The next day...
Y/n POV
We agreed to let Aang goof off for a bit but as soon as we noticed the whole day passing by without any talk of business, we decided to go find him.
Katara, Toph, and I hopped in Appa's saddle and Sokka took the reigns. We flew in the cavern of the temple, finding Aang soaring through on his glider.
"Aang, can we talk about you learning firebending now?" Katara shouted to Aang. He didn't even look back.
"What? The wind is too loud in my ears! Check out this loop," he said excitedly and ignored us to do a flip with his glider.
"Aang, I think we should be making some plans about our future. Y/n's got a good firebending plan for you," Sokka yelled.
"Ok, we can do that while I show you the giant Pai Sho table," Aang told him. This isn't going anywhere.
Aang landed and we parked Appa right behind him.
"Oh, and you're gonna love the all-day echo chamber," Aang said with a huge, distracting-us-from-the-fate-of-the-world smile.
"I think that'll have to wait," Toph said ominously and we all turned around to see Appa move and reveal the last person any of them would expect to see.
"Hello, Zuko here," the Fire Nation prince said. I internally face palmed. He never was good at entrances...
The others were understandably on edge, producing weapons quickly while I just stood there. I was kinda expecting this, but not this soon.
"Hey, I heard you guys flying around down there, so I just thought I'd wait for you here," Zuko said with a shrug. Appa got up close to him and licked him affectionately. "I know you must be surprised to see me here," he started. Not really...
"Not really, since you've followed us all over the world," Sokka said and I couldn't help but notice he placed his foot slightly in front of me, subtly protecting me.
"Right...Anyway, what I wanted to tell you about is that I've changed. And I, uh, I'm good now. And well, I think I should join your group. Oh, and I can teach firebending, t-to you," Zuko explained.
"That actually—" I was cut off by Toph.
"You wanna what now?" She asked.
"You can't possibly think that any of us would trust you, can you? I mean, how stupid do you think we are?" Katara asked, her voice increasing in volume.
"Yeah, all you've ever done is try to hunt us down and capture Aang," Sokka shouted.
"I've done some good things. I could've stolen your bison in Ba Sing Se, but I set him free. That's something," Zuko defended. Oh boy...
Toph pointed out that Appa did seem to like Zuko, punctuated by the second affection lick the bison gave him, but Sokka shut it down quickly.
"I can understand why you wouldn't trust me, and I know I've made some mistakes in the past—" Zuko was cut off by the others sharing the atrocities he had done during his banishment. Dang it Zuko, I'm trying to root for you but you're not making it easy.
"Look, I admit I've done some awful things. I was wrong to try to capture you, and I'm sorry that I attacked the Water Tribe. And I never should've sent that Fire Nation assassin after you. I'm gonna try to stop him—"
"Wait, you sent combustion man after us?" Sokka asked, brandishing the sharp side of his boomerang at Zuko angrily. That I can empathize with. He almost blew me up too.
"That guy locked Toph and Katara in jail and almost blew us all up," I told Zuko, letting him know I too was upset about things he had done in his past. I still want to support him, but this collective anger isn't gonna go away just like that. And he still hasn't technically apologized...
"Y/n, please, you know me," Zuko said to me. I noticed Sokka shift his weight a little more in front of me. I shook my head.
"I do know you, Zuko, but again, you did almost get me blown to bits. You're going to have to do better than this," I let him know.
Zuko lowered his head, probably realizing he had lost with most of the group. He turned to Aang, the one who had been the most quiet.
"Why aren't you saying anything? You once said you thought we could be friends. You know I have good in me," Zuko said. Aang pondered it a little before speaking.
"There's no way we can trust you after everything you've done. We'll never let you join us," Aang said, delivering the final verdict. Katara proved his point by blasting him with water and threatening him to leave.
Once Zuko left, I sighed. We all went back to the main fountain area to talk about the strange thing that just happened.
Katara told us about being locked up with Zuko and him telling her about his mom, supposedly in an attempt to win her pity. It sort of worked, but of course, Zuko betrayed us for Azula in Ba Sing Se.
"I kind of have a confession to make. When you two were sick and I got captured by Zhao, it was Zuko who came in and got me out," Aang told the others. That still wasn't enough to convince anyone.
"Y/n what about you? You seemed like you had something to say earlier," Sokka said, passing the baton over to me to rat on Zuko. I sighed.
"I'll admit, the Ba Sing Se betrayal and the assassin thing really hurt, but Zuko was actually part of my teaching Aang firebending plan. I thought he might be the person to do it if he came with the right attitude," I explained.
"What? Why would you even think that? He's a horrible person," Katara yelled.
"Well, considering his messed up family and how he was raised, he could've turned out a lot worse," Toph said, speaking up for the first time in a while. Thank you.
"You're right, Toph, let's go find him and give him a medal: the 'Not As Much of a Jerk As You Could've Been' award," Katara said sarcastically.
"All I know is that while he was talking to us, he was sincere. Maybe you're all just letting your hurt feelings keep you from thinking clearly," Toph said calmly.
The others hopped onto that angrily, naming all the things Zuko had done in his past.
"Why would you even try to defend him?" Katara asked Toph. She stood up from the piller she was leaning on, coming to stand next to me.
"Because, Katara, you're all ignoring one crucial fact. Aang needs a firebending teacher. You even said Y/n could vet the one who was going to do it. Now, the person she vouched for shows up on a silver platter, and you won't even think about it?" Toph asked.
"I'm not having Zuko as my teacher," Aang said stubbornly. Oh jeez...
"Well I guess that's settled," Katara said smugly and I sighed. Toph grumbled.
"I'm beginning to wonder who's really the blind one around here," she said before she marched off. I turned to try and stop her but I thought better of it. I turned back towards the others.
"I understand what it feels like to be hunted and betrayed, but I also understand what it's like to have guilt eating you up from the inside and trying to do anything you can to make up for it. That's all I'm saying," I said calmly and I turned to go back to my room.
I was laying in my bed, thinking of ways to help Zuko when there was a knock at my door. I told the person to come in and Sokka stood there.
"Hey. I feel like there's more to the you defending Zuko thing, and I want to understand what you see in him," he said, coming to sit next to me on the bed. I sighed and sat up.
"I see a scared kid, traumatized by the war like us. I see someone who's trying so hard to make up for past wrongs, but doesn't know exactly how," I started.
"Well I see someone who's hurt all of us, including you, and I hate seeing you hurt. You think you see yourself in him, but you and him are very different," Sokka said and I nodded.
"You're right, and he was the first person to truly understand how different I am. When we were kids, he was the first Fire Nation person to find out I was a waterbender, and even then, he only cared about my well being. He also never told my secret, my dangerous, life threatening secret," I told Sokka. He gasped but then placed an arm around my shoulder.
"That explains why you have such a soft spot for him," he said with a chuckle. I'm glad he's not mad.
"Zuko was my first friend. His uncle guessed that this would happen, that Zuko would realize he had chosen the wrong path and come back to Aang looking for a way to help. He made me promise to vouch for him, and help him find his way. I want to keep that promise," I finished. Sokka squeezed me to him.
"As much as I don't like him, I do trust you and your judgement. Don't get me wrong, I do NOT trust him at all, but if by some force of the universe he gets let in the group, I'd support you in trying to help him fix himself," Sokka told me. I smiled as I looked up at him, and kissed his cheek.
"Thank you Sokka."
The next day...
We all gathered by the fountain for breakfast, but I immediately noticed one less presence.
"Where's Toph?" I asked. Sokka shrugged.
"I haven't seen her since she stormed off yesterday," he said. Haru suggested that she was exploring the Air Temple and its spots to earthbend, but we weren't convinced.
"I think we should go look for her," Katara said. Haru, The Duke, and Teo agreed to search the temple. As soon as they left, the wall to the left of us caved open, Toph stumbling out of the hole. We ran over to her.
"Toph, what happened?" I asked as I ran to help her sit up. The others were a step behind me.
"My feet got burned," she yelled. Katara went to the girl's feet, gasped, and asked what happened. "Well, I kind of went to see Zuko last night," she said trailing off.
Everyone had understandably surprised expressions.
"What did you say?" I asked, hoping to get to the root of what happened. Please, Zuko, please tell me you didn't do this on purpose.
"I just thought he could be helpful to us, and if I talked to him, maybe we could work something out. It was sort of an accident," Toph explained.
"Zuko's clearly too dangerous to be left alone. We're gonna have to go after him. Sorry, Y/n." Sokka said that last part to me quietly and I nodded. Maybe if they capture him, they'll feel safer having him around...
Aang agreed to the plan and he and Sokka picked up Toph to place her feet in the fountain. We sat with her, making more or less silly plans to capture Zuko. All of a sudden, there was an explosion overhead.
"Stop! I don't want you hunting the Avatar anymore!" We looked up and Zuko was confronting Combustion Man on a ledge. Though, Combustion Man didn't seem very eager to leave his job unfinished.
We hid behind the stone surface of the fountain, but more and more explosions kept coming. We peeked up over the ledge to see Zuko get thrown off the edge of the ledge, but pull himself back up with a vine.
I jumped out from the fountain hiding spot and threw up a fire wall at the same time that Katara did a water wall, creating a giant smoke screen that allowed us all to hide deeper in the temple.
An explosion broke to our left, signifying Combustion Man could just keep exploding things indiscriminately. And one of those explosions would catch us.
I tried to peek outside the wall we were hiding behind, but an explosion cut right in front of me.
"I can't step out to attack him without getting blown up. And I can't get a good enough angle on him from back here," I told the others. Sokka gasped with a clever smile.
"I know how to get an angle on him," he said and he pulled me behind him and grabbed his boomerang. He aimed and threw it, and he hit the assassin right in his combustible forehead.
"Yeah, boomerang!" Sokka said happily, jumping up to catch the returning weapon. We looked back up to the ledge and saw Combustion Man stand back up. "Awww boomerang..." I pat Sokka on his back, pulling him back to our hiding spot.
Another explosion caused the ledge the assassin was standing on to be blown apart, and we saw it fall to the cavern below. That means he's dead right...
Zuko was able to climb back up and meet us by the fountain. I couldn't help it, I ran to him and gave him a hug.
"Thank goodness you didn't die," I told him. He paused before hugging me back. I let go of him but stood next to him with a hand on his shoulder in a show of my support of him.
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but thanks, Zuko," Aang said.
"Listen, I know I didn't explain myself very well yesterday. I know now that no one can give you your honor, it's something you earn for yourself by choosing to do what's right. All I want is to play my part in ending this war. And I know my destiny is to help you restore balance to the world," Zuko said.
"I'm sorry for what I did to you. It was an accident," he said to Toph. "I need to be more careful and in control of my firebending, so I don't hurt people unintentionally."
"I think you are supposed to be my firebending teacher. I learned from Y/n how to defend my loved ones from fire. But I'd like you to teach me how to defend my loved ones with fire," Aang said, bowing to Zuko. He looked at me and I gave him a nod. He smiled.
"Thank you. I'm so happy you've accepted me into your group," Zuko said but Aang held up a hand.
"Not so fast. I still have to ask my friends," he said and then he turned to Toph. "You're the one that Zuko burned. What do you think?"
"Go ahead and let him join. It'll give me plenty of time to get back at him for burning my feet," Toph said with a cheeky smile. Aang turned to me.
"Y/n, you vouched for Zuko initially. Do you still think he's the best person for this job?" He asked. I nodded.
"I do. He'll do great," I told him and Zuko gave me a small smile of thanks.
"Sokka?" Aang asked next.
"Hey, all I want is to defeat the Fire Lord. If you and Y/n are cool with doing it this way, then I'm all for it," he said and he threw me a smirk.
"Katara?" Aang said, and we all knew this was going to be the hardest one.
"I'll go along with whatever you think is right," she finally said. That's five votes, it's unanimous.
"I won't let you down, I promise," Zuko said excitedly, but no one answered him. I pat his back.
"Hey, you did it. I'm glad you found your way and your own destiny," I told him. He nodded but then raised an eyebrow at me.
"Why does it sound like you're quoting Uncle to me?" He asked. I giggled and shrugged, turning to walk away.
"Welcome to the Gaang Zuko."
To be continued...
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Thanks for reading 💙💙