Will We Last the Night

by CSHfic, VSfic

Summary:

Chief Arnook never assigns Sokka to protect Princess Yue, so he goes to fight the Fire Nation with the other men. When the moon dies and the ocean spirit takes its revenge, Sokka is caught standing on the deck of a Fire Nation ship. Sokka should have drowned… and he would have drowned, if not for a certain Fire Nation raft fleeing the North Pole.

[An enemies-to-lovers season 2 rewrite, where Sokka is separated from the gaang during the Siege of the North, and travels the Earth Kingdom with Zuko instead].

Notes:

We've been wanting to write a canon divergent re-write for a bit, so we're really excited for this one!

Chapter 1

Sokka glared at the metal door leading to the command post. Every so often he cut a glance down over the rail to the lower deck. He could hear the Fire Nation soldiers calling to each other below. The air smelled like fire down here, and it made his stomach roll. So far, the Fire Nation sailors manning the trebuchets had only fired a few warning shots toward the wall, but as the night stretched on and the ocean darkened, the smell of smoke and ash grew steadily stronger.

He didn’t know what they were waiting for, only that they were clearly growing impatient.

Sokka could sympathize. He turned back to glare at the command post door again, still stubbornly closed.

Still no Hahn.

Sokka grit his teeth. He’d known this would be a mess from the start, because their intelligence was already spotty, and Hahn was a jerk. For a moment, Sokka considered the main deck, where half a dozen men were gathered around the trebuchet aimed for Agna Qel’a’s walls.

Maybe he could…

...but no, there were too many soldiers, and anyway, he couldn’t risk Hahn finally coming back while he was going off mission, even if it meant sabotaging their weapons.

Sokka sighed, a frustrated hiss through clenched teeth. He was useless just sitting here, waiting for Hahn to show up, nervous energy burrowing deeper with every minute that passed without him.

He supposed he should be grateful, no matter how much Hahn got under his skin. After they’d been caught fighting, he’d been certain that Chief Arnook was going to take him off the mission altogether. That would have been so much worse, sitting safe behind the walls while the real warriors were out fighting to protect their people.

The plan… wasn’t great, because their intelligence was terribly dated, and Hahn kept calling Admiral Zhao “Choi,” no matter how many times Sokka corrected him. At least Sokka had convinced them that going during the day was too risky, with how noticeably off their stolen uniforms were from the real thing. They’d been ferried to the admiral’s ship by a small craft, easy enough to slip through the Fire Nation’s defenses under the cover of darkness, with a skilled waterbender to steer them over the waves. To get off the ships again, they were on their own.

The only problem was that Zhao wasn’t here.

Sokka and Hahn had split up to cover more ground, hoping that their intelligence about the ship’s layout wasn’t as out of date as their uniforms. They’d agreed to meet up again once they’d searched their half of the ship, regroup, and then, if they found him, take down Zhao together. Hahn had gone for the command deck, and Sokka had agreed to search down below.

It had been stuffy, and cramped, and the hallways mostly deserted, with the majority of the sailors already at their battle stations. The distraction of the battle had given him enough time to swap his armor for a set from their stores. It fit a little strangely over his coat, but the fabric was way too thin to go without—he guessed keeping warm was easier for firebenders, but he needed his furs.

Then he’d combed the rooms below, quickly, posing as a messenger looking to relay an urgent report to Admiral Zhao.

They’d all told him the same thing: Zhao wasn’t on the ship.

Sokka had no idea where he could have gone, because what kind of admiral abandoned his own fleet at the start of a battle? But none of the sailors had suspected him, so they must have been telling the truth, even as they quickly shuffled him out again before he could overhear any of their strategizing.

Sokka squinted at the sky. It had been almost an hour since he’d split up with Hahn. He’d had a lot more ground to cover on the lower decks—even if Hahn was moving slowly, even if his shitty disguise meant he couldn’t afford to get too close to the Fire Nation sailors patrolling the command deck, it didn’t make sense for him to be this late.

Sokka took his helmet off and rested it against his knee, then mopped his brow with the tail of his sleeve. They’d agreed to meet by the lifeboats. Crouched where he was in view of the command deck door, he could feel the heat pouring off the engine room, spitting steam from the ventilation pipes bracketing the cabins. Every so often a gust of wind would catch the hot air and wash the deck in a damp fog. His skin prickled with it, overwarm between the unnatural heat and the layers beneath his stolen armor. It was hotter here than it was even down below, and the heat was only making him more sick with nerves, a prickling anxiety that something had gone wrong clawing the back of his mind.

Hahn should have beaten Sokka here. Sokka crossed his arms, chewed his lip nervously. Had he run into trouble? Had he found Zhao after all? Maybe he’d gone and gotten himself dumped overboard, or maybe he’d just… left already, ditched Sokka without bothering to wait and see if he made it out all right.

Sokka dared to lean out over the rail, glancing quickly at the next ship over. He could just make out the enemy sailors moving through the firelight, but if any of the other warriors had been discovered, they weren’t raising any alarms. It was too dark to tell without the backlight of the city lights, but he thought he might have seen the shadow of a Fire Nation liferaft slipping over the water to disappear behind the ship’s hull, as the first of the other men finished their search. If no alarms had been raised yet, that probably meant that they hadn’t found Zhao either—

Behind him, the door banged open, screeching on its tracks. Sokka whirled, relief and frustration mixed up on his face.

But then he froze, breath caught as metal boots rang hollow against the deck. The sailor paused, too, helmet slung under one arm, fingers curled around the bowl of his pipe. He pinched a flame between his thumb and forefinger as he turned.

And then he stopped, fingers faintly smoking as he stared.

Sokka dove for his helmet again, panic crushing rationality. It was too late, the man had seen him. He should have tried to bluff—

The pipe clattered against the deck, spilling ash. Sokka could see the warning shout forming on the man’s lips, so he quickly pivoted and flung his helmet in his face. It crunched against his nose, and his shout turned more into a pained grunt. Before the helmet even hit the ground, Sokka forced his way past him, down the deck toward the lifeboats.

Damn it, damn it, Hahn. It was too late now, he had to leave without him.

“Raid!” the man shouted over the rail, which was—which was very overgenerous, because it was just Sokka and his tiny little life raft and no Hahn—

Heads swiveled in unison as the sailors on the deck below turned. He was completely exposed on the upper deck, with dozens of firebenders all in range, and then—

The sky tinged blood red.

Sokka flinched back, expecting fire.

It didn’t come. He whirled around, confused. When he locked eyes with the firebender he looked—just as confused as Sokka, almost afraid. He stared back at Sokka for a moment longer, chest heaving strangely, before giving into temptation. He looked up.

Sokka’s skin prickled as he turned his face up toward the moon, a fiery red disk against the bloody pinprick stars dotting the night.

Anxiety coiled sour in his stomach as he stared at it. His mind was screaming at him, wrong, wrong, wrong, even as his limbs refused to move. A hatch clanged open below, and a disquieted murmur drifted up to where he leaned against the rail.

The sound—the reminder that he was still surrounded—snapped him out of it. Sokka backed away, but the sailor was still frozen in place. He needed to get out now, back to Agna Qel’a, find his sister and Aang, because something was very wrong here.

The liferaft was stored with a mechanical winch. It groaned ominously when he yanked on the lever. The sound drew the sailor’s attention, face twisted with misplaced anxiety.

“Stop!” he shouted.

Sokka ducked a streak of flame as it sailed over his head, throwing his weight against the lever, jammed or frozen he couldn’t tell. He could feel the next strike before he even registered the flash, air warping with heat. Sokka swore and pulled back just in time to avoid getting burned, then tugged his sleeve down over his hands to grip the red-hot winch again—

Everything went dark. Sokka froze, arm still outstretched, blinking against the sudden blackness. A cry of alarm rose from the deck below, followed by a flare of light. He flinched, and the light ebbed away again, pale flames clawing desperately at the heavy dark before guttering out. Sokka turned toward the pitch black sky and stared in horror.

The moon—?

Another fire followed, burning stronger, casting long shadows over the deck below. Another cry rose up, but Sokka couldn’t tear his eyes away, heart pounding in his ears at the empty place in the sky where the full moon had been only moments ago.

How was… where was the moon?

His first, hysterical thought was that this… had to be some weird Avatar thing, more spirit nonsense, he was so sick of spirit nonsense—

The shadows on the deck below shifted, elongating, tinting from red to blue.

A glowing mass was rising from the water, towering over the palace, the wall, the ships and the polar waters of the ocean stretching on behind them. As he stared, the water began to take form, eyes, arms, a head. It was a fish, for a moment, bulbous eyes unblinking, shimmering with a strange light, it—

It was the ocean spirit.

Sokka’s heart seized as it blinked, surging from terrifying stillness to motion. The spirit swept forward, supernaturally fast for how large it was. It slashed at the first ship on the line with one clawed hand. The cabin shrieked as the top half of the ship slid off to crash down on the deck below. The ship lurched under the sudden shift in weight, cast-off waves rocking the other ships in the aftershock. Sokka held on. The soldiers on the deck below were screaming. The trebuchet shuddered as the ammo caught fire, and lights swelled on the decks of several other ships at almost the same moment. The fires streaked across the sky to be swallowed by fish-spirit’s body, winking like fireflies in the darkness.

The sailor was still standing beside him. Sokka had almost forgotten him. He met his eye, and the man stared back, hands lax at his sides. His face was unnaturally still, eyes too wide, almost like… almost like he knew—

The spirit turned its unblinking gaze down on them as it slowly swept its arms out.

It looked just like that stupid waterbending scroll, like Katara when she was practicing, the same form sweeping a wall of water from the sea, towering higher and higher until Agna Qel’a disappeared, and all he could see for miles and miles was a wall of impenetrable black, swirling under that terrifying blue glow.

The life raft—

Wasn’t going to do shit against a wave that size.

Katara—

Oh.

Katara was going to be so sad.

He saw the wave coming, but he didn’t see it hit, between one blink and the next. Sokka’s back slammed against the cabin wall. He pressed both hands to his mouth and somehow managed to keep his lungs from seizing in the cold, his muscles screaming with the impact. The pressure was enormous, pinning him down, spots dancing across his eyelids.

And then they were sinking, water roaring in his ears, currents dragging him under. The water was pitch black around him. The salt burned his eyes as he whirled, or tried to, fighting the current, fighting the drag of the wreckage sinking around him. Sokka kicked against it, but he couldn’t—the armor was too heavy. He scrabbled at the clasps with numb fingers, but it was dark, he couldn’t see, he couldn’t remember how—

A hand fell on his shoulder, searingly hot in the frigid waters. Sokka flinched, gasped and lost a mouthful of air. The hand jerked back, and he felt the chest plate loosen, fall away. He turned in the pitch black water, reached out, but the hand was gone. Sokka tried to grab for the armor, to tell which way it was sinking, figure out which way was up, but it slipped away into the darkness, too, and he was alone.

Sokka’s lungs were screaming. He’d already lost too much air. He pressed one hand against his mouth, picked a direction and tried to kick off again. Something caught his sleeve, the torn edge of a shattered hull, maybe, he couldn’t see. Whatever it was only dragged him further down.

He couldn’t see. Everywhere he looked was inky black, impossible to tell whether he was clawing toward or away from danger. There was no light down here, not from the moon, not from the ocean spirit, just shadows in the churning water, and—

For one moment the current swelled around him. All at once the pressure lifted. The darkness broke, and Sokka blinked against the sting of salt in his eyes. A soft white light bloomed in the water, hovering just ahead of him, taking shape.

Yue smiled at him, soft and a little sad.

He was—hallucinating. He was going to drown, and he’d never even...

Yue leaned in. Her fingers brushed feather light over his cheeks, warm wherever she touched. She kissed him, and the burning pressure in his lungs seemed to ease.

Yeah. Hallucinating.

Sokka blinked again. Yue was gone, but the water was no longer dark—he could just see the faint outline of the moon breaking through the surface. The shadow of something drifted past on the current, washing out to sea, and that passing darkness startled him into motion, swimming up, up, toward the scattering debris.

All that was left of the Fire Nation fleet.

Sokka had fallen through the ice once when he was five years old. He and Katara had found the hole while they were playing. It was rough-edged, clearly abandoned, but Sokka couldn’t help imagining the tiger seals poking up through it for air, and he’d thought—he was brave warrior, a skilled hunter like his dad, so it had seemed like such a good idea for him to slip out later that night when he couldn’t sleep, wrestling with a spear that was slightly too long for him to carry easily.

He was much too young to have been out alone, but stubborn enough to want to try. It hadn’t occurred to him that there might be a reason that the breathing hole was abandoned, that the unseasonably warm weather had weakened the ice around it. The shock of falling had lost him most of his breath, the shock of the cold water had done the rest.

He didn’t remember how it felt to drown—only the fall, and the fear, and then his dad scruffing him by the back of his coat and dragging him out, sopping and miserable, ice clinging to his eyelashes and wet fur too heavy to lift with tingling arms.

He remembered how his dad had wrapped him up inside his own coat and carried him home. He hadn’t even been angry—

Sokka’s eyes stung with the memory, or the cold, or the salt. It was ridiculous. He hadn’t thought of that day in years, and he didn’t know why he would now, except to feel sorry for himself—

He’d freeze to death in minutes if he didn’t get out of the water. Sokka gripped the flat edge of a shattered deck and tried to pull himself up. It took him three tries to get a grip on it, fingers already clumsy, chest painfully tight. He’d swallowed water, each breath rattling, but somehow he managed to get himself up enough to roll over onto the edge. The wreckage was hardly buoyant enough to float. It rocked dangerously under his weight as he settled. Sokka curled in on himself, gasping for breath, and so… so tired...

 

 

Sokka woke to voices, and something much more solid under him. The precarious listing of the ruined deck was gone, replaced with gentle rocking. He felt sick—he’d never gotten seasick before—and suddenly he was heaving seawater and bile onto the deck.

“Dad,” he tried to say. That didn’t feel quite right, but he couldn’t remember why. The word stuck in his throat anyway, came out as a painful rasping cough, instead. The voices quieted, for just a moment.

He was shivering violently, and that—that was good, Sokka knew it was good, because cold and shivering was bad news but cold and not shivering was a death sentence. He was soaked, and that was... less good, that was frostbite and not shivering and falling asleep and not waking up again...

...what was happening? He groaned and tried to sit up, but his limbs felt numb and distant, like they belonged to someone else.

“He’s alive,” a voice said, tense, just barely edged with relief.

A hand wrapped around his shoulder and rolled him onto his stomach. Sokka grunted in pain as something jabbed him in the back, a heavy weight pressing him down into the wood. Hands wrapped around his wrists and jerked his arms back. The touch burned against his frozen skin. He struggled, a little. Tried to, with his hands bunched behind his back.

“Prince Zuko,” another voice said, low and admonishing. That set off alarm bells—it took an embarrassingly long time to remember why. Sokka cracked an eye, tilted his head to squint at the shadow leaning over him. Why was he, of all people… what was he doing here?

“He’s still our enemy, Uncle,” the voice said. Zuko said, because he was leaning over him, forcing him down with a knee in his back, tying his hands. His hair brushed the back of Sokka’s neck as he leaned in, but he was so cold he could barely feel the whisper of it against his skin.

“Don’t… don’t touch me,” Sokka said. His throat rasped painfully when he spoke, chest tight. He coughed again, all salt and seawater. Zuko grimaced.

The weight on his back lifted off, and Sokka gasped. Zuko nudged him with his boot, rolled him over onto his back. Sokka tried to curl in on himself, but he was... so tired, his muscles weren’t cooperating. His fists dug into the small of his back.

Zuko stepped around him toward his head, considering. Sokka clenched his teeth and glared. The effect wasn’t very intimidating with his vision swimming, lying there shivering like a drowned elephant rat.

Zuko just watched him, face strangely blank. Sokka’s heart beat feathery in his chest. He was pretty sure he’d never seen Zuko anything but angry. Anxiety prickled down his spine at his placid calm. Slowly, Zuko kneeled.

“Wait, don’t,” Sokka gasped. He tried to pull away, but there was nowhere else for him to go, nowhere but back in the water.

Zuko drew a deep breath through his nose, once, twice, a flash of light between his teeth with each exhale. On the third breath his arms jerked forward. Sokka flinched, expecting a blow, flames, but—

“Oh,” Sokka sighed, as warmth washed over him in a shimmering wave, splitting the frigid air to a steaming cloud that whipped away on the wind. Zuko did it again, then shifted closer, so that he was kneeling right behind Sokka’s head, knees brushing the ice-crusted tips of his wolf tail. He laid both hands on Sokka’s shoulders, firm pressure, and the water hissed from his coat in a cloud of steam. It hurt, a little, the sudden heat, and then… then it was just warm, and such a relief that his breath caught in his lungs.

Sokka exhaled shakily, shuddering violently as the warmth washed over him.

“Thank you,” Sokka mumbled. Trying to speak drew another wet cough from him, shoulders tensing with the effort. Zuko just pressed him down again, hardly putting any strength behind it. Sokka was... so tired. He blinked slowly, eyelids fluttering, weakly fighting the exhaustion seeping through his skin and into his bones.

Zuko snorted and turned away. He kept his hands steady, fingers twitching only slightly on Sokka’s shoulder.

“You’re no good to me dead,” he said.

 

 

Sokka woke to the gentle rocking of the sea. It was quiet. He was cold, but not nearly as cold as he’d been last night. His clothes had dried completely, hood tucked up over his head, partly obscuring his face. He remembered the warmth, then, the feeling sinking through his skin to his bones, the intensity in Zuko’s expression as he leaned over him in the darkness. He shivered involuntarily at the memory. Zuko had kept him alive. He’d—

Wait. Zuko had kept him alive.

Sokka’s heart began to race, thoughts whirring. Why had Zuko kept him alive? What did he want with Sokka?

Sokka’s fingers were cold. He’d lost his gloves sometime between the Fire Nation ship and the swim and…

Oh, this was bad. He flexed his wrists, fingertips brushing the rough edges of the rope binding his arms behind his back. His shoulders ached from spending so long in the same position. Sokka bit back a pained sound as he tried to shift over to relieve some of the tension in his arms. His back had ached before, but now that he was warmer it lanced through his shoulders where he’d struck the cabin when the wave hit. Sokka shifted again, slower. He was… he was probably okay. His arms ached, and he was cold, and his back was definitely going to bruise spectacularly, but he could handle that. He tried to roll his shoulder, then tensed. The holster on his upper back was gone, the familiar tug of the strap over his shoulder missing. Where was his…?

Oh.

He must have dropped his boomerang in the ocean, maybe when he was ditching the armor. Exhausted, near drowned, arms pulled behind his back, it was that thought that finally made it real, fear setting like hooks beneath his ribs. Sokka’s heart thumped in his throat, too loud next to the sedate churning of the sea.

“You’re awake,” Zuko said.

Sokka squinted one eye open. The sun had risen while he was unconscious, climbing now toward its zenith, partly obscured by a gray-cast sky. His vision was strangely blurry for a moment, and he blinked rapidly to clear it.

His heart sank, taking in the vast and empty sea, the raft, and the Fire Nation red of the sails. The raft was small, and looked like it had been cobbled together from the wreckage—the deck from a Water Tribe fishing boat, the pontoons ripped from a Fire Nation ship, tattered sails and mismatched rope, all made for a quick escape. There wasn’t much else, aside from a couple small bags lashed to the mast, hardly enough supplies for a solo voyage, let alone two people, or three.

Sokka tilted his head to glare at the raft’s other passengers. Zuko and his uncle were sitting next to each other, both… staring at him, Zuko with a scowl, Iroh with a small frown, the barest tilt of concern in his expression.

Which of the Fire Nation ships had been Zuko’s? The ship he’d been following them on had been smaller, hadn’t it? But all of the ships on the line were the same class of warship, so clearly Zuko must have gotten an upgrade, for all the good that did him against the ocean spirit.

For a moment Sokka just glared at the sky, because of course Zuko, with his stupid jerk luck, had managed to escape the wave and somehow find himself a raft…

He shouldn’t be complaining. He’d probably be dead without that stupid jerk luck, not that he was feeling particularly grateful about it. Zuko was the crown prince of the Fire Nation, and his uncle was a decorated general, the Dragon of the West. They’d probably ordered the attack in the first place, maybe even planned it. This was all his fault.

He wondered if he’d had time to try to capture Aang, between the ocean spirit, and his fleet being destroyed, and escaping. Probably, knowing Zuko.

He hoped Aang had kicked his butt.

Sokka was feeling a lot of things right now, but all the confusion of the attack and the fear of the drowning and the panic of waking up here of all places basically distilled down to one clear sentiment.

“Fuck off,” Sokka said.

He turned his face down toward the lining of his hood and huffed a harsh breath. Then he pressed his shoulder into the deck and levered himself up to sitting. His head swam at the sudden shift in position, vision narrowing for a moment before it cleared.

Zuko snorted. “I saved your life.”

“You’re the reason my life needed saving!” he said. “You and your stupid ships!”

His arms ached, tied behind his back just-shy of too tightly. Sokka tugged experimentally, testing the knot. The rope bit into his wrists, damp and chafing uncomfortably. It was… good quality rope. Inexplicably, that pissed him off.

“Untie me!” Sokka said.

Zuko looked like he’d had as rough of a night as Sokka had. His face was badly mottled with cuts and scrapes, unscarred eye slightly swollen under a darkening bruise. Sokka knew it was probably from the ocean spirit, but… he very pettily hoped that was Katara’s doing, instead. Zuko’s cheeks were already pink from the cold, but he flushed more when he caught Sokka staring at the mess of his face. He glowered.

“Tell me where the Avatar is headed next,” Zuko said, ignoring his demand.

Sokka scoffed, a quip that would make Gran Gran smack him on the tip of his tongue. But then he hesitated, because…

Because that was… a good question.

Sokka didn’t know where Aang was headed half the time when he was on Appa’s back with him. Honestly, sometimes it seemed like even Aang didn’t know...

The thought sank into the pit of his stomach. He had no idea how he was going to find them again. They had to be headed to the Earth Kingdom to find Aang an earthbending teacher, but the Earth Kingdom was huge, and they had a flying bison, while Sokka was… wherever he was.

He squinted at the horizon, trying to imagine the outline of Agna Qel’a’s walls in the distance. There was nothing but ocean, ocean, and more ocean, everywhere he looked.

Had Aang and Katara left without him? He didn’t think they would. Were they waiting for him, or… or were they out looking for him? He glanced up at the sky. It was stupid, the little stab of hurt he felt when he saw nothing but clouds. He squinted, just to be sure, and then pointely looked away, before his disappointment could show on his face.

Sokka cleared his throat. His answer was the same, either way.

“I’m not helping you,” he said.

“I have no interest in you,” Zuko said. “Cooperate, and we’ll let you go. Eventually.”

Yeah, right. Like Sokka would trust him. He didn’t even dignify that with a response, pointedly rolling his eyes away. There… wasn’t really anything else to look at, other than the empty ocean and the flotsam on the waves. Sokka watched the splintered edge of something flip and sink beneath the surface. He couldn’t tell if it had belonged to a Fire Nation or a Water Tribe ship before it disappeared.

“Perhaps if you untied him, he would be more amenable to questions,” Iroh suggested. He just smiled, entirely unfazed, when Zuko whipped around to glare at him, too.

“No,” Zuko said immediately. “If he answers our questions, we’ll find the Avatar, and he can be untied then.”

“I’m not betraying my friend,” Sokka said. He shifted on his knees, trying to take some pressure off his aching shoulders with a new angle. “Turn around. Take me back to the North Pole.”

“There’s nothing back there for you,” Zuko said. “Your friend has left without you by now.”

“They wouldn’t…” Sokka trailed off.

No. That was… they wouldn’t leave without him. He’d only been gone for a few hours. They’d be looking for him. They…

Sokka glanced at Iroh. The look on his face solidified the thought forming in the back of his mind, dread creeping in like frost.

“Oh,” Sokka said quietly, with the weight of Iroh’s gaze sinking straight through him.

He thought of the ocean spirit, the wall of water crashing over them, the shattered ships sinking into darkness.

He thought of the warmth of that hand on his shoulder, gone in an instant, disappearing with the current.

“My sister thinks I’m dead, doesn’t she?” Sokka said. “They think I drowned.”

Zuko didn’t answer. He just frowned at Sokka like there was something confusing about his reaction.

“Your sister loves you,” Zuko said. He sounded almost uncertain, gaze cold and searching. Sokka scowled at him, and Zuko turned away. “Good. Then she’ll trade you for the Avatar.”

“No, she won’t,” Sokka insisted. What was with this guy? Hadn’t Zuko already tried kidnapping them before? It hadn’t worked when he hired those stupid pirates, and it wasn’t going to work now. They weren’t going to just trade their friends like bargaining chips. Sokka grit his teeth. “I don’t care if they left without me. Take me back to Agna Qel’a. I’ll… find my own ship, then.”

Yue would help him, at least. He didn’t know what had happened to Hahn or the other men. He hoped they’d made it out. He had no way to know, now, other than to go back.

He didn’t know what had become of the Northern Water Tribe’s ships after the battle, either. They… well, they must be better off than the Fire Nation fleet, at least. There had to be at least one ship that would take him to the Earth Kingdom, and… Sokka could find his way from there. He could do this, he had to, because his sister was out there, and she thought he was dead, and she needed him.

“Take me back,” Sokka said again, feeling frustrated and desperate.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Iroh said. He said it gently, like he was speaking to someone very fragile. It made Sokka bristle with indignation as he continued, “We were fortunate to escape the first time, given the circumstances.”

“The circumstances,” Sokka repeated.

An anxious pressure was building in his chest. He tried to swallow to relieve it, throat dry and raw. Iroh’s expression was tense—a strange look on him, when Sokka had seen him chasing them with Zuko, and lecturing Zuko, and being screamed at by Zuko, and had never seen him look so unsettled. There was pity there, too, and that was what made Sokka’s heart leap, with the idea that they knew something Sokka didn’t and it was something bad, worse even than the battle and the destruction in the harbor.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sokka asked. “What did… what did you do?”

Zuko turned to Iroh, expression grim. Iroh shook his head.

“What do you remember from last night?” Iroh asked.

“The ocean spirit protected the city,” Sokka said.

“The Avatar protected the city,” Iroh corrected. “The ocean spirit leant him its power, and in exchange…”

He trailed off and turned his gaze toward the sea, and the wreckage bobbing on the waves.

Sokka closed his eyes. The image of the ocean spirit, alight with energy, breathtaking and powerful as the ocean itself, had burned into his mind. He tried to picture Aang, then, inside it, tearing apart Fire Nation ships like paper, shredding them to pieces. His heart sank, because… what would Aang have done after, once he’d seen the devastation in the harbor, and…

Oh, no.

He’d told Aang where he was going. He’d blame himself for what had happened. He’d think it was his fault.

He’d think he’d drowned him.

“Why?” Sokka asked. “Aang doesn’t… He’s just a kid. He wouldn’t...” Sink dozens of ships to the bottom of the ocean, he wanted to shout, but apparently… apparently Aang would, if something pushed him far enough.

Sokka leaned up on his knees, frustration simmering to anger. “What happened?”

Iroh sighed. Zuko looked—tired, more tired than Sokka had ever seen him. He glared very resolutely at the spot above Sokka’s shoulder.

“I think you had better sit down,” Iroh said.

 

 

Sokka pressed his knuckles against the wood, barely holding himself upright. He couldn’t feel his fingertips, prickling, a sweeping numbness seeping into his limbs and his chest as the horror of Iroh’s words crept up on him. He tried to—something, deny it, but he just made a strangled, disbelieving sound.

There was pity in Iroh’s gaze, and that was enough to push the sweeping chill down, to light him up with something angry and desperate instead.

“You killed the moon!” Sokka shouted. “And Yue—”

“Zhao killed the moon. Not us,” Zuko said.

“The Fire Nation,” Sokka spat back. They’d snuck into the city like cowards, and—it didn’t make any sense, the Fire Nation needed the moon, too. His lungs ached, from the water and the cold. Now a seething disbelief was settling in his chest too, choking him.

(He’d thought he was hallucinating.)

Sokka hadn’t been this angry since… since his mom, since the raids, since his dad left him behind.

(If he’d been there, could he have stopped her?)

“Come away from the edge,” Iroh said, not unkindly.

Sokka hadn’t even noticed moving back, as far away from them as he could shift on such a tiny raft, but he was dangerously close to the water now. The kindness was almost worse. It felt like they’d burned him out, like he was just a hollow shell, still smoldering.

“Just,” Sokka said. He wanted to stay angry, but his voice came out choked, breaking on the word. He didn’t want to look at either of them, but… they were still Fire Nation. He didn’t want to turn his back on them, either. “Stay away from me.”

Sokka was—he couldn’t even look at them. He laid down, curled in on his side with his temple pressed flush against the cool wood, and drew a shuddering breath. Heat pricked at his eyes, an uncomfortable pressure, but he was just… so tired, like a dam splintered with cracks, ready to break—

They left him alone while the sun sank below the water, and the moon rose.

 

 

Iroh had fallen asleep hours ago, snoring quietly.

Sokka was almost thankful for the cold, and for the uncomfortable angle of his hands bound behind him. It made it easier to stay awake.

He drew his knees up to his chin. The moon looked the same. Sokka wasn’t sure why he’d expected it to look any different, just that… it felt like it should, like the change should be obvious, so the rest of the world could know it had changed, too.

On the other side of the raft, Zuko shifted. Sokka could feel the weight of his gaze. He kept doing that—turning, staring quietly. He probably didn’t trust himself to fall asleep while Sokka was still awake. Good. That made two of them.

Sokka turned and glared at him.

“What,” he said, jarringly loud in the silence. “What do you want?”

Iroh shifted at the sound but didn’t wake. Under the light of the near full moon it was easy to make out Zuko’s expression. Understanding it was harder, bruised face twisted into a slight frown. He didn’t look suspicious, or really wary of Sokka at all, which didn’t explain why he kept staring at him.

“Nothing,” Zuko said immediately. He grimaced, turned to look elsewhere—the sky—then quickly thought better of it. “Just—”

He cut himself off again. Sokka waited—he wasn’t feeling particularly patient, but he didn’t have anything else to do, other than watching the moon’s slow crawl across the sky.

“I’m sorry,” Zuko said, quietly. He glared at the deck as he said it, so that Sokka might have missed it, if he hadn't been watching Zuko so closely.

It was hard to tell whether he was trying not to wake his uncle or hoping that Sokka wouldn’t hear him. “About your girlfriend. I wasn’t there when it happened, but… if it makes you feel better… the ocean spirit took Zhao in the end.” He paused a moment, then even quieter, he added, “I couldn’t stop it.”

Sokka hesitated for so long that Zuko had already turned away, expecting no answer.

“That doesn’t make me feel better, no,” Sokka said.

More people dying didn’t fix anything, not even horrible Fire Nation soldiers, not even if they deserved it. Especially if Aang would blame himself for what had happened. It wouldn’t bring Yue back.

Zuko nodded tightly. Sokka was quiet for a moment, but now that Zuko had broken the silence, another thought was clawing its way past the grief threatening to choke him. Sokka latched onto it, because at least it was something else, something productive instead of painful.

“Zuko,” he said, hesitantly. “Where are you taking me?”

How many days’ sailing was it from here to the Fire Nation? Sokka had been so disoriented when they’d first pulled him out of the water, he was lucky to tell up from down. Now he peered at the partly overcast sky, trying to make sense of the pinprick stars, so different from the ones back home. He’d seen Iroh tuck a sun compass into his sleeve earlier. He wondered if Zuko knew their heading, now.

“We’re headed for the Earth Kingdom,” Zuko said. “You’re going to tell me where to find the Avatar.”

A lump rose in Sokka’s throat. It was hard to tell whether it was relief that they weren’t taking him back to the Fire Nation, or worry for Aang and Katara. Traveling on Appa, they might be long gone by the time they even reached the Earth Kingdom. Part of him hoped so, that they’d find Aang’s earthbending teacher and escape before Zuko could even find their trail.

And a more selfish part of him wondered, if they did get away, if he’d ever see them again. Wondering if his little sister even needed him to look out for her anymore, now that she was a master waterbender. Wanting, maybe stupidly, to be there for her anyway.

Maybe he was better off just—lying to Zuko, distracting him. Sokka could tell him he knew where Aang was, lead him on a wild goose-hare chase, and then—

The thought churned his stomach, shame at the thought of leaving Katara alone, and something dangerously close to loneliness. It must have shown on his face, because Zuko clicked his tongue and made a frustrated sound, like he was already expecting another one of Sokka’s defiant refusals to help him.

But then when Sokka glanced at him, he didn’t really look frustrated. Tired, mostly, and… strangely regal, kneeling with his legs tucked under him, back straight and mouth firm, gaze cutting. Sokka swallowed.

“You…” Zuko said haltingly, voice pitched low. Quiet, so he didn’t wake his uncle, or gentle—

No.

Voice pitched low, just so he didn’t wake his uncle, Zuko said, “You should sleep. A man needs his rest.”

 

 

Sokka watched dully as the battered wreckage of the Fire Nation ships drifted past them, tracing patterns where they bobbed on the waves. There wasn’t much left—most of it was too heavy to float once it had been torn apart, tons of metal swallowed up by the sea. A few pieces floated by. Flags. Crates, freed from their holds, still watertight and bobbing jauntily on the currents. A few times his gaze caught on other things, floating, soft-edged and lumpy, and he quickly glanced away, unwilling to look closer.

In the end, Sokka hadn’t slept at all during the night, watching the moon on her slow arc through the sky. He let his eyes slip closed now. He was exhausted, deeper than he could fix with sleep. The ocean was strangely still. It made his skin crawl, imagining what lay beneath the surface.

He slept in fits, dreaming of Yue, dreaming of Aang in the Avatar state, glowing blue with the ocean spirit’s light, dreaming of hands grasping him in the dark—

 

 

Sokka snapped awake to rough hands dragging him toward the middle of the deck.

“—enough sleeping,” Zuko said.

Sokka glared at him, disoriented. The moment Zuko saw that he was awake, he turned away to snap at his uncle. The back of Sokka’s coat was damp—well, more damp than it already was—where rough water had slapped against the boards.

He shivered as a gust of wind caught the loose edges of his hood. When Sokka leaned up to squint at the late afternoon sun, he found that the clouds were already swallowing it. The ocean rolled, ominously green with the setting sun, biting wind snapping the sails.

Sokka watched the sky as the night drifted in with the storm. Zuko was checking the ties holding the tiny bags they’d brought with them to the deck with a single-minded focus.

“Perhaps the ocean spirit will not be so quick to forgive, after all,” Iroh said, eyeing the grey-black clouds gathering on the horizon with a grim frown.

That was… so stupid. A storm was a storm. Sokka had to bite his tongue to keep from saying it, because…

...well, because he’d seen first-hand what the ocean spirit was capable of, so maybe that wasn’t just superstitious nonsense. He glanced up at the slowly darkening sky. A little flicker of nervousness clenched at his chest. It was too overcast to see the stars, the white light of the rising moon dulled behind the gathering storm clouds.

This raft was pathetically small. Storms at sea were dangerous. The ocean was frighteningly powerful—even when it wasn’t holding a grudge.

Zuko shot his uncle a look and grumbled something under his breath. The deck was already slick with the icy spray of the ocean, the mast thinly coated in frost. Steam whipped away on the wind as Zuko climbed up to balance against the yard. Water sluiced over the deck, soaking Sokka to the knees. He flinched at the cold and shifted closer to the mast.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Sokka asked.

Zuko didn’t answer him, but he’d definitely heard him with how violently he tugged on the line. Sokka had no choice but to sit there and balance on his knees as a dangerous swell rocked the raft.

The wind had only just started to pick up, but already it was fighting him for control. Halfway to furled, a strong gust caught the edge of the sail. Zuko swore as the line ripped out of his hands, snapping in the wind, sending the whole raft tilting dangerously. Sokka yelped, sliding on his back toward the raft’s edge. He twisted, fingers scraping against the slick wood, but he could hardly get a grip with his hands tied.

Zuko and Iroh both dove for the line at the same time, throwing their weight against it. The wind changed at the same moment, tossing the raft back in the other direction. Sokka landed hard on his hip, closer to the center mast again, breathless.

The sails snapped angrily in the wind as Zuko hauled them the last few feet to tie them off.

Iroh was tying off the other line when the next wave crested. Sokka leaned down, chest pressed against his knees. He took a deep breath—for all the good that would do him if he fell in with his hands tied behind his back, and the terror of that thought almost knocked the wind from him, anyway.

Rain bounced off the deck, hard enough to slap him in the face from below. The next wave swelled up in front of them. Sokka barely heard the shout over the roar of the rain—Zuko’s uncle, warning him to hold on—

A hand closed around his arm, yanking him back. Sokka choked back a shout, as the wave wrenched him in one direction, the hand around his arm in the other. After an impossibly long time, the ocean let go. Zuko didn’t.

Sokka coughed, his whole body shaking with the effort. Zuko’s hand felt like it was burning his arm, too warm against his icy skin. He turned toward Zuko, gaze fixed on the grim line of his mouth. His eyes burned from the salt.

“You have to untie me,” Sokka said, fear and frustration bleeding into his tone. It felt like drowning all over again, pushing the emotion down past the sharp ache in his lungs.

For a moment it looked like Zuko hadn’t heard him. Sokka drew a shaky breath.

“I said—”

“I heard you,” Zuko said, hand tightening on Sokka’s arm. “The answer is no.”

“I can’t hold on like this!” Sokka shouted back. It was hard to hear him over the roar of the wind, as the raft rocked dangerously under the swell of another wave. He grit his teeth as the water washed over them. Zuko’s hand tightened painfully on his arm. “Please. I can’t swim with my hands tied behind my back. If I fall in, I’ll drown!”

“If I untie you, you’ll try to escape,” Zuko said.

“Escape where? Where do you think I’m going to go?” Sokka asked. “We’re on a raft in the middle of the ocean!”

Zuko met his gaze for a long moment, jaw so tense his teeth could crack. Sokka stared resolutely back. A few flyaway hairs lashed against his face, cheeks raw from the wind and the cold. His heart was pounding in his ears, matching the roar of the waves. Zuko ground his teeth impossibly tighter, and fire flashed between them.

“Fine,” Zuko snapped. He made no move to untie him. Instead he grabbed him by the collar, dragged him so close that his hot breath washed over his cheek. Inches apart, he could feel the warmth radiating off the firebender’s body. An involuntary shiver wracked his frame. It was—so not fair, that Sokka was freezing, and they were warm, when this was all their fault to begin with.

“Listen to me very carefully,” Zuko said, dangerously low. “Just because I’m untying you does not mean I’m letting you go. I will capture the Avatar. Do not test me.”

Not if Sokka had anything to say about it he wouldn’t, but now wasn’t the time to be honest. Sokka nodded tightly.

“I get it,” he said. His voice was rough from coughing up seawater, strained. Sokka hoped it hid the tension, the hint of defiance in his tone. “Now untie me.”

Zuko glared at him a moment longer. Finally he let go of Sokka’s arm to pat the front of his coat, feeling for—something, a knife, maybe, to set Sokka free. Behind him, Iroh was struggling with the storm sail. Sokka saw Iroh tense and turn to look for Zuko. Sokka followed where his gaze had been, toward whatever made him flinch—

“Wave,” Sokka said, breathless at the size of it, and Zuko’s gaze snapped up.

Zuko swore. Knife forgotten, he hooked his fingers beneath the rope. Sokka yelped at the sudden, searing heat against his wrists, light flaring on the rain darkened deck. It hurt, one white-hot flash before the wave crashed over them.

The water spit and shrieked from the heat of Zuko’s fingers, but he’d burned through the rope enough for Sokka to jerk his hands free. His shoulders screamed at him, stiff from being pulled back for so long. He grit his teeth through it, fingers scraping raw against the deck. His hand found a loose line, torn free by the wave. Sokka held on as the water dragged away—

His other hand flew, without his permission, toward Zuko. He caught him by the hood—nearly caught him by his stupid ponytail—and hauled him back just before the swell of water could wash out to sea again.

“Zuko!” Iroh shouted, while Zuko ripped himself out of Sokka’s grip and crawled further up the deck. Sokka just let him go.

Sokka’s fingers were clumsy, numb from disuse and cold. He edged closer to the mast and wrapped his arms tightly around the ropes to hold on. He could feel the heat radiating off Zuko beside him. Zuko heaved a breath and the worst of the frigid water hissed off of him in clouds of steam. It washed over Sokka in a wave, a flash of warmth against the icy wind.

Sokka closed his eyes and leaned very slightly into Zuko’s shoulder—because it was cold, and he was warm, and Sokka wanted to live through the night more than he wanted to keep his pride. He expected Zuko to shove him away, but he didn’t, only sighed another hot breath and braced himself, perfectly still, for the next wave.

 

 

By the time the storm broke and the winds died down, the sun was fighting with the overcast gray sky. Sokka was soaked to the skin, shivering. He forced his stiff fingers to uncurl from the rope with a wince.

Sokka pressed a thumb against the burn on the inside of his wrist, just above the raw lines where the ropes had chaffed his skin.

He met Zuko’s gaze, drawn like a held breath. Zuko’s hand flexed against his knee, tensing like he was readying himself for a fight.

But then he sighed, an impatient sound, and the tension eased just slightly. Zuko staggered to his feet, so that he was towering over him when he spoke.

“Don’t get too comfortable. We’ll make landfall eventually,” Zuko promised, voice carefully even.

He turned away to free the furled sails. Sokka watched him for a moment, still on edge, unsure why, because this was good, and he was free—at least for now.

And then Sokka stood and grabbed the line, too, with his gaze fixed steadily on the horizon.