A Voluntary Prisoner: Chapter Three - New Information

[somariel]

Title: A Voluntary Prisoner
Rating: T/PG-13
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Chapters: Four, plus an epilogue
Characters: Zuko, Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, minor appearances by The Duke, Teo, and Haru
Summary: What if the Gaang had accepted Zuko's offer to become their prisoner?

The next morning, Zuko woke up slowly, feeling rather stiff and sore, as if he had been sleeping on a cold, hard surface all night. That's because I was sleeping on a cold, hard surface all night, he thought. Thinking back to what had happened the day before, he hoped that the Avatar and his friends had at least realized that he wasn't their enemy anymore.

I really shouldn't have mentioned that assassin, he realized. I'm not sure why I did mention him, unless it was because I was assuming they had already realized that I was the one who set him on their trail. I suppose that they were bound to learn that eventually, so it's probably better that they learned about it now than it would have been if they learned about it after they had accepted me.

Sitting up, Zuko began to stretch slowly, trying to restore feeling to limbs numb from resting on the hard, cold stone all night. He was in the middle of stretching his left arm when the gap in the wall that gave him light and air opened up into a full doorway. Looking up, he was surprised to see, not Sokka and Toph, but Aang himself, a bowl of rice in one hand and Zuko's bag slung over his shoulder.

"Good morning," Aang said, easing the bag off of his shoulder and onto the floor. "I brought your bag and your breakfast."

"Thank you," Zuko said, reaching out to take the bowl of rice. As he began to eat, he noticed the light dimming as the doorway closed down to a small gap once more.

Assuming that Aang had left, Zuko was surprised to hear Aang's quiet voice say, "I have some questions that I need to ask you."

Looking around the room, Zuko realized that he and Aang were completely alone, with no one else in the room. "How'd you talk Katara into letting you see me alone?" Zuko asked.

"I didn't give her a choice," Aang said. "I told her that Roku's spirit had said that I needed to talk to you alone and if she wanted to argue, she should take it up with him."

"Oh," Zuko said. "I guess it is sort of hard to argue with a spirit." Putting the bowl down on the floor, Zuko asked, "What do you need to know?"

"Well, this question really falls under 'want to know'," Aang said, "but we were wondering where your uncle is."

"I don't know," Zuko said, looking at his lap, a slightly mournful expression on his face. "I had planned to free him before I left the capital, but by the time I reached the prison, he had already broken himself out."

Aang reached into Zuko's bag and took out Roku's hair piece. Holding it out to Zuko, Aang asked, "Do you know what this is?"

"It's the hair piece that Sozin gave Roku before Roku left to be trained as the Avatar," Zuko answered.

"Yes," Aang said. "How did you get it?"

"My uncle gave it to me," Zuko said. "And before you ask, no, I don't know how he got it."

"Okay," Aang said. "Why did your uncle give it to you?"

"I'm not entirely sure why he gave it to me," Zuko said slowly, "but he gave it to me right after telling me that Roku was my great-grandfather."

"I thought Sozin was your great-grandfather," Aang said, confused.

"On my father's side," Zuko said. "Uncle Iroh said that Roku was my mother's grandfather."

"So you're descended from both Roku and Sozin?" Aang asked. The airbender sounded very surprised.

"Yes," Zuko said. "Uncle said that understanding the struggle between Roku and Sozin would help me better understand the struggle within myself because good and evil are always at war within me. He said that that war is my legacy, but that because of that legacy, I also have the power within me to restore balance to the world."

"I see," Aang said, a thoughtful look on his face. "You've given me a lot to think about." Getting to his feet, Aang held out the hair piece and asked, "Do you mind if I take this with me while I think?"

"Go ahead," Zuko said. "If you believe that it will help you think about all this, I'm not going to object."

"Thank you," Aang said as he opened the doorway again. Then he stepped out of the room and closed the doorway back down to a small gap, leaving Zuko alone once more.

:-:-:-:-:

It was getting on toward dinnertime and Katara was starting to worry. She hadn't seen Aang since right after breakfast, when he went to go talk to Zuko. She hadn't wanted to let Aang see Zuko by himself, but when he had insisted that he was following instructions from Roku, she had given in even though she had a sneaking suspicion that Roku had not actually given any such instructions. Still, even if her suspicion was correct, Aang obviously felt that it was important enough to lie about having talked to Roku.

Finally, when Aang did not show up for dinner, Katara brought her concerns out into the open. "Has anyone else seen Aang today?" she asked as she served out the rice.

Every answer was some variation on "not since breakfast".

"The same goes for me," she said once everyone else had answered the question. "I haven't seen him since he went to talk to Zuko."

"Do you think that Zuko did something with him?" Sokka asked.

"I'm not sure what else could have happened," Katara said. "I can't imagine that he's been talking to Zuko all day."

"Whoa, slow down," Toph said. "Before we start assuming the worst, why don't we find out if Zuko is still here. Sokka and I can go check on him under the pretext of bringing his dinner. If Zuko's still sealed in the meditation cell, then Twinkletoes disappeared on his own and we have nothing to worry about."

"Even if Aang did disappear on his own, it's still possible that Zuko hurt him somehow," Katara said.

"Twinkletoes can take care of himself, Katara," Toph said, "but if you're really that worried about him, we can search the temple after Sokka and I check on Zuko."

:-:-:-:-:

Zuko was sitting against the wall, meditating with his eyes closed, when he heard footsteps coming down the hall. Opening his eyes, he waited to see who it was. As the gap in the wall widened into a doorway again, it revealed Sokka and Toph standing in the hall. Like the night before, Sokka had a bowl of rice in his hand.

"Looks like it's dinnertime again," Zuko said.

"Yes," Sokka replied. "But first we have some questions for you."

"What do you want to know?" Zuko said.

"When was the last time you saw Aang today?" Sokka asked.

"This morning, when he brought my stuff and my breakfast," Zuko said. "He left after asking me some questions."

"What did he ask you about?" Sokka asked.

"He wanted to know where my uncle was," Zuko said.

"Did he ask you about anything else?" Sokka asked.

"What's it to you if he did?" Zuko snapped. "It's not like I did anything to him."

"Calm down, Firecracker," Toph said. "We weren't saying you had."

"Why are you asking me, anyway?" Zuko said bitterly. "It's obvious you don't trust me. If you want to know what we talked about, you could just ask him."

"Actually, we can't ask him," Toph said. "We're asking you because no one's seen Twinkletoes today since he left to talk to you and Sweetness is getting worried."

"Well, if you're hoping that I know where he is, you're out of luck," Zuko said. "He didn't say anything about where he was going."

"What did he say?" Sokka asked.

"He said that I'd given him a lot to think about," Zuko said.

"Was this 'a lot to think about' related to Roku's hair piece?" Sokka asked.

"Yes, it was," Zuko said. "And no, I won't tell you what it is. I want to know what Aang thinks about it before I tell anyone else."

"Okay," said Toph. "While I'm thinking of it, though, where is your uncle?"

"I don't know," Zuko said. "I was going to free him before I left, but he broke himself out of prison during the eclipse and was gone by the time I got there."

:-:-:-:-:

It was nearly an hour and a half after Toph and Sokka had talked to Zuko by the time Aang finally reappeared. Naturally, Toph was the first one to notice him.

"Hey," she said into the silence that had fallen around the fire, "Twinkletoes is coming."

Everyone looked up to see Aang approaching with a thoughtful, somewhat pensive look on his face.

"Aang!" Katara cried. "Where have you been? You've been missing all day."

"Sorry, Katara," Aang said as he took a seat in the circle around the fire. "I've been in the sanctuary, sitting in front of Roku's statue. I needed some time to myself to think about what Zuko told me."

"So are you going to tell us what it was that you needed the entire day to think about it?" Sokka asked.

"Yes," Aang said. "What he told me made me realize that there is a very good reason for the…confusion he's shown in his past actions. I think that he is, at the very least, genuinely trying to change. We need to give him a chance to prove himself."

"He's already had a chance to prove himself," Katara said angrily, "or have you forgotten what happened in Ba Sing Se? While we were in prison together, he started talking about his mother and making it seem like he was an actual human being with feelings. I got the sense that he was really confused and hurt. But when the time came, he made his choice and we paid the price."

"Just hear me out," Aang said calmly. He had known that Katara wasn't going to take this well, so he wasn't surprised by her immediate rejection of the idea. "What he told me today is something he didn't know when he was in Ba Sing Se."

"All right," Katara said, sighing heavily, "but it's going to take a lot to convince me."

"We all know that this war is being fought in the physical world," Aang said, "but in a sense, it is also being fought in the spiritual world, within Zuko's own soul."

"What do you mean by that?" Sokka asked.

"I mean that good and evil are at war within his very being," Aang said. "We know that, as the Firelord's son, Zuko is descended from Firelord Sozin on his father's side. But on his mother's side, he is descended from Avatar Roku."

"What?" Katara cried. "He's descended from both Roku and Sozin?"

"Yes," Aang said. "He says that his uncle told him that Avatar Roku was his mother's grandfather. The confusion he has shown in the past stems from the war between Roku's good and Sozin's evil that is occurring within his spirit."

"Even assuming that this is true," Sokka said, "how does this mean that he's trying to change? And how do we know that he'll be able to stick with any change he makes?"

Aang sighed. "Every time we've met Zuko before, he was being pulled in two different directions by the two sides of his heritage. But because he didn't know why he was being pulled in opposite directions, it confused him and in his confusion, he found it easiest to simply go in the direction he had always gone in. Now, however, he knows why he's being pulled in opposite directions and having that knowledge has allowed him to make a conscious choice between them instead of simply letting his confusion guide him down the familiar path. And now that he has truly chosen his path, he has left the confusion behind him and he knows that he needs to think about his choices before he makes them, lest he deviate from his chosen direction."

"Okay," Sokka said, "I guess that I can see what you're saying. But that doesn't mean we should just go and give him our complete trust."

"I didn't say that we should," Aang replied. "All I said was that we need to give him a chance to prove that he is worthy of being trusted."

:-:-:-:-:

After Sokka and Toph left him, Zuko leaned back against the wall to think. It appeared that Aang was doing some serious thinking about what Zuko had told him. It was too much to hope that the young airbender would give Zuko his complete trust, but Zuko hoped that the boy would at least decide to give him a chance to prove himself. Realizing that there was nothing else he could do until Aang returned to his friends, Zuko stretched out under the blanket that he had had in his bag, put his head down on his folded robe, and went to sleep.

Zuko wasn't sure how long he had been asleep before Sokka shook him awake, but it couldn't have been too long, since he felt just as tired as he had when he had gone to sleep. Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes to clear the sleep from them and looked up at the younger boy. "What is it?" he asked.

"Aang's back," Sokka replied. "He's done a lot of thinking about what you told him and he's made some good points in your favor, but we've still got some questions that we want answered before we make any decisions."

"So, what, you came to ask me those questions?" Zuko said.

"No," Sokka replied. "I came to bring you out so that everyone can hear the answers from your own mouth."

"Just let me put on my robe," Zuko said. Putting words into action, he was quickly ready to follow Sokka to wherever the others were waiting for him. Following the younger boy into the hall, he heard the little earthbender Toph fall in behind him. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"Out to the room at the back of the terrace where you talked to us yesterday," Sokka replied.

When they got there, Zuko was surprised to see three unfamiliar faces in addition to Aang and Katara. There was a boy with a mustache who was probably about his own age, a boy in some kind of chair on wheels who looked to be about the same age as Aang, and a little boy with an oversized helmet who couldn't have been any older than eight.

Looking up at the sound of their footsteps, Aang's face broke into a smile. "Oh, good, you're here," he said. "Take a seat."

Sitting down on Aang's right, Toph patted the ground to her own right. "Right here, Firecracker, between me and Sokka."

Taking the offered spot, Zuko settled himself on the ground. Once Zuko was seated, Sokka sat down on his other side and began to speak. "So Aang's told us what you told him about being descended from both Roku and Sozin and he's explained how he realized that your dual heritage was the reason you've always seemed so confused, but we want to know what it was that caused you to change. You've always been our enemy before, so what made you decide that you wanted to join us?"

Zuko sighed. "It's…complicated," he said, running his hand through his hair.

"So explain it," Sokka said.

"It's sort of hard to explain," Zuko said, "and it involves things that I really do not like to talk about."

"Too bad," Katara said harshly. "You'd better talk about it."

"I—I can't!" Zuko cried. "It's too painful for me." He just couldn't talk about the Agni Kai and his banishment. He simply could not. Not only was it a painful subject for him, but the Avatar and his friends—well, really, it was Katara he was worried about—might think he was playing for sympathy.

"What do you mean when you say it's too painful?" Aang asked.

"I've never actually had to tell anyone about it," Zuko said. "Sometimes, if someone accidentally reminds me about it, I'll burst out in anger, but everyone else who knows was either present when it happened or heard from someone other than me."

"So you don't want to talk about the details," Sokka said. "Can you give us a general explanation, one that doesn't go into the specifics?"

"I'll try," Zuko said. Rubbing his hand against his forehead for a while, he finally spoke again. "Let's just say that I've been through a lot in the past few years and it's been hard. But I'm realizing that I had to go through all those things to learn the truth. I thought I had lost my honor and that somehow my father could return it to me. But 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 now is to play my part in ending this war. And I know my destiny is to help Aang restore balance to the world."

"I've got one more question for you," Aang said. "Why did you send Combustion Man after us?"

"I suppose you could say that I panicked," Zuko answered. "When I saw my father for the first time in three years, I learned that Azula had given me the credit for taking you down in Ba Sing Se. Somehow, she figured out that I had lied when I told her that there was no way you could have survived. We both knew that if you were alive, I'd lose anything that I had gained from her lie, so I was desperate to make sure that you did end up dead."

"And since you couldn't take care of it yourself without having everyone else find out that Aang was still alive, you hired him," Sokka finished.

"Exactly," Zuko said. "Like I told you guys yesterday, though, I'm gonna try to stop him."

"All right," Aang said. "You've answered our questions to my satisfaction."

"I'm satisfied too," Toph said.

"It's clear that there's a lot you haven't told us," Sokka said, "but what you have told us is good enough for now."

"If the three of you are all satisfied, then so am I," Katara said.

"Okay," Aang said, turning to Zuko. "You can consider yourself to be on probation. We're going to give you a chance to prove yourself to us, but there are some conditions you're going to have to obey."

"What are the conditions?" Zuko asked.

"First," Sokka said, "no firebending."

Zuko ground his teeth silently. Did they know how hard that would be? Of course they do, he thought. Three of them are benders as well. That's why they included it. They want to test just how committed I am to joining them. Then something occurred to him. "Am I allowed to practice the forms?" he asked. Going through the motions of the katas without actually bending wasn't quite the same as real practice, but it was better than nothing.

Sokka thought about it for a moment. "As long as you don't actually produce any fire," he said finally. "Now, back to the conditions. Second, you'll continue to sleep in that room and you'll be sealed in at night, although we'll leave it open during the day. Third, you must have someone else with you at all times, unless you are either in your room or out on this terrace. Are you willing to accept those conditions?"

"I am," Zuko said. It was an annoyed willingness, but he was willing. Restricting his movements and keeping him under nearly constant watch wasn't necessary, since he had no intention of betraying them. They might not believe that, but it was true and that was what made the restrictions annoying.

"In that case," Sokka said, "allow me to introduce the other members of our little group. From oldest to youngest, we have Haru, Teo, and The Duke."

"Pleased to meet you," Zuko said, giving a seated bow in the direction of the three unfamiliar faces he had noticed earlier.

"And now," Sokka said, "it's time for you to go back to your room so we can all get some sleep."

Chapter Four