Minor blood warning.

         For a terrifying moment, they swung, F/N praying the string and the rocks above would hold as she gripped Zuko's hand tightly, his feet dangling in the daunting mist below them. There was yelling down below, but F/N couldn't hear them. 

          She could do nothing but stare at him, concentrating on holding onto the string, and his hand. Her weapon wasn't meant for this. The string was way too thin, almost slippery, and it was beginning to cut into her hand. 

          Her palms were getting sweaty from the effort of keeping them both from falling, and she squeezed tighter on his hand, her breathing getting more labored.

          Another explosion rocked the platform above, making the string bounce, the chord cutting painfully through her glove and into her fingers. There was cheering, but concerned yelling below, and this time it was more audible.

          "I got him!" Sokka was yelling. "Hang on, Aang is stuck, but Appa will be there! We need to get him out of the cave! Hold. On."

          F/N didn't dare look in his direction. Zuko was slipping from her grasp. She cupped her hand up, trying to make it easier for him to hold on, but he was losing strength too. 

          "I'm going to yank you up." She decided breathlessly, her words almost too strained to understand. "As hard as I can afford, and you need to grab my leg. Can you do that? I can't pull too hard, or the blade could come loose with the movement."

          Zuko only nodded, struggling to grab her hand with his other without swinging them too much. F/N stared fixedly at him, unwilling to look at the terrifying fog below. She couldn't feel the hand holding the string anymore, it felt like she was hovering in the air, about to drop at any moment. He managed to grab her hand with both of his.

          "Ready?" He nodded. "One, two, three-" She pulled directly upward as hard as she could without moving too much, and Zuko pulled down, just barely grabbing her leg. They swung again, the chord groaning dangerously. 

          After a few terrifying moments of silence, F/N slowly brought her leg up to her chest with great effort, allowing Zuko to wrap his arms around her waist, and lessen the strain on his hands. The chord groaned again, and they hung there in awful, waiting silence. 

          "It's coming loose." F/N whispered in a horrified rasp. She could feel them very slowly descending as the shuriken slowly began to come loose. 

          "I need to let go." Zuko realized, beginning to loosen his own grip. 

          "Don't you dare." F/N spat, grabbing a fistful of the back of his shirt. "Hold on, I'm going to climb." Zuko looked up at her, sheer terror in his eyes.

          "You can't. I have to let go." He wasn't looking at her masked face. F/N looked up at her other hand, the one holding the string, only to see red running down her arm. The chord had cut in, deep, and a gruesome trickle was visible, soaking the black fabric of her clothes. 

          "Hold on." She said, her voice barely audible, and cracking with pain. "Don't let go." Zuko hesitated, his grip loosening even more. "Don't ever let go." F/N ordered sternly. After a few seconds, he tightened his arms around her waist. 

          "Ok." Was all he said, in the smallest voice she'd ever heard from him.

          F/N let go of his shirt, slowly reaching a tired arm up, and gripping the chord just above her bloody hand. She pulled, and screamed from the slice it left in her palm, but they went up a little. The chord groaned, and she waited until it stopped, then reached up again, higher, straining her muscles to pull both of them up. 

          The chord now below them could have been grabbed by Zuko, but it would make them swing, and it was slick with her blood anyways, also making it impossible for her to use her feet to wrap around the string.

          So she continued the painful, and agonizingly slow process, stopping when they began to sink faster, or when it groaned. 

            Finally, impossibly, they reached the edge.

          "Grab. Ledge." She choked. Zuko slowly reached out, grabbing onto the ledge and hoisting himself up, slowly edging his weight off her. It was a relief, but then her heart went into her throat, and she saw a glint of metal fly into the air.

             It had finally slipped out.

            She barely registered the wind in her ears before there was a blinding pain in her hands, and then she was back up again, pulled onto solid ground, clutching her fingers close to herself and writhing in pain. 

          "F/N! Holy- Katara get over here!" Sokka panicked, and F/N's vision cleared a little, allowing her to sit up. There was a horrified, disgusted, and concerned look in his eyes, and when she took one look around, she could understand why.

          It was a gruesome scene. Blood was everywhere. The chord was still embedded in both of F/N's palms, not coming out even when she gave it a short, painful tug. The only thing the tug helped was getting more blood to come out.

          Zuko didn't look much better. There was a huge, deep gash down his right forearm, and looking at his hands explained where it came from. His hands were stuck together, both horribly impaled by the shuriken. He must have grabbed the weapon in the air, the points getting caught on the skin of his arm and ripping it open all the way to his hands, where it had miraculously not torn all the way through, allowing him to pull her back up.

          "Thank you." He said shakily, clutching his dripping red hands close to himself.

                              —| § ථ § |—

          "You both nearly sliced your hands off. I could barely fix them, and you need to let them rest for a few days." Katara scolded. "F/N, what on earth were you thinking when you jumped off that ledge??"

          "She saved my life." Zuko defended. 

          "I didn't ask you!"

          "That Aang needs to learn firebending." F/N said simply, looking up from her completely bandaged hands to Aang, whose torso was wrapped in bandages from debris trapping him. Thankfully, his injuries weren't bad, and he would be fine by the next day.

            "You both almost died." Sokka groaned. "But she has a point, and I think Zuko has earned the right to join us."

          "WHAT?" Katara spat.

           "Think about it." Toph snapped back. "We would be dead if he hadn't attacked Sparky Sparky Boom Man, and he impaled both of his hands to save F/N. We owe him a lot, and we still need that firebending teacher. Zuko is joining us."

          The sun was setting again, the day mostly taken up by the attack, and healing. Katara needing to have several healing sessions with both Zuko and F/N to close up the deep wounds, but still, they were obviously going to scar.

          "Really?" Zuko asked hopefully, fidgeting with his bandaged hands in his lap. "I promise I won't let you guys down."

          The others nodded, and got up from their seats on the ground, heading back to the rooms they were staying in, leaving F/N and Zuko behind.

          F/N looked over at him. His hair had grown out even more, his fringe now hanging over his eyes. He looked older, more tired, but there was a new spark of life in his amber eyes. She didn't know what to feel, looking over at him. There were so many emotions that they cancelled eachother out.

          "It's, nice to meet you F/N, I guess." Zuko laughed. "That was quite the first impression. I don't know what to think, swinging in to the rescue. I've heard a lot about you, though."

          "And I'm not sure if meeting the famed Prince Zuko is an honor or not, either. You don't have the best reputation in the Avatar group." F/N chuckled lightly.

          "Well, it's obvious you know me the least, given you chose to save me." He fidgeted nervously. Oh, quite the contrary.

          "Thank you." The words came out before she even registered thinking them.

          "For what?" Zuko's head snapped up, tilting to one side in confusion.

          "For trusting me."

          "I didn't really have a choice. I should be thanking you again."

          "Don't." F/N waved at him dismissively, standing up. "I'll show you to your room." She paused for a moment, thinking. "Just, thanks." She turned around to look at him, studying him with cold, white eyes.

          "For not letting go."