Her entire world was a haze of pain.

Dimly, she was aware of motion, of warmth against her side and of being jostled in a way that sent agony shooting through her core in a series of rhythmic jolts. After what seemed like an eternity, the motion stopped and voices made their way to her ears though she couldn't understand what they were saying (she wanted to tell them to stop talking so loudly, but could only manage a groan), and then she was being moved again. Finally it stopped for good when she was lowered to something soft.

There was a face above her, blurry and asymmetrical, yellow eyes boring intensely into hers. The person's mouth was moving, but in contrast to earlier her hearing seemed to have switched off, and even if she could have heard the words it was impossible for her to reply. All of her energy was taken up with breathing. Every labored gasp was a stab of pain through her torso, and it increasingly seemed like it was not worth the effort. She was too far gone to have any of these thoughts coherently; all she knew was a sense of overwhelming weariness and an even heavier sorrow. There was nothing to hold her here, nothing to justify the work or the pain of taking another breath.

Her eyes slipped closed, the light of the lantern above her fading away into darkness.

"Katara? Katara, stay with me. KATARA!"

Pleading and praying to Agni were all that he could do. Cleaning the wound and pressing bandages to the ugly gash hadn't been enough: they had only the most basic of medical supplies, and neither Zuko nor Piandao had the know-how to give her the lifesaving treatment that she needed. Piandao had said that he would send for help, but help was no more likely to arrive in time than the moon was to come back out in time: they were too isolated, the lines of communication too secretive and slow. So Zuko did the only thing he could do and sat with her, pleading with her to hold on for just a little longer. On Katara's other side, Lien sat curled in on herself, sniffling steadily as tears ran down her cheeks.

Every few minutes, she would try to bend from Katara's waterskin, which she now held in her lap, but without success. Zuko, meanwhile, had a hand wrapped around Katara's wrist; her pulse beneath his fingertips was alarmingly weak and fluttery.

"Hold on," he whispered one more time. "Please, hold on." Though she was looking at his face, her eyes were glazed over and unfocused; it was impossible to tell whether she actually saw him or not. She couldn't hear him, though, or if she did she wasn't listening; her eyes slipped closed even as he spoke. Her pulse fluttered one last time beneath his fingers, she took one last shuddering breath… and then her body went completely still.

"KATARA!" No matter how much he screamed, however, she did not wake.

The instant it happened Lien's head snapped up, her eyes wide. Her gaze, however, was not on Katara, but on something in the air around them that only she could see.

"I'm going after her." Then, her face went blank, her eyes were glowing, and she too had gone where Zuko could not follow.

She was outside.

The sunlight was bright enough to make her blink. She was on a grassy plain, with gently rolling hills all around. Flowers grew everywhere, and strange creatures floated through the air. It was the most beautiful place she'd ever seen (except, maybe, in some of her unremembered dreams).

First she looked to one side, then to the other, but couldn't find what she was looking for. She'd been following Katara when she came here, but now Katara was nowhere to be found. She must have lost her in the time it had taken to get from there to here.

Every direction looked the same. She did not know which way Katara would have gone. Tears welled in her eyes. Katara had to be here, but she wasn't, and she didn't know what to do.

"Hey, kid." She looked up, to see that one of the floating creatures was hovering near her head—it looked like a colorful bug almost half as big as she was, with a long body, two slender sets of glittering wings, and hands at the ends of its legs. "You don't belong here. What are you standing around for? Get lost."

The tone made her cringe, but she couldn't go back, not now. "I need to find Katara."

"Never heard of her." The creature moved closer, raising a single glittering eyebrow. "Look kid, are you lost?"

What was the right answer? She was lost, but if she said so, that would mean she'd done something wrong… but if she said she wasn't, he wouldn't help her, and she needed to find Katara before she left…

"Kid, I don't have all day." The creature sighed. "Just tell me where you want to go and I'll point you there—no more business about finding people I don't know."

"W-well…"

"Oh for the love of—if you were this Katara person where would you go?"

The answer to that one was easy. "Katara likes water."

"See, now we're getting somewhere." It pointed one of its legs. "The nearest stream is that way. Once you find it, you're on your own. And don't ask for help again until you know what you're looking for!" As she ran toward where it had said the stream was, she heard a muttered, "Kids."

She hadn't seen any water when she'd first come here, but after she'd gone up and down a few more hills, the stream was there. Her stomach sank when she saw that Katara wasn't in it—but there was someone else she recognized.

He looked different: where before he had always been a ghostly, pale blue, he was now as solid as she was, with color in his skin and clothing of bright yellow and orange—except for his head and hands. Those were still blue, as blue as the sky above them. Even though she hadn't seen him for a long time, it was still unmistakably the Boy.

When she crested the hill, he turned around with a smile. He was standing beside a large, furry white animal, which also lifted its head and bellowed in greeting when it saw her. The Boy waved her forward, and even as she came down to him he was leaping onto the animal's back. She broke into a run, afraid that he was going to leave without her.

"I'm looking for Katara," she panted as soon as she had reached him.

"I know." He reached out a hand. "Come on up."

As soon as she was on the animal's back, they lifted up into the sky. Its fur was soft and warm, and she allowed her fingers to ease down into it as they flew. In answer, the beast let out a low rumble.

"Appa likes you." The Boy smiled in a way she had never seen anyone smile before: not cruelly the way her Master had smiled, or like his face actually wanted to be doing something else the way Katara and Zuko did, but with his whole face, as if his smile were a gift he wanted to share with everyone around him. He turned to the animal. "Don't you, buddy?"

"He's soft." She liked soft things, since she'd never been allowed to touch them before. "Do you know where Katara is?"

The Boy stopped smiling then; instead he only looked sad. "Yes," he replied, his eyes slipping closed for a moment. "We'll have to hurry, though. She'll only be here for a little while before she's reincarnated. If you don't bring her back soon, she'll be gone forever."

"She'll die."

It wasn't a question. The Boy's mouth pressed into a thin line at her words, but he nodded. "Yes. She will."

She looked down. They were flying over dark water now, nothing but endless water in all directions as far as she could see. This must be what the Boy had meant when he had talked of the ocean.

Cool breeze blew through her hair as they continued their flight. She didn't know how long they were flying, but they didn't talk anymore. She petted Appa, and felt the sun and wind on her face.

After a time, she noticed the air was getting colder. Looking around, she saw small flecks of white swirling through the air. "That's snow," the Boy said, though he still looked sad. "It's all over the place where Katara's from."

The snow fell down all around them in thick curtains, making it hard to see what was in front of them. The farther they went, though, the more she noticed that something was different: some of the snow was much darker than the rest. At first, it was only a little, but then more and more of it changed, until all of the snow they were flying through was black.

The Boy tugged the reins, and Appa landed. They were on ice now: it was mostly still blue-white, but there were smears of black and gray all over.

"This is as far as I can take you," the Boy said as she got down. "But I know you can bring her back." She turned around to thank him, only to find that he and Appa were both gone: it was as if they'd vanished into thin air.

She looked forward again. There was a cluster of houses in front of her, houses made of ice, but there were no people, or even any strange creatures floating around. With a swallow, she walked forward, knowing that Katara must be somewhere here.

One house in particular seemed to draw her, and she followed its pull. Pushing aside the door (which was little more than a flap of animal skin), she stepped inside.

It smelled faintly of charred flesh and singed hair, and there were scorch marks on the furs that lined the walls and floor. Those weren't what she was looking for, though: there, in the middle of the floor, knelt another girl, about her age, with her hair done up in beads and loops. She was staring at nothing, her hands clenched in her lap.

"Katara?"

The girl didn't answer. After waiting a few seconds, Lien stepped into the hut and sat down in front of her. Her hands were covered with ash, and there were tears in her eyes.

"Katara?" she tried again. Again she didn't respond, only gave a choking sob, and Lien couldn't say anything else. She'd failed, and she didn't know what to do.

"Everyone's gone," the girl said at last, choking the words out through her tears. "Dad… Gran-Gran… Sokka… Mom…" On the last word she broke out crying anew, her entire body shaking with sobs. "Everyone's gone," she whispered again at last.

"No we're not." The girl looked up again, shaking her head. "We don't want you to be gone. Please, come back." She reached out to grab Katara's wrist, but no matter how hard she tried she could not seem to keep her grip: she could not force Katara to go anywhere. "Come on," she pleaded once more. Katara wasn't just hard to get hold of anymore; something seemed to be pulling her away, and she knew that she was running out of time. "Please." It was all she managed to get out before Katara was yanked away from her.

"Please."

The girl had begged her to come back, back to the world of pain and loneliness. She could barely remember anything that had happened there now, but she knew that she had suffered, and that if she went back she would only suffer more.

"Please, come back."

She thought that the other girl was someone she knew—a friend? The girl knew her name; that had to mean something. Nobody knew her name anymore. Katara didn't see why whether she went back should matter so much to her, though. Didn't the girl have anyone else? She had to have someone else, someone who took care of her, who was much closer to her than Katara could ever hope to be. There wasn't anything Katara could do for her anymore that someone else couldn't; that she was sure of.

Still… she had wanted Katara to come back so badly…

No we're not.

Maybe, but…

The girl had to be someone she cared about… right?

Whatever the case, Katara knew she wouldn't have much longer to decide. Already darkness was tugging at her, urging her to forget and let it pull her down into oblivion. That's right. If she allowed herself to sleep, to forget, she would be able to start over in a new life. She would be able to forget…

So why was she resisting? Even as the igloo around her began to dissolve and darkness closed in on the edges of her vision, she kept her attention fixed on the way the girl had gone… who was she? The girl was someone important… if only she could remember…

Lien!

She remembered the way Lien had gone; lurching to her feet, she set her eyes on the path she would have to follow to get back to the physical world. Looking into that world, she saw a still, lifeless body (hers, she realized with a shock), lying on the floor and covered by horrible bloody stains. She saw Lien, coating her hands with water even as her eyes stopped glowing. She saw Zuko, mouth moving as he frantically shouted; his hands were flat against her chest, his arms locked as he pumped rapidly up and down on her heart. Even as she watched he paused and bent to breathe air into her lungs before replacing his hands and starting once more. His mouth was moving again, saying something she couldn't hear…

Without realizing what she was doing, Katara had leaped to her feet and was running toward them. Try as she might, though, it was like trying to swim through honey… the next life didn't want to let her go, and darkness was still closing in on the edges of her vision… If she didn't get back right now it would be too late… Any longer and her spirit would be lost for good…

She needed to run faster. Her legs needed to be longer, her body stronger… Even as she wished it she felt herself grow tall, shedding her child's clothes as she ran as fast as she could. With one last push, she gathered all of her strength and leaped…

Pain hit her from all sides, pounding through her chest and torso. Something was inside of her chest, squeezing her heart with an iron fist. Tears streamed from her eyes; instinctively, she tried to claw at her chest, to reach up and make the horrible invasive presence stop, but someone else had hold of her arms, pinning her to the floor until it stopped on its own, leaving her weak and shaking as she gasped in first one desperate breath, then another.

Everything hurt. It hurt to move; it hurt to breathe. Her throat burned, and her mouth was filled with the taste of vomit—but now there was cool water against her side as Lien tended her wound with a healing glow, and she recognized Zuko's face above her, flashing from elation to horror and back to elation again. He was saying something—"Don't ever do that to me again"—but when she tried to reply, her attempted apology only came out as a weak gasp.

When he realized what she was trying to say, Zuko only gaped at her for a moment before he shook his head, swiping a forearm across his face mid-motion. Then, he did something that he had never before done on his own initiative: he leaned forward, and carefully wrapped both arms around her.

"You can't leave us now," he whispered. "You're all that we have left."

"I won't," she managed to gasp out, and meant it. As long as there was someone in this world who was worth fighting for, she was never going to stop fighting again.

A/N: I hope I made someone cry with this chapter. I seriously, seriously hope I made someone cry. Because if I didn't, I'm losing my touch.

At any rate, this marks the end of Ripples. I'm at work on the next book in the series, Set in Stone, though since I prefer to build up a good buffer before I start posting, it's going to be several months at least.

For the curious, since this series was so heavily inspired by music, here are the characters' theme songs:

Zuko: "When a Dead Man Walks" (Lacuna Coil)
Katara: "Dead Gardens" (Nightwish)
Lien: "Afterglow" (Phaeleh)