Love in Danger chapter 24: Katara almost got ...

Katara was still sitting in her cell. Nothing had really changed since that morning. No one else had entered the room. She was glad for that but she was growing bored and restless. She thought of escaping just so she would be able to walk around.

She kept contemplating how much danger Aang was really in. He was a fully realized Avatar. He had power other humans could scarcely fathom. He defeated Fire Lord Ozai single-handedly even when he was empowered by Sozin's Comet. It didn't seem realistic that Long Feng had anything that could kill him. Katara kept reassuring herself with this knowledge, telling herself there was no chance Long Feng would succeed, that she had complete faith in Aang. Sadly, at the same time, Katara couldn't help but feel a twinge of fear.

Long Feng wasn't as powerful as Aang, there was no doubt about that but Long Feng's danger didn't lie in his Earthbending power, it was in his cunning. Through careful manipulation and planning he had brought the Earth King and all of Ba Sing Se under his control. Whatever plan he had to kill Aang he must have been working on for years with every move plotted carefully and meticulously. Katara didn't want to believe he was right but at the same time she saw Aang acting rashly after the attack at the Jasmine Dragon. There was a chance he might play into Long Feng's hand.

The door opened again. It was another agent carrying another tray. Katara didn't even bother looking very closely at him. He was obviously just there to bring her lunch.

There was a strong thud. The guard had intentionally dropped the tray on the ground, spilling the food all over. He stepped on the tray and crushed the food even more.

"Hey!" Katara shouted. She looked up and immediately recognized the man. It was the guard whose shoes she had thrown up on this morning. "Oh, it's you. Still upset about your shoes I see."

"Yep" the man said with a malicious smile. "And you're going to make it up to me."

Katara merely laughed off the comment. "Well, I'd over you my shoes but I don't really think they're feminine enough for you."

The guard took a step forward. "You really should watch that spunk woman. It's going to get you killed one day."

Katara giggled. "Please you can't do anything to me. You're supposed to make sure I stay healthy. What would Long Feng do to you if he found out you disobeyed his orders?"

"Oh, I'm not gonna hurt ya" the guard replied. He kept walking forward. His voice was ravenous. "Oh, this isn't going to hurt at all. In fact, you're going to enjoy it quite a bit."

Katara gasped. She stared straight at the guard. His eyes were full of a malicious lust. "W…what do you mean?"

The guard's voice became more and more like a starving animal's. "I feel pretty sorry for you. Your husband is a weak, scrawny Airbender. Have you ever wondered what the touch of a real man is like?"

Katara stood up and took a defensive stance. "Stay away from me!" she barked.

Before Katara could react, the guard struck the wall, using his Earthbending to close off the bathroom door. Katara was cut off from the only nearby water source. "There's no water for you to use and plenty of earth for me to use" the guard explained. It was true, the entire cell was made of stone. "You know how this is going to end. Just let it happen."

"Get out of here!" Katara shouted. "I don't need water! If you come anywhere near me, you'll regret it!" In reality Katara wasn't as helpless as it seemed. The air in the cave was fairly humid. So much so it surprised her. She estimated there should have been enough water vapor for her to fight with.

The man merely smirked. He shot the rock gloves off of his hands and pinned her to the wall before Katara could react.

"Now this is going to happen but it can happen one of two ways" the guard warned. "Either you behave yourself and I don't hurt you, or if you can give me trouble and then I'll kill you when I'm done. Before you say anything about Long Feng you should know I'll just tell him you tried to escape. "

Katara was working on breaking the restraints. She was clenching her fists in order to gather water vapor in the cracks of the stone and to freeze it. Normally she would blow on gloves to hasten the freezing but the guard would notice that. She had to distract him to buy more time to break free. "Oh, come on you don't want someone like me. I have a husband and I'm pregnant."

"Oh, I don't mind" the guard responded as if he was being polite. "After all it's been so long since my last meal, I don't feel very picky. When you're hungry enough any dish will satisfy your appetite." He licked his mouth, slobbering all over his lips.

Katara was disgusted, absolutely disgusted to be anywhere near this man. She was wondering if she would be able to use her vomit as a weapon. The man came closer until he was inches away from her. "You disgusting pig! Get away from me! Don't touch me!" She started sloshing around the saliva in her mouth, gathering up as much spit as possible.

The man put his hand on her shoulder. It was cold and boney. He leaned in closely to Katara.

Moron Katara thought. I'll spit an icicle right in your eye now. I'll use that opening to break free then freeze you with water vapor. Katara wasn't that scared. She was more grossed out than anything by this man's presence but she was confident in her ability to defeat him.

"Don't worry" the man said with an evil grin. "This is gonna be fun."

Katara pursed her lips and got ready to attack. However, she never got the chance.

Before Katara knew what was happening the guard was pulled away from her face. Someone else dragged him across the room. There was a sudden snapping sound as this second man punched the guard in the face, knocking him straight to the ground.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?" the second man shouted. He was absolutely furious, his eyes looked murderous. Katara immediately recognized the second man. It was jing.

The guard rubbed his mouth, blood was pouring out of it. jing's hand had been encased in rock when he had punched him. "She was trying to escape!" the guard feebly protested.

This sent jing into a rage. He knelt down, grabbed the guard by his collar and pulled him to his feet. "That's a load of crap! I saw that look in your eyes!" His voice turned into a low growl. "I've seen that look in the faces of Fire Nation soldiers. You're an animal."

The guard could tell jing was far too angry for any argument he could throw at him to work. So instead, he merely smirked and answered, "Well we're all animals, aren't we? My appetite's not really any different from yours, is it?"

That was the wrong thing to say. jing's eyes widened and he immediately let his fist fly again, this time much harder. The guard collapsed on the floor, barely conscious. As soon as he rose to his knees, he spat out a soup of blood, spit and teeth fragments.

"You disobeyed my orders as well as Long Feng's," jing said menacingly. "There will be consequences. Get up you filth."

The guard rose to his feet, struggle and teetering. He had to put his hand on the wall to support himself but jing wasn't going to help him. He stumbled towards the door.

"Not so fast" jing said. "Guards!" he called. In a few seconds two more Dai Li agents arrived. "This man is guilty of insubordination. Take him away to await punishment." The Dai Li agents silently obeyed, cuffing the bleeding guard and leading him away.

jing turned around. He calmly used his Earthbending to let Katara go. His face was still filled with rage. She dropped to her knees, not out of pain or exhaustion, but mostly because she had been in an awkward position. jing knelt down in front of her.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Katara nodded. "He wasn't able to do anything. I…" She was about to explain how she was prepared to fight him using her spit and water vapor but stopped short. She thought it would be a bad idea to reveal her fighting strategy, but she had another reason. For the first time it didn't look like jing was holding back his emotions. He looked angry that was for sure but his eyes also contained the shadow of how they looked in the Jasmine Dragon, when he had hesitated to kill Katara. That looked seemed oddly familiar. He seemed worried and for some reason Katara felt the need to reassure him. "You stopped him."

jing nodded. He let out a sigh of relief. His face changed. He looked very different. It looked like he couldn't decide how to feel. He avoided looking at Katara's face. "I…I'm sorry…" The words were hesitant and unsure as if he was confused about his motivation for saying them.

Confusion that was it! That was the look Katara recognized. That was the look she had seen in Zuko's face all those years ago; the moral war raging within one man. Even when Zuko had been the banished prince pursuing Aang, that look was always in his eyes; the good within his heart always doubted if he was doing the right thing. Katara couldn't see it at first. She had always thought of Zuko as the enemy. Morality and people had always been black and white to her back then. There were good people and there were evil people. Zuko taught her how wrong that mentality was, it was a total oversimplification of human nature. Now another enemy stood before with that same look of confusion and doubt, and that enemy had already shown her several times he hadn't managed to fully repress his conscience.

"Sorry? For what?" Katara asked.

jing sounded like he didn't know the answer either but he still did his best to answer. "I'm sorry for letting that guard in here. He won't bother you again."

Katara knew what she should do, or rather what she felt like she should have done when Zuko had first tried to redeem himself. She wasn't just going to shrug off his attempts to appear human. She spoke to him and tried to sound as grateful as she could. "Thank you jing. Thank you for protecting me. It was very kind of you." She knew she could have protected herself but it seemed kind to allow him to think he had saved her.

jing looked almost startled by what Katara had said. The confusion in his face grew tenfold. He stared at her as if she was a total enigma. He shook his head and stood up. "Don't worry about it. I'll send someone in to clean this up and bring you more food." He started walking out the door then suddenly stopped. "No, I should do it myself."

jing didn't say anything else while he was there. He quickly did the tasks he said he would. He looked far too distracted to even be capable of speaking. Katara left him alone while he was so shell-shocked but like Long Feng she was coming up with her own plan, a plan for escape. She was ready to put it in action.

Her chance came fairly soon. jing was back in a few hours to bring Katara dinner. This time she wasn't surprised. She had been waiting.

"Aren't you Long Feng's second in command? Don't you have more important duties than feeding prisoners?" she asked. It wasn't sarcastic. It was an actual question.

jing was calmer than before. He didn't evade answering this time. "I don't know which of the guards I can trust to send in here. It's safer if I bring it myself."

Katara sat back on the wall and folded her arms. "Why do you care?" she asked politely. jing looked up, just as confused as before. "What?"

"Why do you care if the other guards hurt me?" Katara asked. "Why do you avoid being cruel to me and why didn't you kill me at the Jasmine Dragon?"

jing turned his head away and sat the tray down. "You ask too many questions."

Katara wasn't going to let it go this time. She was insistent. "No! I deserve answers! I've been thrown in the middle of this vendetta and I want to know the truth! You were ordered to kill me at the Jasmine Dragon, what stopped you?!"

"I don't know" was all jing could say.

"You were going to kill me" Katara reminded. "Before I told you I was pregnant you weren't hesitating. Why did that stop you?"

jing sounded exasperated. "I don't know!" he grunted.

A realization dawned on Katara. jing's mercy was so innate, so involuntary that it was second nature as if he had trained himself. It was almost as if he had long ago learned the rule that a pregnant woman is someone to protect not kill. Very confident in her guess she asked, "Is it because of your wife?"

jing gasped in utter shock. He turned his head up. The surprise on his head was very apparent. "How did you…"

"It's not very hard to guess" Katara said. "We've all lost someone close to us during the war. Was your wife pregnant when the Fire Nation killed her?"

jing stood up, his face was positively contorted with rage.

Katara went on. "It's all right. The war has hurt all of us. You didn't want to kill me because it reminded you too much of what the Fire Nation did to you right? Is that the same reason why that guard attacking me made you so angry?"

"Shut up!" jing barked. "You don't understand anything!"

"Of course I understand!" Katara insisted. "I lost my mother to…"

"I know all about your mother!" jing shouted. "But you don't know anything about me! Don't pretend to!"

"Come on jing…" Katara began.

"Stop calling me by my name!" jing ordered. "Stop talking to me as if you know me. If you think you can use my feelings about my wife and some patronizing words to manipulate me, you're wrong!"

"That's not what I…"Katara started, as she tried to defend herself.

"Don't insult my intelligence! And never talk about my wife!" jing interrupted. "I'm your enemy don't forget that!"

Katara retorted, "You're not very good at acting like one."

That remark clearly insulted him. With an angry look he turned around and walked out the door. "Next time I come you'd better keep your mouth shut! Otherwise, I'll just send random guards to bring your meals."

Katara let out a sigh of exasperation. It looked as if her plan had failed. Jing may not have been particularly good at being an enemy, but it didn't look like he was going to be much help.

.