Chapter 5
Katara’s Monday morning alarm went off at 6:45. She sat up, yawned, stretched, rubbed her eyes, and screamed. Sokka was perched on the foot of her bed. He had been watching her sleep for the past five minutes.
“Look, you can see it better in this video!” He shoved his phone in Katara’s face. She pushed it away.
“Sokka!”
“He’s limping! Look!”
Katara rolled her eyes and took the phone. It was another video of the Blue Spirit, though the camera was shaking too much to properly see him or much of anything.
“I don’t see a limp.”
“Look!” Sokka paused the video and zoomed in on a blurry clump. “He’s angled behind Jet so it's hard to tell, but watch his feet.” Sokka played the video. “See! He’s limping!”
“Ok, so he’s limping! Just because he and Zuko both had limps on the same day doesn’t mean that Zuko’s the blue spirit.”
“It’s not just that! Zuko was near Appa when it happened, the sandbending academy is only a thirty minute drive from the fundraiser at--”
“Won Shu Tong’s library, I know. You’ve talked about this all weekend, can you give it a rest?” Katara scooted out of bed and dragged her feet on the way to her dresser. Sokka stood and paced her spotless bedroom floor.
“Don’t you get it? Zuko’s in trouble. I mean, it’s cool that he wants to stand up to his dad and all that. It’s really cool. Cool and brave and pretty admirable... But we all saw what happened when Zuko spoke out of turn. Speaking out of turn! That’s practically nothing! I speak out of turn all the time!”
“No kidding.”
“Half of his face burnt to a crisp for speaking out of turn. Imagine what Ozai would do if he found out that his son was trending as the fire nation’s biggest enemy! He'll probably kill him!”
“It’s not Zuko!” Katara walked past Sokka and headed for the bathroom. Sokka followed and continued talking through the door when she closed it in his face.
“Look, you know I’m all about facts and reason. I don’t believe in all of that voodoo-horoscope-magic-fortune-telling crap that you and Aang are always eating up.”
“Aang and I got our palms read one time at a fair, Sokka--”
“But right now, I just have this gut feeling. Call it an instinct.”
Katara groaned as she flung open the door, nearly hitting Sokka in the forehead. “There are pictures of Zuko studying in the library while the Blue Spirit was recusing Appa. Can your instinct explain that?”
“Those pictures feel weird. It’s just the back of his head, it could be someone in a wig, or someone with his same hairstyle. And how do we know when those pictures were taken?”
“There’s a time stamp on them.”
“It could be edited!” Sokka followed Katara down the stairs and into the kitchen. “And we don’t know the exact time the Blue Spirit got to Appa. Everyone is basing everything off of estimates. They say it takes around six hours to get from the desert to the air temple, but Appa’s a decently fast flyer when he wants to be, and he was probably all amped up on adrenaline after being bison-napped.”
“He’s still talking about this?” Hakoda spoke from behind a mug of coffee. Katara nodded miserably.
Sokka grabbed a box of poptarts. “The pictures of Zuko were supposedly taken at 2:37, and Appa landed in the air temple at 9:52. That leaves so much wiggle room! Do you want one?” Sokka held two poptarts up in offering. Katara nodded. He stuck them in the toaster. “And I know the sandbenders said in their testimonies that the Blue Spirit was seen flying away on Appa’s back at 2:35, but why are we trusting them? They’re the ones who stole Appa in the first place!”
“It’s too early for this,” Katara groaned. Hakoda offered her a mug for coffee.
“I know I’m right. I’ll prove it.”
“The whole point of the Blue Spirit is that the identity is a mystery. Even if it was Zuko, which it isn’t, he wouldn’t tell you if you asked.”
“I’m not going to ask. I’m going to catch him in the act.”
“What act?”
“I don’t know, the act of blue-spiriting. I’ll think of something.”
“Can you think of something else to talk about? Please?”
Sokka didn’t. He talked about it all through breakfast. He was still talking about it when he and Katara climbed onto Appa’s saddle.
“Whatcha talking about?” Aang asked over his shoulder. He gave Appa’s reins a gentle shake and said “Yip yip!”
Katara leaned against the side of the saddle and crossed her arms. “Please don’t get him started.”
“Zuko is the Blue Spirit!”
“And, you got him started…”
Toph smirked. “That’d be kinda cool. If I were a crooked politician’s kid, I’d do the same thing.”
Aang frowned, his brows furrowed. “Weren’t there pictures of Zuko taken when the sandbenders said they saw the Blue Spirit flying away?”
Katara pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is my life now, isn’t it?”
“They were pictures of the back of his head!” Sokka gestured wildly as he spoke. “That’s the exact angle you’d want to be shot from if you were trying to hide something!”
“So what are you going to do?” Toph sat up. “Are you going to ask him? Can I come? Zuko does the funniest thing with his voice when he’s surprised.”
“He’s not going to ask him.” Katara gave her brother a very pointed look. “He’s going to catch him in the act.”
Aang climbed on the saddle, leaving Appa on auto-pilot. “The act of what?”
“The act of blue-spiriting. His words, not mine.”
“I’m going to prove this to you, Katara.” Sokka pulled his phone out of his back pocket. “Today. At lunch. We’re finally putting the extra chair at our table to use.”
“Actually, I was hoping we could eat lunch outside in the barn.” Aang reached down to run a hand through Appa’s fur. “I wanna keep my eyes on Appa as much as possible.”
“Even better!” Sokka pumped his fist. “Get him away from the big crowds. Seclude him.”
Katara scoffed. “What, are you gonna jump him?”
“Ooo!” Toph perked up. “You’ve gotta let me come for that!”
Sokka sent a have lunch with us text before Katara could try to stop him. Zuko replied about five minutes later. ”Sure"
Sokka grinned. It was so on.
The morning classes seemed to drag with unusual slowness. Sokka kept his eyes on the clock. He had a plan. It was probably going to make him seem weird and slightly creepy in the moment, but it would all be worth it when he proved that Zuko was the Blue Spirit.
When the bell finally dismissed them for lunch, Sokka found Zuko standing with his tray by their usual table. He eyed Sokka warily. “Nobody’s here.”
“Figure that one out all by yourself, didcha?” Sokka nudged Zuko’s shoulder. He received a look that could disintegrate the four nations into a mushroom cloud of smoke. “Uh, we’re eating lunch outside today. Come’on.”
Zuko didn’t ask questions until they were standing in the doorway of the barn. “We’re eating lunch in a litter box?”
“Not a litter box this time. No sandbenders in sight.” Sokka watched Zuko carefully, looking for even a hint of reaction at the mention of sandbenders. “Just a barn.”
Katara was the one giving Sokka dangerous looks when he walked into the stall with Zuko at his side. Toph was snickering under her long bangs. Aang walked right up to them with a smile on his face.
“Hi, Zuko!”
Zuko raised his hand in an awkward little wave.
Appa stirred from the spot he had settled. He shuffled the short distance from the barn wall to Zuko, looked him over for a moment, roared, and then licked him so aggressively it sent him stumbling a few steps to the side. Aang’s eyebrows shot up.
“Appa seems to like you.” Sokka’s voice was a notch louder than it needed to be.
Katara spoke with a razors edge in her tone. “Appa likes everyone.”
Aang’s eyes traveled between Katara and Sokka. He cleared his throat. “So Zuko, what’d you bring for lunch?”
“Uh… Cafeteria food?”
“Cafeteria food! Ah-ha ha! Classic Zuko, classic Zuko.” Sokka flung an arm around Zuko’s shoulders and wiped at his eye. “I love this guy! Can’t get enough of him, I tell ya. Hey, Zuko, you should hang out with us after school! Can you do that? You don’t have any plans, do you?”
Zuko looked stricken. “...No, I don’t.”
“So it’s settled. Can you hang out today?”
“Yes.”
“Can you hang out tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Can you hang out on wednesday?”
Something changed in Zuko. A look in his eye. A jolt in his shoulders. A blip in his rhythm of calm. Gotcha.
“No.”
“Oh? How come?”
“I have… A thing.”
“What kind of thing?”
“You don’t have to answer that, Zuko.” Katara mouthed something rude at her brother.
“Is it a personal thing? A private thing? Maybe even a secret thing?”
“Mmm, this lunch is really good!” Aang said, though he hadn’t taken a bite yet.
Zuko looked at Sokka for a long moment in a way that made him think he was about to say something. Instead, he got started on his lunch. He didn’t partake in conversation much. He only really talked when he was addressed directly, but he stayed until lunch was over.
As they all walked back towards the school building, Katara pulled Sokka aside.
“What are you doing?”
“I told you, I have a plan.” He tried to wave her off.
“He’s going to be hanging out with us after school today and tomorrow. We barely know him. You got a plan for that?”
“Of course I do!” It was a lie. Sokka had no idea what to do with Zuko after school, but he would think of something. And then, he would prove to everyone that he was the blue spirit. And then they would get Zuko out of this mess.
Azula rarely asked for advice. She rarely needed it, though even when she did, she still usually wouldn’t ask. Maybe that’s why the night before last year’s homecoming dance stuck out so vividly in Zuko’s brain.
They were at Mai’s. The credits to some cheesy love story that only Ty Lee had wanted to watch were rolling across the flat screened TV. Mai was actually asleep, and Zuko was pretending to be.
Ty Lee sniffed. “Gosh, that was beautiful. Did you love it?”
Zuko heard Azula’s silken pajama set glide across her skin in a shrug. “It was fine.”
“Fine!? It was heartbreaking and emotional and perfect!”
“It wasn’t real life.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a movie. Nobody’s life is actually like that.”
“That’s not true! Love can be just as beautiful in real life as it is in the movies, you just have to find the right one to love.”
“It’s not just the love. It’s everything. The dialogue, the plot… Nobody can hit it off the way that they do. They just see each other and boom, it’s off to the races. That doesn’t actually happen.”
“Sure it does!”
Azula scoffed. “Maybe for you.”
“It could happen for you too! You’re the most beautiful and smart and amazing girl in the fire nation. Probably the whole world!”
(Yeah, maybe Mai had a point about it being obvious.<\i>)
“I can never get boys… interested, you know? They always act like I’m about to do something terrible to them.” There was a pause. “How do you do it? Everyone who’s ever met you wants to see you again. You’re the girl in the movie.”
“It’s easy to be the girl in the movie! All you have to do is smile a lot and laugh at everything that people say, even if it’s not funny.”
Perhaps it was a coincidence that some meathead named Chad asked Azula to the homecoming dance the next day, but Zuko didn’t think so. Ty Lee’s stupid strategy actually worked. That was what people who wanted to reenact a love story did. A human mating dance. Or, flirting, as it was more commonly referred to.
Whatever it was, Sokka was doing it.
The invitation to hang out. The physical contact. The laughing at things that weren’t even meant to be funny. Zuko could see Ty Lee bouncing up and down in his head. He could hear her squealing. “He likes you! He likes you!”
Sokka liking him. Sokka. Liking. Him. It sent Zuko’s blood to his cheeks and his heartbeat to his ears.
No. He was probably wrong about this whole thing. It was probably a pity invite, a pity laugh, a pity arm slung over his shoulders. What would Sokka even see in him? He basically had a hunk of meat over his eye.
But what if it wasn’t pity?
Zuko decided not to make any assumptions. He would see how this evening went. No assumptions. Zuko kept the mantra looping in his head throughout the day. He sat at his desk and pretended to pay attention: no assumptions. He walked between classes: no assumptions. The bell sung at the end of last period: no assumptions. Sokka was walking towards him through the swarm of backpacks, a friendly smile lighting his face…
“Look,” Zuko said the moment he was within earshot. “I don’t know if you have community service hours you have to make up or something, but you can forget it. I don’t want anyone's pity.”
Sokka tilted his head to the side. “You’re the most insecure person I’ve ever met.”
Zuko’s face ignited in red, whether it was with anger or embarrassment he didn’t know. “That’s not true! I’m as proud as ever!”
Sokka raised an eyebrow. “Then why’d you assume I only wanted to hang with you out of pity? Proud people don’t think like that.”
Zuko clenched his fists. If he could get through this evening without giving Sokka third degree burns, he would be proud of himself.
“Where are we going?” Zuko growled. Sokka beamed and started down the hallway, gesturing for Zuko to follow.
“We usually switch off between houses. Today, I think we’re gonna head back to Katara and mine.”
“Okay.”
Appa was in the barn where they had left him. Aang, Katara, and Toph were already waiting on his back. They greeted Zuko awkwardly.
“To yours?” Aang asked Katara over his shoulder. She nodded. Aang shook the Appa’s reins and said “Yip yip!”
Zuko fought the urge to glower visibly. It would have been very useful on Saturday to know that Appa responded to “yip yip.” He had remembered Aang shouting something at Appa when he flew them to the party, but he couldn’t remember exactly what it was. All he had remembered was it was two small words that started with Y. He was on the bison’s head shouting ridiculous things like “yum yum! yee yee! yeah yeah!” for almost five minutes before guessing it right.
“Whatcha thinking about?” Sokka’s ponytail drifted in the breeze. He was looking right at Zuko. His eyes looked particularly bright up here in the sky, with an empty canvas of blue as a backdrop.
Zuko looked away. “Nothing.”
When Appa landed in the driveway of a small blue house with white painted shutters, Zuko’s heart picked up. He had spent so long looking at Sokka and his group as the epitome of happiness. He always imagined that when they went home, they were greeted with an ensemble of utensils that danced and sang like a Disney movie. He was about to find out what it was really like. The realization kept him glued to Appa’s saddle longer than everyone else.
It was Sokka who called him down. “You comin’?” Zuko nodded and scooted off the bison.
Upon walking through the front door, Zuko found that despite the fact that there weren’t utensils dancing and singing, it was still a pretty cute house. The decor had a blue color scheme, though it wasn’t a strict commitment. There were greens and grays and purples and even yellows scattered throughout. The refrigerator had drawings tacked with magnets on both doors. Framed pictures of Sokka and Katara dappled the walls. It was all so docile. It made Zuko feel warm and safe and the opposite of what his father's house made him feel.
Toph flopped on a blue couch and put a green pillow over her head. “I’m gonna take a nap, see you guys in an hour or two.”
“I’m gonna go work on homework.” Katara looked at Aang. “You wanna join?”
Aang brightened. “Sure! Can we do it outside? With Appa?”
“I don’t see why not.”
They left the way they had come, leaving Zuko and Sokka alone with an already snoring Toph.
Sokka crossed his arms and smirked. “What nerds.”
Zuko looked at him. He knew for a fact that Sokka got good grades. Great grades, actually. He was one of the top students in their class. “Do you not do homework?”
Sokka’s smirk withered to a shy grin. “I already finished it. Come’on.” Sokka led Zuko up a staircase tucked away in the corner. They walked down a hall and stopped in front of a wooden door. Sokka took the handle and whisked it open. “Welcome to the most important room in the house: my room!”
Zuko stepped inside and looked around. It wasn’t as messy as most teenage boys kept their living spaces, but it was a far cry from clean. The bed was unmade, the pillow was pushed towards and center of the comforter, the shudders were half closed and the desk definitely didn’t have an organizational system. But that wasn’t unexpected. What drew Zuko’s attention most was the framed object above Sokka’s bed. It looked sort of like a sharp L.
“That’s a boomerang,” Sokka said, noticing Zuko’s stare. “It was used by a warrior from the Southen Water Tribe. Isn’t that cool?”
“Why do you have it?”
“It’s a family artifact, passed down through generations and all that. I thought it was cooler than Katara did, so Dad gave it to me. Katara got a necklace.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Sokka kicked at the floor. “You play video games?”
“No.”
Sokka moved to his desk and opened a drawer. He pulled out two controllers and a stack of games. “Pick a game, any game.”
“I just said I don’t play video games.”
“That’s alright. Either you’ll impress me by learning quickly, or I’ll get to kick your ass. It’s a win win.”
Zuko picked the top game in the stack. This couldn’t be too hard. He had never played a video game before, but his competitive nature and spite would surely be enough to beat Sokka.
It wasn’t. Sokka pummeled him in a wrestling game, drove circles around him in a racing game, and obliterated all three of his lives with one strike in a combat game.
Zuko groaned when Sokka ejected the combat game’s disk and reached for another. “Is three hundred victories not enough for you?”
“No amount of victories are enough for me.” There was laughter behind Sokka’s voice. “One more. You’ll like this one.”
“You said that last time.”
“It’s a team game. We work together.” He injected the disk. “Just try it.”
The game was called The Boiling Rock. It started with a menu of characters. Sokka picked The Fearsome Warrior. Zuko picked The Banished Traidor.
“Interesting character choice.” Sokka was watching Zuko very carefully. He shrugged.
“I liked the outfit.”
The game's objective was to break their friends out of a prison. They got to pick two special abilities for their characters. Sokka picked agility and sword fighting. Zuko picked strength and firebending.
“Very creative,” Sokka teased
“At least I’m not daring to dream.”
“Hey!”
“Can you sword fight?”
“...No, but I am very agile!”
“Mm-hmm.”
The game was actually fun. They had to fight guards and go undercover and befriend the prisoners. It sort of felt like they were actually at the prison. They talked like they were there, yelling when things got intense and whispering when they were supposed to be sneaking around. Katara’s knock was a harsh pull back to the real world.
“You guys have been in here for hours, do you want some dinner?”
Zuko jolted. The sliver of visible window was black beneath the shudders. It hadn’t felt like they'd been playing as long as they had. It had barely felt like half an hour.
“No wonder my father never let me play these things.” Zuko set his controller down. “They waste time.”
“Hey, if you’re having fun, it’s not a waste of time.” Sokka saved the game and smiled sideways at Zuko. “We’ll finish tomorrow. Let’s eat.”
Zuko sat between Sokka and Toph at a small round table in the kitchen. They wolfed down pizza and talked. Zuko found it hard to keep up, they were all so lively and excited. They laughed a lot. Zuko caught himself almost laughing a few times as well. They were funny.
Sokka was the funniest.
Zuko’s alarm didn’t wake him the next morning. He had been too busy thinking to sleep. He maintained this deep state of thought as he got dressed and brushed his teeth and was escorted by Ozai’s staff member to the mansion out the front door with Azula at his side.
Zuko was hoping that Azula would ask why he hadn’t sat with them at lunch yesterday, and why he didn’t pass through the house until late. He actually wanted to tell Azula about the lunch and the video games and Sokka’s sort of messy room and his sort of funny jokes. He wanted to know what she thought of all this. But she didn’t speak to him. She didn’t even look at her phone like she usually did in the mornings. She just stared out the window, looking almost as lost in thought as he was.
At lunchtime, Zuko started heading down to the barn without really thinking. He paused in the doorway, realizing he hadn’t been formally invited. He was about to turn around and walk back to the cafeteria when a hand was placed on his shoulder.
“Whatcha doing? I told you, it’s not a litter box. Come’on.”
Sokka led Zuko inside, a casual hand on his shoulder the whole time. Zuko couldn’t explain why it made his stomach flutter.
After school, they went to Toph’s. Her game set was much bigger than Sokka’s. Everyone started out scattered, but as the hours passed, they had all gathered around the huge screen. The night ended with everyone yelling different instructions.
“Punch the warden!”
“Scale the wall!”
“You have to go undercover again!”
“Sokka, you’re on the wrong level, the courtyard is one floor down!”
“Zuko, stop talking to that guard! He’s getting suspicious!”
Zuko didn’t call the car that he told everyone was an Uber but was actually Ozai’s staff member until they had beaten the game. He walked through his father’s doors half past eleven, and didn’t get back to the Jasmine Dragon until midnight. Uncle was sitting at the head of one of the rectangular tables. A candle barely lit his concerned features.
“I tried to call you. You’ve been gone for hours, I was worried.”
“Sorry.”
“Is everything alright?”
“Everything’s fine. I was just hanging out with… people.”
“Ah.” Uncle raised a brow. “Good, good. Friendship is an essential joy of life.”
“They aren’t my friends,” Zuko snapped. But maybe they were. Or maybe they could be.
Zuko fell asleep with a funny lightness in his chest.
On Wednesday, Zuko had lunch in the barn again. He was getting a little more comfortable with the gang. He even participated in the conversation twice, which was double as many times as he had during yesterday’s lunch. It was nice. But he didn’t go back to one of their houses after school. He couldn’t.
He had his first meeting with Jet.
“This is a terrible plan.”
“Shh!”
“This would look less creepy if we were flying normally.”
“Less talking, more bending!” Sokka squinted against the mist, bent into a cloud shape around Appa by Katara and Aang. “There. That rectangular building, that’s the library. We’re still above him.”
“How do you know where he is?”
“He’s on the bus. We’re following bus route B.”
“How did you know which bus route Zuko is—-“
“Less talking, more bending!” Sokka looked at his map and then looked forward. “That taller shape in the distance is the next stop. Aang, when we’re next to it you need to head back out and see who gets off.”
Aang used his glider to exit the cloud as Appa flew past the gray silhouette. He returned a minute later. “Just some school girls and an old man.”
“Ok, keep forward.”
It continued like that for almost twenty minutes. Sokka was getting concerned they had somehow missed Zuko until about five stops down the line. Aang flew back in and landed with vigor.
“He got off!”
“Alright!” Sokka’s heart was pounding. He looked at the map. They were sandwiched between a pharmacy and a grocery store. He had circled the pharmacy’s parking lot in red ink. The key he had drawn in the corner reminded that rink circles meant large enough to fit Appa. Aang could station him there while the rest of the group followed Zuko from a safe and hidden distance.
The execution turned out to be easier than that. Toph was able to feel that Zuko had walked directly into the Pharmacy’s parking lot and gotten into the passenger seat of a car parked in the corner. Aang flew overhead and reported that the car didn’t drive away, it just stayed there with the engine running. They landed Appa in the opposite corner.
Sokka slid down Appa’s tail. “Keep close to me,” he whispered.
Katara rolled her eyes. “This isn’t a heist, Sokka.”
“Shh!”
Sokka led them in a weaving motion around the other cars. He hoped it wasn’t too obvious that he was stalling. This part of the plan was the most simple on paper, being the part where he proved that Zuko was the Blue Spirit. But now that he was here, in the corner of some sketchy parking lot just like he had pictured, he had no idea what to do. All he knew was that he had run out of things to weave around. They stood behind the car, heat touching their faces from the exhaust pipe. Sokka looked over his shoulder. Everyone was staring at him.
With a deep breath, Sokka marched up to the car and knocked on the passenger’s window.
The window was tinted, but Sokka could make out Zuko’s face. There was a pause before the door flung open.
“What are you doing here!?” Zuko’s tone was dark and angry. The driver’s door opened too, and oh, this was both so much better and worse than Sokka could have planned.
“Jet.” Katara’s voice was an icy growl. Jet looked like he wanted to slip back into the car and drive away. Instead, he looked at Zuko.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.”
“You two know each other?” Aang gestured from Zuko to Jet with his staff.
“No!” Zuko’s tone was edging in panic. “This is… Our… First time meeting.”
Toph spit. “I can tell you’re lying.”
“Everyone can tell he’s lying.” Sokka pointed at Zuko, extending his whole arm for the dramatic flair. “He’s the Blue Spirit!”
Zuko’s eyes grew wide. “What? No! Don’t be ridiculous, of course I’m not!”
Everyone looked at Toph. She tilted her head before nodding. “Yup, he’s lying.”
Katara rounded on Jet, her eyes narrowed and blazing like a blue forest fire. “What sort of psychotic mind game did you pull this time?”
Jet held his hands up, taking a step back. “I didn’t do anything!”
“You expect me to believe that? After all you’ve done?”
“It was Zuko’s idea!”
“How stupid do you think we—“
“He’s telling the truth.” Zuko spoke with his chin down. His voice was low and detached. “I approached Jet. I needed help with freeing the bison. He wanted something in return, so I came up with this.”
Aang looked at Toph. “Is he lying?”
She shook her head.
The silence that fell was unbearable. Though Sokka loved being right, he couldn’t deny the part of him that had hoped he was wrong for once. His eyes found their way to Zuko’s scar. The risk he was taking with this, the danger he was putting himself in…
“What are you doing?” Sokka wanted it to come out rough or accusatory or even judgmental. It just sounded concerned. “Do you know what you’re risking?”
“Of course I do.” Zuko’s tone had a bite. He glared at Sokka. “But you don’t. Don’t act like you know what I go through, what it’s like. If this got out… Of course I know what I’m risking.”
“Then why?”
Zuko opened his mouth and closed it. He cleared his throat. “I needed help with freeing the bison.”
A second unbearable silence fell, which Jet of all people decided to break. “Well, this meeting has been informative, despite the interruptions.” His glare fell to Sokka for a few seconds. He looked back at Zuko. ”Same time next week?” Zuko nodded grimly. Sokka barely registered Jet getting in his car and driving away. His eyes remained on Zuko. Everyone’s eyes remained on Zuko.
Aang rippled the stillness by walking towards him. He stood in front of Zuko and stared. He started and stared, and then he threw his arms around his shoulders.
“Thank you, Zuko.” Aang’s voice broke. Tears rivered down both of his cheeks. “You saved him. You saved Appa.”
Zuko didn’t hug Aang back. He just stood there, arms at his side, eyes wide, two patches of red gathered in his cheeks. When Aang released Zuko, he kept his hands on his shoulders.
“I want to help you.”
Zuko took a step back. “What?”
“You became the Blue Spirit for me. It’s only right that I help you with it.”
“You can’t.”
“Sure I can!”
“We all can,” Toph chimed in. “We can help keep your identity a secret.”
“And we can keep Jet in line,” Katara added. “He breaks one rule of the agreement, you come to me.”
“I think this whole Blue Spirit thing is a terrible idea.” Sokka stepped forwards, ignoring the glare his sister cast in his direction. “But it’s a less terrible idea if you have help.”
“Forget it,” Zuko snarled. “I don’t need help.”
Sokka shook his head. “We aren’t asking. If you’re doing this, it’s not going to be alone.”
Zuko looked between all of them, eyes lingering on Sokka a little longer than the rest. “If you guys are going to help me,” he started slowly, “you should know that I don’t live at home anymore. I’m staying at the Jasmine Dragon with my uncle. You can’t tell anyone, it’s a secret from the press.”
“Oh.” A smile found its way to Sokka’s lips. Something like relief pressed itself against his chest. “That’s… Good.”
Zuko started telling them all about the agreement he had made with his father. He told them about the early mornings and late nights, the rides there and back from school. Sokka’s mind was not loyal to the conversation. There was a question whirring through his gears, one that wouldn’t leave him alone when Zuko politely departed to catch the next bus home.
“I’m surprised you haven’t started gloating yet,” Katara remarked once Zuko was out of earshot. Sokka watched his back as he made his way across the parking lot.
“I’m gonna walk him to the bus,” Sokka stated, ignoring the looks exchanged between Aang and Katara.
Sokka ran to catch up. By the time he was next to Zuko, he was already standing at the bus stop. The bus was visible just down the block, yielding to a crosswalk that was being occupied by a clump of slow-moving old men.
“Why did you do it?” Sokka spoke between heavy breaths.
Zuko looked startled. “What?”
“Are you an animal rights activist or something?”
“No.”
“Then what, do you have a secret crush on Aang?”
Zuko flushed bright red. “No!”
“Then I don’t get it! You did this huge, brave thing, you’re risking so much and you don’t even know Aang that well. Are you one of those avatar enthusiasts? Do you run the Instagram fan page!? We thought it was the kid who always foams at the mouth during pep rallies, but—“
“Sokka, stop.” The bus had traveled the short distance from the crosswalk to the stop. Zuko stepped closer to Sokka to let a woman and her daughter step through the opened doors first. He spoke in a low voice. “I didn’t do it for Aang. I… I did it for you.”
Zuko walked up to the bus and put one foot on the first step. Sokka grabbed his arm before he could get on. “Why?”
“Sokka!”
“Hey,” the bus driver snapped, “we have a schedule to keep.”
Zuko’s eyes were blazing embers. “Sokka, let me go.”
Sokka didn’t take his eyes off Zuko’s face. “Why?”
Zuko sighed. His voice was small, so small and that a bus even a notch louder would have swallowed it. “You were there for me. That day in the bathroom. I needed someone. And you were there.”
Zuko shook free of Sokka’s hold and stepped on. The doors swung closed and the bus took off.