Zuko's POV

          Zuko felt bad not telling anyone that he and Sokka were leaving. They left in a balloon when night fell, leaving camp again for the third day in a row. Now they stood, quiet, the silence eating at his soul.

          "Pretty clouds." Sokka commented, avoiding eye contact. 

          "Yeah..." Yeah? "Fluffy." Fluffy?? Zuko played with his fingers, trying to think of something else to say, but Sokka spoke before he could think of anything.

          "Was it hard to leave the Fire Nation? You'd just gotten back, right?" Sokka finally decided to make eye contact, and Zuko leaned against the side of the balloon. 

          "Not really. My entire nation thinks I'm a traitor." He said simply, crossing his arms.

          "Really? It wasn't hard to leave anyone behind?"

          "Well, I had a girlfriend." Zuko frowned as Sokka stiffened strangely, before relaxing way too fast. Is he okay?  "Mai, but we never got along well, and I couldn't drag her into this."

          "Oh, that girl who's always grumpy and sighs a lot?" Sokka asked, checking the fuel in the balloon. Zuko smiled, looking at the ground.

           "Heh. Yeah. She's great, but it's hard, you know...?" He wouldn't look up, afraid of what Sokka's reaction would be. It was silent for a minute or two, then he spoke.

          "I forgive you." He said suddenly, and Zuko snapped his head up to look at him. "And I want to thank you for... for saving Y/N. I know it probably tore you apart." Sokka bit his lip, thinking. "I'd rather it was you than Azula or some Fire Nation executioner out there." 

                              F/N's POV

          "I don't believe this." F/N muttered angrily, pulling several levers and rushing outside to check her position. Sokka and Zuko had disappeared, and she was pretty sure she knew exactly where they went. 

          Taking out the 10 man crew of a small Fire Nation scouting ship wasn't hard, but in the process of taking the ship, the captain had tried to sink it, breaking a lot of the controls before F/N managed to knock him out. This left her with only left steering, no coordinates or navigation system, and the word of a threatened crewman. 

          She didn't have the time to take another ship, Sokka and Zuko had a 2 hour head start, and traveled by air. If she was going to get to the Boiling Rock in a timely manner, she would have to make due with what she had: maps.

          The ship was suspected as soon as she came into port, almost shooting her down with the ship, and she soon found out why they were on high alert. She ran to the top of the steep hill, looking down into the crater. The prison was in chaos, prisoners and guards scrambling everywhere, panicking below on the island in the middle of a steaming lake. Azula was there.

          "Great." F/N sighed, getting out one of her metal containers to slide down the gondola wire. "This looks under control."

                              Zuko's POV

          Through the chaos, Zuko managed to find the others, Suki had the warden tied at the wrists. They were watched closely by the guards as they slowly made their way to the gondola. 

          "I got him." Sokka said breathlessly, joining the group with Jet in tow. Jet looked out of breath, and was a little scratched up, and mildly burned, but otherwise okay. Zuko exchanged awkward glances with him before focusing on the situation.

          The operation was going fairly smoothly, and the riots were being subdued. A tense, uncomfortable quiet fell over the prison, the clustered group of Hakoda, Suki, Sokka, Zuko, Jet, and a man named Chit Sang, holding the warden hostage as they came to the exit, everyone getting on the gondola, except Zuko.

          He drew back his foot, slamming it into the lever over and over, until it broke off. Then he backed up, getting a running start, and leapt up to the moving car, Sokka just barely catching his hand and pulling him up.

          "Who are they?" Hakoda asked. Zuko was distracted for a moment. He truly was Y/N's father, he had the same confident composure, smile, and determined light in his eyes. Then he looked to where he was pointing, and saw Azula and Ty Lee running up the wire.

          "A problem. INCOMING!" Zuko yelled to the others, climbing up to the roof, and helping Sokka up as well. Ty Lee swooped through one of the windows, while Azula propelled herself with firebending, landing on the roof. 

          "Going somewhere?" She asked cutely. Then she was gone, and Zuko blinked in confusion for a moment.

          "Think, next time you decide to break people out of one of the most secure prisons in the Fire Nation, maybe give us a little bit of a heads-up." F/N said angrily. "Thank goodness this isn't all going downhill just yet." 

          She was standing right where Azula had been, and only then, with Azula flying back up to them from below, did Zuko realize that she had swooped in, kicking Azula in the stomach, and clear off the gondola. Then he realized what she was holding.

          "That's-" Zuko stared at the container. Part of it was scratched up from her using it to zipline down the wire. 

          "Y/N's. I know. We didn't bury them with her, and I was tasked to hold onto them. Now pay attention to what's going on or we might not get-"

          "CUT THE WIRE!" It was the warden, and he was restrained soon after, but the message still got to the guards below. The gondola suddenly halted, making them sway dangerously.

          "We aren't going to make it." Zuko realized. They were only halfway there, and the guards were beginning to saw through the metal. F/N strapped Y/N's container loosely to her belt, hidden under her clothes. She was staring at the prison below, and didn't even look away when Azula and Ty Lee hopped onto the car going the opposite way.

          "So long, brother." Azula taunted, moving down to the safety below.

          Zuko and Sokka moved back into the car, exchanging worried looks with everyone. Things weren't looking good.

          "F/N? Come on, get inside, we'll figure something out." Zuko called, leaning out the window to look at her. Her white, piercing eyes were still fixated on the guards cutting the wire below. "F/N? Can you hear me?"

          Everything about the mysterious girl was unnerving. The silent way she moved, and looked around, somehow familiar, and the way her eyes seemed to get colder whenever she looked at him. Every time he felt those broken eyes on him he had to resist the urge to squirm. 

          "Could we get up the wire, and leave the car?" Sokka suggested. Jet glanced out the window and shook his head.

          "We don't have time. Not all of us would make it onto the wire, and slamming into the cliff when the wire is cut will knock us out at the very least." Jet said grimly. "It looks like this might be it." He stopped short, and everyone went quiet as F/N suddenly slipped through the window, into the car. 

          "No, you're wrong." She said firmly, unclipping the right container from her belt again. She handed it to Zuko, and he slowly turned it over in his hands, feeling a pang in his heart when he spotted the little engraved notes he and Y/N had written to eachother. He didn't read them, in fear he would break down. 

          F/N put a hand on Hakoda's and Sokka's shoulders, her eyes seeming to say silent words to both of them. 

          "What do you mean, what's your plan?" Jet asked hopefully. F/N looked at him for a moment. 

          "I had hoped we would meet again under better circumstances." She admitted. Zuko frowned in confusion. Had the assassin met Jet before in her travels? "But knowing you're safe is good enough, I guess." She looked to Zuko. "You as well."

          "Zuko-" She turned towards him, and he felt a strange familiarity in her gaze. 

          "What's going on? You need to tell us the plan." Zuko demanded. "We don't have time. Why did you give this to me? What do you mean?

          "I mean, you're all going to make it..." she paused, staring out the ground before taking a deep breath, and looking up, straight into his eyes. "And I'm going to miss you all over again." F/N's voice was strangled, and before anyone could react, she whipped out the other container, hooking it around the wire, and leaping out the window.

          "NOO!" Sokka screamed, lunging to try catching her before she left the car, but she was too fast, sliding down the line and kicking the two guards away from the saw. She quickly kicked out the metal wedge preventing the car from moving, and it lurched forwards, making everyone in the gondola tumble to the ground.

          "NO! LET ME GO! LET ME GO!" Sokka was screaming at his dad, who held him back from jumping out of the car. Zuko took a moment to process, then stood back up, grabbing the rail and staring down in disbelief. 

          It was about 20 v 1, and more guards were coming down. F/N pulled out dozens of knives, pinning guards to the walls, but there were too many. Sokka watched too, and he began quietly sobbing as a stream of boiling water was suddenly pulled from the lake, splashing an attacking guard. F/N was a waterbender. 

          With the boiling water, she was able to keep the guards away from the controls until they got to the top. Sokka had to be carried out, and Zuko looked down from the cliff, confused, and still not quite sure what was happening.

          The guards finally got to her, seizing her arms and pinning them behind her, yelling to grab restraints. She struggled, and one grabbed her hood.

          Zuko's heart stopped as it was pulled back.

          H/C hair spilled over the black cloth as the guards pulled away the hood and mask. The container Zuko held seemed to become heavy as lead in his hand. 

          He looked down at it, and finally realized, under the old engravings it had, there was a new, hastily scratched line. A line that rang in his ears, even though they weren't spoken aloud.

          An anguished scream ripped from Sokka's throat, voicing the word Zuko couldn't manage to form in his own mouth as he read the line three times over, looking back down at the girl below. White, pained eyes stared right back.

          "Y/N!"

                 I still love you.