Chapter Text
Sokka had lost his sister.
He hadn't been able to look his dad in the eye since they came back from Ba Sing Se. It didn't matter that Toph and Aang had literally dragged him onto Appa, that he'd still been fighting his rocky restraints when they landed in Chameleon Bay. He had lost his sister, the most important person in the world, and nothing else mattered.
He'd been supposed to take care of her! Take care of Katara, that was the last thing Gran Gran had said to him (well, be nice to her, but he knew what she'd meant). Their dad had left him in charge. He should never, never have left her alone, not for one second. He'd done it just because he wanted to see Dad again, impress him, and now Katara was gone.
He sat on the beach, staring blindly out at the water. Somehow he had to get back to Ba Sing Se, to find her...
Small feet scuffed the sand, and Toph sat down beside him. "Look, I had to do it," she said, and there was a thread of uncertainty under the brashness in her voice. "You wouldn't have been any good to Katara or anyone else if the Dai Lee killed you like they killed Jet."
"I know." He sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. He did know, that was the worst part. He probably could have bullied Toph and Aang into letting him go, he knew what strings to pull on both of them, but they'd been right. It had been time for a strategic retreat. That was why he felt so guilty, why he couldn't look his dad in the eye now. "I'm not mad anymore."
She sighed quietly. "Good. You know, Sweetness is pretty tough. She'll get out of Ba Sing Se okay... and she knows where we are, right? She'll meet us here."
"I don't know if we can wait that long." Sokka frowned. "And she was meeting with the generals, and they all got caught, so she probably did too." For the first time, he didn't let himself flinch away from that thought, or lose himself in rage and guilt. Those wouldn't help Katara. He had to think, to plan.
"But maybe - "
"Shh." It felt like Sokka's brain was finally waking back up, like getting the use of your arm back after it had been asleep. "Thinking."
"But - "
"Shh." He put his hand over her mouth, stared out at the sea for another minute, then got up. "Come on."
He pushed into the tent where Aang, Hakoda, and some of the other warriors were gathered around the map. "I need to get back to Ba Sing Se."
"That's what I've been saying!" Aang said unhappily.
Hakoda's face was drawn and unhappy. "Sokka, we've talked about this. There aren't enough of us for a full assault. We're trying to plan a covert strike, but - "
"No, no." Sokka waved a hand. "I just need to find out the news. Don't even have to get into the city, just the port."
Everyone stared at him. "Why?" Bato asked, frowning.
"Because I need to know if Katara's been captured. If she has been, Azula will put the word out." Sokka tapped his finger on the map. "She'll want us to know."
"Why?" Hakoda frowned. "Surely she'd - "
"She knows Aang's into hostage negotiations. That's how we met her, actually. He was trying to trade a Fire Nation governor's kid for King Bumi." Sokka paced, hands moving as if to grasp the idea and hold it in front of him. "She knows he's willing to negotiate, and she knows Katara's important to him. If Azula has her, she's going to make really sure Aang hears about it."
Aang brightened. "That's true." Then he frowned. "But last time she broke the deal and attacked us."
"Yeah, and she probably plans to do it again. But she knows we'll show up for Katara anyway. She thinks we're stupid, she's made that pretty damn clear." Sokka nodded. "But she doesn't know about Dad. She doesn't know it's not just us."
"She'll be expecting either genuine negotiations or a desperate strike from the three of you," Hakoda said, and for the first time in two days he smiled. "She doesn't know you have backup."
Sokka nodded, ticking points off on his fingers. "She doesn't know we have backup. She doesn't know that Aang has the Avatar State under control. And she doesn't know that Toph has invented metalbending - have I mentioned that that's seriously badass? It is."
Toph grinned. "I am seriously badass."
"Damn right you are." Sokka grinned back. "So. Someone - it doesn't have to be me - needs to go find out if she's been announcing she has a prisoner. Then we'll know what we need to plan for. Because if I was her - and she's pretty smart - she's going to have Katara on a ship."
"She's going to put your water-bending sister on a ship?" Hakoda raised his eyebrows.
"One of those big iron things, yeah. Katara can't get out of a metal cell, not even with waterbending." Sokka rubbed his chin, thinking it through. "Aang's the Avatar, and he can use all the elements, but out on open water he can't throw rocks at her - and neither can Toph. That cuts the number of elements that can get thrown at her down to two, since Aang doesn't know firebending and she doesn't know he can Avatar-up on command, and she'll think it means she only has to deal with Aang. She doesn't count me, since I'm not a bender, and she doesn't know Toph can use her own ship against her, so she'll think she's out too. Yeah. Warship. Open ocean. Where she's got the big catapults and we don't have anything but water to throw back." He came out of his reverie to find Hakoda and the warriors staring at him. "What?"
"Yeah, what?" Aang frowned. "It sounds right to me. You don't think she'd want to get away from the earth?"
"I wouldn't have thought of it." Hakoda looked at Sokka, and the open pride on his face made Sokka's throat tighten suddenly. "I would have assumed she'd fort up somewhere... but Sokka's right. The earth is her enemy, with Toph and Aang against her."
"That's why he's the idea guy," Aang said, almost cheerful again. "He always figures stuff out when we need him to."
"I try." Sokka cleared his throat, feeling his face heat up. "But we've run into Azula a couple of times now, and she always tries to get an edge on us. Tiring us out so we can't fight, or breaking hostage negotiations to attack, or dressing up as Kyoshi Warriors... she likes to hit weak points. If she can take Toph out of the fight before it starts, she has an advantage. I'm sure that's what she'll do."
Aang ferried Bato back to the port on Appa that night. When they came back with word that Azula had set sail the day before, after announcing to everyone within ten miles of Ba Sing Se that she had the Avatar's waterbender in her hold, Sokka was already deep in planning.
Azula was in for a big, big surprise.