You & I

"I'm Here"

Y/N's POV
I felt Iroh's body go limp, he must've consumed too much water already.

I couldn't see anything, but I felt the tide, then I realised, I shouldn't have ever tried to work against the moon, I should've worked in harmony with her.

I decided to try one more thing, I just needed one more chance.

This time, I pushed and pulled the water with the moon, I held myself against Iroh so his body wouldn't feel the impact of the water and continued pushing and pulling over and over, hoping that I'd create enough force that the ocean would work with me in clearing the rocks away from the entrance.

As my body finally began to give in to the water around me, I felt a break in the wall. I bent the water underneath us to pull us towards the entrance and kicked the rocks around the hole until the gap was wide enough for us to fit through and pulled Iroh out.

Once we were above the water, I bent the water out of Iroh's lungs and pushed us to the shore, collapsing beside him.

I did it. We made it. We're not dead.

I held onto Iroh's hand as I drifted off to sleep beside him, the sun was starting to rise and the ocean was calming down, the sand beneath us was soft and Iroh's body was starting to warm up again.

Hours later, the sun was shining bright and I was woken up by Iroh, he was holding his fingers on my neck and my wrist and placing his ear to my chest, as I fluttered my eyes open I yawned,

"Iroh? What are you doing?"

His eyes lit up when he heard me speak and he quickly pulled me into a tight embrace,

"I thought- I thought we died! How? How are we- and I was, I was checking your pulse and your heartbeat because- you were- we were... we should be dead."

I nuzzled my head in his neck and smiled, smelling the salt on his skin,

"I couldn't let you die."

I felt his face heat up, before he looked at me and smiled:

"You never cease to amaze me..."

Before I could enjoy the feeling of being in his arms, or even thank him for his compliment, I suddenly remembered:

"Iroh! We need to warn Tenzin!"

His smile dropped and he quickly jumped to his feet, pulling me up behind him.

He started running away from the shore and I yelled:

"Wait! Where are you even going?"

He gestured for me to run and replied,

"We need help. They could already be almost at the South Pole by now!"

I didn't know how anyone could help us, in reality, we needed Avatar Aang or to go straight to Tenzin; but we didn't even know exactly where Avatar Aang was.

Even so, I ran after him, I was out of ideas so whatever Iroh had in mind was all we had.

He sprinted into a nearby town asking people about contacting Avatar Aang, but no one knew how.

Iroh, although he tries to act tough and unfazed by everything, I know he gets worried and I know that he doesn't want me to see him fear anything, he wants me to see an image of him that he's created.

His worry, his guilt, it was written all over his face, the way that he'd bite the inside of his cheek and would barely look me in the eye.

I could see that he was biting down hard on the inside of his cheek and that he was lost in his own worrisome thoughts, so I brushed my hand against his and intertwined our fingers,

"It's okay, I'm here."

He looked down at me,

"Y/N, how am I supposed to fix this?"

"Well I guess we're just gonna have to go straight to the Southern Water Tribe, that's all we can do."

"Aang- he's done so much for me... I betrayed him..."

"I'm sorry."

"No, don't be sorry. Your life was on the line, and I'd protect you again in a heartbeat."

I felt my cheeks burn, I was probably as red as a tomato,

"Thank you for saving my life, Iroh."

"Well, you were only in danger because of me anyway, and you've saved my life twice. So I think I should be the one thanking you."

We sprinted as fast as we could back to the shore, searching for our dingy, as we jumped in I asked Iroh,

"Okay, so which way are we going?"

"Slightly south west, going off of what the locals said."

I pushed us through the water as fast as I could, but it'd still take us a little while to get to the Water Tribe.

After about an hour Iroh decided he'd try to speed things up a bit and went to the back of the dingy and started to blast flames out of his hands, of course he couldn't keep it going consistently for a long time, so it was in medium bursts.

I jokingly teased,

"Wow! It's about time you pulled your weight instead of sitting back and relaxing like you're on a cruise!"

We arrived shortly after, Iroh ran straight into the gates and I tailed behind him, trying to focus on the task at hand rather than emerging myself in the beauty of the Southern Water Tribe.

We arrived at an igloo and Iroh knocked on the door rapidly,

"Katara, are you home? It's me, Iroh. We have an emergency!"

Katara swung open the little wooden door,

"What's wrong?"

Iroh explained everything to her, leaving out my blood bending, and she listened, she didn't get mad, she simply stated,

"Tenzin is fine, he's gone back to Republic City with Aang to handle some business, I'll send out a message but they aren't much of a threat."

I interjected,

"Well, with all due respect, Master Katara, they seemed pretty threatening to us. She tried to slit our throats!"

"Don't worry, Aang, Sokka and I- and even Zuko have all dealt with pirates before... though I would like to investigate why they were looking for Aang, I'm not worried, but thank you for telling me."

Katara directed us to two small igloos and insisted that we stayed until they could prepare a new boat for us.

"Uh- Master Katara, would it please be possible for me to learn from you whilst I stay here? I've always admired you, and in my village girls aren't even allowed to learn how to water bend in combat, everything I've learned was self taught until I trained under a water bender in the United Forces, but nothing could compare to learning from you, please, would you teach me?"

She smiled at me,

"Of course, I'll see you at sunrise, then?"

I grinned before thanking her and retreating into my igloo.

It was weird being away from Iroh, we'd slept in the same room for a while so it was somewhat lonely without him.

I wonder if he'd mind if I asked to join him.

After pondering on the idea for about two minutes, I crept out of my igloo and went into Iroh's, he was already asleep, peacefully underneath a warm blanket.

I crawled beside him, looking at his face, tracing his features with my eyes.

He really is so handsome.

No one's POV

As she fell asleep by his side, they unconsciously moved closer and closer together, until they were wrapped in each other's arms, with synchronised breathing patterns, finding comfort in one another's embrace, even though they weren't aware of it.