Sokka and Hahn, they manage to pull both onto the dock. Zuko looks horrible, his skin burned badly from exposure to the sun. There’s yellowing bruises on his face and cuts that look well over a week old scattered across his pale skin. They must have been deep to still look this awful. A nasty burn along his jawline makes Sokka wince.
The old man is barely breathing, and his skin is also sun-burned where it’s not hidden beneath thick robes. He went after Admiral Zhao, didn’t he? This is the guy that was really against the spirits being killed. Which means nothing. In a lifetime of evil, not wanting to kill the Moon doesn’t give him bonus points.
Spirits, he’s familiar. Sokka knows his name. He’s seen him in Fire Nation propaganda before. Somewhere.
Much to Sokka’s private disappointment, both are breathing and have a pulse.
“They’re alive. Yay. Now what?” Sokka asks, looking at Hahn.
Hahn’s eyes are dark. “Now we get them to the chief.”
Sokka sighs. “You better hope Arnook wants something to do with them, because I’m going to be pissed if I had to drag them to the palace only to get a no thanks.”
000o000
Chief Arnook does, in fact, want something to do with Zuko, so Sokka doesn’t have to be pissed. There’s anger in the chief’s eyes that Sokka recognizes from Dad. A fierce protectiveness and a desire to hurt. Dad never would have left them if he didn’t think hurting the Fire Nation was more important than they were, and Sokka understands that. Sort of. He knows what it feels like to be angry enough at the Fire Nation to want to break it, at least.
“Get them both to the lower dungeons with the other soldiers,” Chief Arnook’s voice is cold. “And put them on ice. It’s been a long time since we’ve faced the Fire Nation, but we haven’t forgotten how to hold fire benders yet.”
For the first time, Sokka wonders where the old fire bender armor came from.
Zuko and the older man haven’t woken up yet, slumped between guards like two lifeless puppets, hands chained behind their backs. They look dead. Really dead. Sokka doesn’t let it bother him. As they’re dragged away, he notices that the older man’s arm is bent at a weird angle. Sokka promptly discards this information as unimportant.
“What are you going to do with them?” Katara asks.
Chief Arnook’s expression is grave. “Whatever I have to. The destruction they leveled on Agna Qel’a can’t go unanswered. It’s time that the Northern Water Tribe take a more active part in this war. We need to know if other spirits are under attack, or if this was just the first assault. With Prince Zuko here, we have a rare opportunity. Pakku, send for healers. We can’t interrogate them until they awaken.”
Pakku gives a slight bow before walking off.
“Thank you for bringing them to my attention. You may have given us the key to winning the war.” Chief Arnook says. Hahn gives Sokka a smug look. Sokka scowls at him.
“Of course, I do my best to serve my country,” Hahn nods his head. “We’ll continue to serve our duties to you, my lord.”
Katara manages to go the whole walk back to their rooms without saying anything. Or maybe Sokka does. The point is that it’s quiet. “Zuko didn’t look good,” Katara says, pushing open the door. It’s cold in the room, because of course it is. Can’t exactly leave fires unattended when everything melts.
Sokka hates Agna Qel’a.
“An astute observation,” Sokka assures. “I’m sure that you would look better after floating on a piece of ice for two days with no food or water after being in an enormous battle where the Moon was literally at stake.”
“I’m just saying,” Katara explains with limited patience, “that I hope they’re okay.”
Goodie two-shoes.
“Yeah.” Sokka says without feeling.
“Hope that who is okay?” Aang asks, sitting up on his bed. When they were first shown to the room, Aang had adamantly refused to use any of the animal skins, but the brutal cold of the night had quickly cured him of that notion. Now he’s snuggled in them and it looks weird. This place makes everything weird.
As Katara explains what happened, Sokka digs through their rations for dinner. He has no appetite, but pretends that he does because he’s expected to. Admitting how awful he feels feels marginally illegal at this point. Sokka passes around the food, and then sits down on his bed and engages minimally in the conversation. When Aang asks if he’s okay, Sokka claims exhaustion and says he’s going to bed early.
He curls on his side, arm stuffed under the pillow and tucked inside his coat because it’s never warm here, and tries to pretend that he’s fine. The creeping feeling in his chest doesn’t go away.
Sokka watches his breath plume in the air, listening to Katara and Aang speak quietly for a while. The sounds are numbing, but he tunes back in when he hears his name.
“--he okay? ” Aang is whispering. “You said you’d talk to him.”
“I tried,” Katara sounds disappointed. “Then the Zuko problem happened. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, okay? Before I go to the healers. I think we’re all struggling to make sense of the last couple of days.”
“Yeah,” Aang is uncharastically sober. “I understand.”
Do you? Sokka wonders dully.
Both of them are quiet. “Is he sad about Yue?” Aang asks.
Katara hesitates. “I don’t know. We didn’t talk about that. Probably. He really liked her.”
Yeah. He did. And she ran so far away from him, now she’s literally the Moon. What does that say about him? He’s romantically hopeless, and everyone leaves. Mom. Dad. Yue. Katara will, too, once she realizes that Sokka is just extra baggage they don’t need. He’s waiting for it. Braced and anxious to the point he’s nauseated. He doesn’t want his sister to abandon him, but that feels as inevitable as the sun rising.
Aang is more important to her.
He’s not okay with that.
And Aang doesn’t really care about him. He’s just part of the packaged deal that came with Katara. How long does he have left with them? Months? Days? Will they leave him in the Agna Qel’a when they leave for the Earth Kingdom? How long will he wait for news that his sister is dead? That Aang is dead? (That Dad is dead?)
Sokka squeezes his eyes shut. His tears are warm as they roll down his face.
“I think he loved her,” Aang says. Katara doesn’t have anything to say to that. “Katara,” Aang’s voice is very hesitant and very young. It kicks to life every protective big brother instinct in Sokka’s body to put himself between Aang and whatever is making him that nervous. “Does it ever get better?”
“What?”
“Grief. Is Sokka going to feel better? Because it’s been months since I learned about the air benders and it still hurts so much.” Aang says. “But your mom died a while ago. Do you feel any better about it?”
“Oh, Aang,” Katara releases a soft breath. “It does get easier,” she promises. “You heal. But right now, while it’s still raw, it hurts a lot and that’s okay.”
Sokka releases a shuddering breath.
It hurts so much, Katara. And I can never tell you that. I can’t fall apart in front of you.
The two move on to lighter topics of conversation before finally going to bed. Sokka wakes up the next morning absolutely miserable. Grief is thick in his throat, and his chest is heavy and tight. He makes jokes through breakfast to ward of Katara’s concern and pokes at Aang until the air nomad is a little ready to strangle him, which is good. Business as usual then.
After Aang and Katara leave to help with the clean up, Sokka finds Hahn and climbs back in the boat to help with body pick-up again. It’s no less miserable or depressing than yesterday, and Sokka leaves in a foul mood. He goes back to the dock to beach-mope, but the idea of running across any more fire benders makes the idea sour and he leaves. They only found one living Fire Nation soldier today, which is better than yesterday. The captive count is upward of fifty at this point.
Sokka doesn’t know what Chief Arnook plans to do with the soldiers. The Fire Nation doesn’t trade captives and it doesn’t negotiate. It’s Sokka’s understanding that Fire Nation soldiers are expected to kill themselves if they do get captured rather than face the shame of needing help.
Spirits forbid that happen.
The Fire Nation is so weird.
Zuko, according to Hahn, who supposedly got his information from Pakku, hasn’t woken up, but his companion has. General-Prince Iroh, the Dragon of the West, Lord Ozai’s brother. Because of course. Why not, right? The crown prince and one of the most blood-covered generals in history. Go big or go home, apparently.
Sokka hates his life.
A lot.
He successfully avoids Katara and Aang that night before going to bed, but not his feelings, so Sokka keeps waking up on the edge of nightmares about Yue. And Mom. And Dad. Eventually he finally submits and cries as quietly as he can, face buried into his pillow, and tries not to be bitter about the fact that neither Aang or Katara notice, because that was the point of being quiet in the first place.
He doesn’t think, in the privacy of his mind, that most of those tears were for Yue.
When he wakes up the next morning, the ache in his chest is a little better, but not by much, knotted and ugly, never going away. The days keep going.
The funeral comes and goes eight days after the fight, just as miserable as Sokka imagined it would be. There’s still missing Water Tribe members, unclaimed bodies, and the speech the Chief Arnook gives to console his people is detached and somewhat emotionless. Everyone weeps, but as the funeral prayer is recited and candles lit, Sokka can’t remember the words.
As they’re sitting down for the community mourning dinner, Sokka watches with no small amount of anger as Hahn cries big, ugly fake tears for Yue. Comes with the most perks, circles around his head, over and over again until Sokka finally stabs his fork into his untouched fish and gets to his feet. There’s something slow and methodical building in his chest, slow acting poison, as he storms across the room.
“Hahn!” Sokka shouts, and then when Hahn turns his ugly face, Sokka slams his fist into it.
Bitterness, he realizes. It’s bitterness.
Hahn makes a choked sound, his hip slamming into the table he was standing next to as his hands raise up to his face. “What the hell!?” Hahn exclaims, looking up. His nose is bloody and all Sokka feels is dark satisfaction. “You barbarian !”
“You liar!” Sokka shouts. “You didn’t even love her! Don’t you dare sit here and tell everyone how much you mourn her! You’re mourning the perks!”
Something flares in Hahn’s eyes.
“Sokka!” Katara shouts behind him. Suddenly she’s there, grabbing his arm, trying to pull him back. But Sokka doesn’t let her. He aches and he’s broken in a way that can’t be put back together, and all Sokka wants to do is hurt. He wants something else to ache this badly, to make this go away because Sokka is drowning and he’s never going to get better and Yue left and Mom left and Dad left and Katara and Aang are going to leave and Sokka is going to be alone--
“How dare you--!?” Hahn roars. He leaps, and Sokka meets him.
He barely remembers the fight. He remembers the red haze, and the muscle strain and the hurt, but he doesn’t remember how it ended. He doesn’t feel better when it’s over, but the pain makes him feel more alive, and every shuddering wheeze he gasps as he breathes around bruised ribs feels like it has the potential to help eventually. Pain makes him focus. Makes him sharper. Makes him useful.
For the first time since Yue died, Sokka feels like he’s living in himself.
So, of course, his sister has to come and ruin it.
Katara sits him down on his cot, practically tearing off his coat and then his shirt. “You idiot,” she seethes. Aang lingers behind her, with a disapproving frown. His big eyes are filled with concern. Sokka laughs. He feels sort of tipsy. “What were you thinking ? Were you thinking?”
Sokka shivers as his bare chest is revealed to the world. Katara bends water around her hands and it makes the shimmery-glow of healing as she presses it against his ribs. Sokka releases a soft groan between his bloodied teeth in relief before shoving away her hands. “I don’t want you to fix it.” Sokka growls.
“Yes, you do. Don’t be stupid.” Katara snaps. She reaches for him again.
Sokka shoves her off. “I don’t.”
“What good does this do you?”
“I can think.”
Katara looks disturbed. “You want to be in pain?”
“Yes!” Sokka explodes. “Because at least if I hurt like this, I can feel it! I know it goes away! I know when it’s going to leave me and I can trust it, unlike Mom, and Dad, and Yue, and you!”
Katara stills. Aang looks stuck. Sokka breathes into his hands and moans. He bites his fingers and fidgets, rocking back and forth. The stabbing, sporadic pain of his ribcage makes it hard to think and he’s glad. He’s so glad. His black eye is swelling and he’s crying.
Katara takes a seat next to him on the cot. “Sokka,” her voice is very, very soft. “Me and Aang aren’t going anywhere. We’re not Dad.”
Sokka shakes his head, biting into his palm until he flinches at the pain. Katara takes his hand and covers her fingers over old bite scars.
Dad promised not to go either.
And instead he left Sokka in charge of their entire tribe at thirteen to run away to a war that wasn’t even his. He left them. He didn’t come back. He didn’t write, he didn’t care. The Moon didn’t even let him bury Yue. Sokka gets nothing. He always gets nothing.
Katara releases a soft breath. “Why don’t you let me heal you, and then you can sleep. You’ll feel better, I promise, okay?”
“So I can get arrested tomorrow for assaulting Hahn?” Sokka grumbles.
Katara winces. “No.”
So much to look forward to. But he doesn't fight his sister this time, and she heals his ribs and his face before helping him to bed. Sokka listens to her talk to Aang for a while, but the words blur together into nothingness. Sokka must fall asleep at some point, because he wakes up to Katara’s gasping mewls of panic. A lifetime of reaction has him moving before he even recognizes what he’s doing, and he slides into the cot next to her, wrapping his arms around her.
“It’s okay,” Sokka promises, pressing a soft kiss to her head. One of her hair loopies is tickling his nose, but he doesn’t care. “It’s okay. Just breathe, I’ve got you. I promise. I’ve always got you.”
Katara shakes and cries silently in his arms, burying her face into his shoulder. “She was dead,” Katara whispers, “and I couldn’t do anything. Oh, spirits, what they did to her face, Sokka…”
His name is more of a moan than a word.
“I know,” Sokka soothes. He barely remembers Mom’s face anymore, but he’s heard Katara describe her corpse so many times that when he thinks about Mom, that’s the image that comes to mind.
Katara cries herself back to sleep, pressed as close to his body for protection as she can get, and Sokka rests his chin on top of her head and tries not to think about how small his sister is. The coats and furs hide it, but underneath, Katara is still a tiny, bony girl half-starved despite Sokka’s best efforts. A few minutes later, Aang wordlessly shows up at the bedside, something pleading in his gaze.
Sokka sighs and lifts up the furs to invite Aang inside. The kid looks relieved, and scrambles under the blankets to squeeze himself in on Sokka’s other side. This, of course, takes a great deal of knee jamming and elbow ramming before he settles, because Aang can never do anything smoothly. Sokka grumbles and complains, but in truth he’s grateful to feel the kid breathing against his spine. Momo settles down on Aang’s stomach and seems perfectly content to stay there forever.
This is how the guards find them the next morning, cuddling like they’re a bunch of five-year-olds. Sokka absolutely does not squeal like a girl when they grab his shoulder to wake him, nearly taking out one’s eye with his boomerang, which he feels kind of bad about. Aang and Katara jerk upwards at Sokka’s yelp, and Katara is trying to bend before her half-asleep brain catches up with her.
“What are you doing trying to sneak up on us like that!?” Sokka shouts. “Can’t you see we’re all highly trained warriors of combat!? We could have killed you!”
Momo takes that moment to crawl on top of Sokka’s head, purring, which does not help his point, but is warm and cute. Sokka pulls the lemur off and sets him on the ground. Momo climbs back up Sokka’s leg immediately and Sokka gives up entirely on life.
“Am I being arrested?” Sokka decides to just get this over with. Aang and Katara will stage a jailbreak and then they’ll leave. They’ve really only stayed this long to help with the clean up, but now they really need to find King Bumi.
“No. Master Pakku has requested Katara’s presence in the dungeons,” one of the guards explains. Sokka looks toward the window and tries to determine what time it is. Too early for this. Is the sun even up?
“ Why ?” Katara groans, rubbing at her face.
“He didn’t say.”
Aang flops his face back into the pillow. Sokka pokes him until Aang swats at him. The other guard watches this entire exchange with judgy eyes, “He has been with Prince Zuko for several hours.”
Oh.
Right.
Sokka had successfully managed to banish Zuko from his mind almost entirely. After Zuko woke up--six, seven days ago?--he heard almost nothing about him from other Water Tribe members. Sokka didn’t care if that was a good sign or not. It was too much effort to care.
Sokka’s bad mood sours into something much worse. Great. Just great. Fantastic, really. Sure. Put the psycho and Sokka’s baby sister together. No way that could go wrong. Katara is still a little bruised and burned from her fight with Zuko a week ago. They don’t need round two.
“Okay.” Katara sits up, rubbing a hand through her messy hair. Sokka swears under his breath and gets up as well. Aang is annoyingly chipper and practically bounces out of bed to follow after the guards, because he’s still at the age where being awake is exciting.
“Master Pakku only wanted Master Katara.” The other guard says stiffly.
All of them stop moving.
“They’re coming too,” Katara says.
“Master Pakku was very clear. Only you.” The first guard’s voice holds a warning.
Katara lifts up her chin. “I’m not going if they aren’t.”
The guard sets his teeth, but stops arguing. Smart guy.
The guards speak minimally as they direct them through the halls to the dungeon, and then the lower levels beneath that. It’s cold and windowless, leaving the long halls dark and claustrophobic. It makes Sokka feel like he’s being eaten and digested by a large animal slowly. The guards' torches are barely enough to see by.
“Nice place,” Sokka remarks dryly. “I can tell a lot of effort was put into the design. It’s got lots of natural lighting. Really helps bring out the corners.”
“Yeah, it’s um.” Aang clearly can’t think of anything. “...Dark.”
“Needs work.” Sokka tells him.
They stop a cell. It’s made of metal, which surprises Sokka, because everything in Agna Qel’a seems to be made out of ice. The guard yanks the door open and somehow, the temperature inside is even colder than the hall. Sokka wraps his arms around himself and swears with enough force he can feel Aang’s disapproving scowl through the darkness.
“Ah, Katara,” Pakku’s smile is small but genuine. He’s holding some sort of lantern that has some sort of glowing, bioluminescent fish inside, bobbing up and down. No fire, Sokka realizes. The lantern casts long, thick shadows across the room, but offers enough light to see by. There’s several other benders--guards, maybe? Soldiers?--in the room, and Chief Arnook, who is scowling at Sokka and Aang.
“I said you were to bring her alone,” Chief Arnook snaps. “This is a very delicate process.”
“It’s alright,” Pakku soothes. “It doesn’t change anything.”
“ Doesn’t it!?”
“Change what? What’s going on?” Katara asks, then, “What is that sound?”
It’s like…a rattling. Like metal rattling, if metal breathed and was trying breathing through wet fur.
Pakku’s grimace tells a story. He moves to the side. It takes Sokka several long seconds to recognize the crumpled, bloody figure as Prince Zuko, but when he does, he feels all the blood drain from his face. Zuko’s eyes reflect light weirdly, like a cat, and it’s disconcerting. All Sokka can see in them is glazed desperation. He’s clearly been beaten, and several times if the varying ages of bruises are anything to go by. All Zuko is wearing is a thin pair of trousers, his bare feet exposed to the frosted metal of the floor. He’s shacked to the wall by his wrists, the floor by his left ankle, and his head has been completely shaved, leaving patches of itchy new hair growth.
That, for some reason, bothers Sokka more than the bruises and blood.
The sound, unmistakably, is Zuko--trying to breathe. He’s shivering and shaking in the chains, dragging in gasping rasps through a dirty gag and broken ribs. If Zuko recognizes them at all, Sokka can’t tell. He looks at them, but what he actually sees is anyone’s guess.
Aang makes a very soft, mewling sound behind Sokka that has him reaching out for the air bender on instinct. Aang’s smaller hand clasps his and doesn’t let go. Katara flinches. Hard. “What is this? What’s going on? I don’t understand.”
“An interrogation, Katara,” Chief Arnook explains, his voice flat, “My only child didn’t give her life so the Fire Nation could beat us anyway.”
Sokka’s mouth is dry.
“Why am I here?” Katara sounds nauseous.
“I’m sorry, Katara.” Pakku says, and there’s real sympathy and regret in his eyes and voice. “You’re just a child. You should never be involved in this, but you’re one of the best water benders I have ever had the pleasure to teach, and I need your help.”
“With what ?”
A particularly rough shiver draws a faint sound from Zuko.
Sokka can’t think. Can’t feel. Can’t anything .
“Despite our best efforts, Prince Zuko has given little information,” Pakku explains. “Chief Arnook said that when they were alone together a few days ago, Prince Zuko threatened a more devastating attack is coming on Agna Qel’a, and we’ve been trying to get answers so we can prepare. Despite my reservations, Arnook has encouraged me to bring you into this. Katara, you’re here because I’m going to teach you how to torture with waterbending, and then you’re going to help me get answers out of Prince Zuko.”