The Thief And The Healer

Episode 21: Dragon Spit and Brownies

Sokka found him on the floor of their kitchen, legs spread beneath their uneven table, gulping down a bottle of Uncle's dragon spit.

"Zuko?" Sokka left his bag by the door. "Dude, what's going on?"

Zuko took another long swig of the sweet, burning liquid. "Okay, listen. I know this may seem out of nowhere, but I want you to tell me what happened to your mother."

Sokka's eyes shuttered. Slowly, he slid down the counter until they were shoulder to shoulder on the floor. Reaching over, he grabbed the bottle from Zuko and took a swig of his own.

For a while they just drank.

"It's not a day I like to remember."

"When was it?" Zuko breathed.

"A little over ten years ago."

Zuko winced. Around the time his father had come into power.

"You remember she worked for Phoenix Industries? Well, she wasn't just a factory worker," Sokka said. "She was some higher up's assistant. Got some pretty good benefits but terrible hours." Another swallow of spit. "Katara spent more time with her than I did, she would stay up with dad waiting for her to get home. One morning, she kissed both of us on the way out. It was pretty normal except..." He took a shuddering breath. "I want to say I noticed something was different, that I could sense something was wrong, but I had no idea. Then she just...never came home."

"Did they say what had happened to her?" Zuko prompted.

"Some kind of mugging gone wrong." Sokka wiped an arm across his nose. "She'd been on her way back. Wasn't more than three streets away. We were all asleep in our beds while our mother was murdered a couple hundred yards off."

Zuko stayed quiet, understanding the weight of grief. He turned away when his roommate's eyes began brimming with tears.

"She was killed by the very types of people she was trying to save," Sokka said, his voice choked. "They didn't know. They saw the Phoenix emblem and they just...They didn't understand that she was changing things. She always told us she was working on something, something that was going to save everyone."

Zuko took the offered bottle and gulped down a mouthful before passing it back to Sokka to finish it off.

"I thought about giving up on the city," Sokka said. "You've seen how Katara treats Industry workers. If that was how it treated people who cared for it, was it even worth saving?"

Nodding gently, Zuko understood. After what he'd witnessed the last couple of weeks, he could understand that mindset.

"But then I met you."

Sitting upright, Zuko looked over in shock. Sokka was sliding his finger in tight circles around the lip of the bottle.

"You had seen the darkest edges of the industry, lived through the grunt work, and you wanted to make a change. You reminded me of her." Sokka again sniffed, tears leaking down his tanned cheeks. He took in a single, shaking breath through his mouth. "Sometimes it hurts more to hope, and it hurts more to care, but we don't give up."

The phrase was vaguely familiar. Zuko tried to remember where he'd heard it before. Maybe Uncle? It sounded like something he would say.

"Maybe you can succeed where she failed." Sokka shrugged. "I always thought we needed more people like her in the world."

"I...I appreciate that, man." Not really sure what else to do, Zuko clapped his roommate on the shoulder. After a moment he worked up the courage to ask, "Did she mention anything about a deadline?"