scars and swords: chapter 3
Y/N had been a Freedom Fighter her whole life alongside Jet, her first love and closest friend. They had been together through thick and thin, no matter the circumstance. When they decide to leave the vigilante life behind and move to Ba Sing Sei, they’re reunited with the Gaang and things take an unexpected twist.
ch. 2
pairings: jet x f!reader, sokka x f!reader
warnings: still angsty lol
a/n: thank you all again for all the support on this fic, it means so much to me! i hope you all enjoy how the story goes this chapter, i tried to keep the angst up as always. now that i’m posting my work i’ve set myself on a higher standard so i may post chapters late, mainly because i’m starting to get more critical on myself and it takes me time to feel fully satisfied with a chapter. but again, thank you all so so much for reading and for all your feedback! enjoy!
The whole way back to the hideout Y/N couldn’t stop replaying her and Jet’s fight in her head. After the Fire Nation burned down their village, Y/N had no one else but Jet. They had each other’s support and love. And now, the one person Y/N had left had told her to leave his life.
“Mom, dad! Where are you?” Y/N said as she walked into her Earth kingdom home. “I just got back from Jet’s house.” She walked further into her home. Y/N heard voices from the bedroom. She crept closer as she noticed Fire Nation soldiers interrogating her parents. Thankfully for her, they hadn’t noticed she walked in.
“We know there’s an Earthbender in this village. You can’t hide them forever.” The Fire Nation soldier said as he burst a flame from his fist and shot it slightly over her father’s head. Her mother and father sat on the small bed, fear in their eyes. Y/N’s father held up his hands in a forfeit.
“We don’t know who it is, we swear!” He said, “Just please, spare my family.” He put his arm around Y/N’s mother as they both bowed their heads. The Fire Nation soldier shot another flame, this time, directly towards Y/N’s parents’ feet, burning them. Y/N screamed when she saw this and quickly covered her mouth. The Fire Nation soldier turned his head to Y/N, smiling.
“Well, look what we have here.” He said as he walked towards the 7-year-old. Y/N started running away from him, but the soldier was able to catch up to her and stand in front of her. He pulled her arms and brought her to where her parents were. She sat next to her mother as tears rolled down Y/N’s face. The two Fire Nation soldiers stood in front of the family.
“Looks like we’re going to have to burn this village down. But at least the family will be together,” The soldier said in a mocking tone. They both laughed and shot fire blasts all around the room, running out. Y/N’s mother and father covered her with their bodies.
“We’re going to get you out of here, Y/N.” Y/N’s father said as he lifted her up. He pushed her out the window. Right as she made it out of the house, the flames grew and caused the roof of her house to come down. Y/N jumped back, but her arm got caught by a flame, scalding her arm. She screamed as she realized her parents were stuck in the fire.
“Y/N move back!” Jet said as he pulled her up and away from the burning house. The two kids ran further into the forest, away from the fire. Y/N kept looking back at the village, crying.
“Our parents, Jet, our parents!” She said while trying to pull back from Jet’s grip. He held her back, putting his arm around her to calm her down.
“I know, Y/N but we can’t do anything about it now. Pull it together.” He said as he turned her to face him. Tears were rolling down both of their faces. He noticed the burn on Y/N arm.
“Did they do this to you?!” Jet said angrily. Y/N shook her head.
“I got it when I was climbing out of the house.” She said as she raised her arm to look at it. Her skin was peeling and red, but she couldn’t feel much pain. Nothing could distract her from what she had just witnessed.
“I’ll protect you from now on. No one and nothing will ever hurt you again. We will always have each other. You will always have me, Y/N.” Jet said with a serious tone. He wiped his tears as he pulled her into an embrace. The two of them stood at the edge of the forest, watching their village and their parents getting burned to the ground.
The sounds of traps going off startled Y/N as she looked around the forest. Pipsqueak and Smellerbee were caught in traps while Sokka ran away from them. Y/N ran towards Sokka.
“Sokka, wait!” She said as she wiped her tears from her face. He began running further away from her. Y/N didn’t hesitate to match his speed.
“Get away from me!” He yelled as he pulled his boomerang out, threatening to throw it at her.
“I’m not going to capture you, Sokka.” She said as she ran closer to him. He slowed his running until he came to a stop. Y/N ran up and caught up to him, standing in front of him. He put his boomerang away.
“I don’t know if I can trust you enough to believe that.” He said, crossing his arms. Y/N sighed and rubbed her arm.
“You have every right to say that. I was dishonest about Jet and this plan. I’m really sorry about it. I knew about the plan and I should’ve stopped Jet.” She paused for a moment and looked down. “I guess I just got caught up in my feelings for him. It screwed up my judgment. And because of that, that entire Earth Kingdom village is going to die.” She sighed. Sokka looked at her with pity.
“That’s not true, we still have time to save them. We can evacuate the village.” He said with hope. She looked up to him and smiled. They both headed down to the village, which thankfully wasn’t too far from where they were.
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After evacuating the village, they headed back to the hideout. Jet, Katara, Aang, and the rest of the Freedom Fighters were nowhere to be found.
“Looks like they’re still at the reservoir. I’ll be back, then we’ll head to the reservoir to meet them.” Y/N said as she began going up to her hut.
“I’ll get Appa,” Sokka said as he headed out of the forest. Y/N gave him a strange look, but before she could ask who or what Appa was he had left.
Evacuating the village gave her time to forget about her fight with Jet, but now she realized she had to leave. Leaving the Freedom Fighters and Jet was the last thing she thought she would ever do. They were all her family, and regardless of everything Jet would put them through Y/N still loved him and every single Freedom Fighter.
When Y/N had gotten her stuff, she headed back down the treehouse. Sokka noticed how she was carrying her bag and gave her a confused look.
“Why do you need all your stuff?” He said. Y/N’s eyes widened at the sky bison before her.
“What is that?!” She said as she pointed to the fuzzy creature. Sokka smiled.
“This is Appa, Aang’s flying bison,” Sokka said as he pet Appa’s arm. Y/N walked up toward Appa. She reached her arm out to pet him when something jumped on her head. She yelped and moved back, which caused Sokka to burst into laughter. Y/N squinted her eyes at him.
“And this is Momo,” Sokka said as the winged lemur sat on Appa’s saddle. Sokka climbed onto Appa and reached his arm out to Y/N.
“Wait, are we getting to the reservoir on that?” Y/N said as she stared at Sokka’s extended arm.
“What? You have a fear of heights or something?” Sokka said, mockingly. Y/N rolled her eyes at him as she grabbed his arm. She put her stuff in the saddle as Sokka went up to the front to control Appa’s reins. Momo curled himself next to Y/N as she settled into the saddle.
“Appa, yip yip,” Sokka said as he led the sky bison into the air. Y/N looked down from the saddle as they began to ascend. She was so amazed. Her awe was interrupted by Sokka.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Sokka said to her. Y/N sighed as she leaned into the saddle on her arms.
“Jet and I kind of got into a huge fight. He basically told me to leave, so.” She said as she shrugged her shoulders. Sokka furrowed his brows.
“Why did he do that?” He asked. Y/N was silent for a bit causing Sokka to realize he might’ve overstepped. “You don’t have to tell me, I don’t mean to overstep.” He continued. Y/N shook her head.
“No, you didn’t do anything wrong.” She said, reassuring him. “He told me about how you had found out about the plan and I kept telling him how the plan would have messed up. Jet got mad that I kept defending you. He thought I had feelings for you and basically got jealous.” Y/N bit her cheek to hold her tears back as she began reliving what had happened.
“He ended up telling me to leave and go with you guys, saying you would protect me better or something. So I said fine.” Y/N sighed. “Katara and Aang heard everything, but I left before anything else happened.” Sokka took a moment to take it all in.
“I’m sorry about how he got jealous, and I’m sorry I kind of caused that,” Sokka said as he scratched the back of his neck.
“You don’t need to apologize. Jet’s the jealous type, if I talk to Longshot for too long he’ll assume something’s up.” Y/N said to try to lighten the mood. Sokka and her laughed.
“If you don’t mind me asking though, why didn’t you stop Jet sooner about the village?” Y/N looked down in embarrassment.
“Jet and I came from the same village. And when it got burned down, he was all I had. We took care of each other, you know? And for the most part, we both were angry at the Fire Nation.” Y/N winced in embarrassment. “So we kinda did reckless stuff. But as we got older, my mentality changed I guess. I started realizing how we were hurting innocent people. Jet never saw it that way. He still doesn’t.”
“You said something about your feelings though. Towards Jet?” Sokka questioned. Y/N stayed silent for a moment, making Sokka feel like he had overstepped again. Before Sokka could take his statement back, Y/N spoke up.
“As I got older, I guess I also realized I do have feelings for Jet. I’ve always loved him, but now,” Y/N hesitated, then shook her head. “He doesn’t feel the same way though. I know he doesn’t. He constantly leads me on and I’m stupid enough to fall for it.” Y/N’s eyes widened as she realized that Sokka may have had feelings for her, remembering how he had seen her and Jet on the bridge that day and how he kept acting strangely after that. “Spirits, I didn’t mean to just throw all that on you. I know you saw us on the bridge that day and ever since then you had been a bit weird so I figured you had liked me or something.” She bit the inside of her lip. Sokka shook his head.
“No, it was nothing like that.” He said, reassuring her. “I was just intimidated by Jet, to be honest, I didn’t want him thinking I was stealing his girl or whatever.” Y/N let out a sigh of relief. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Sokka continued, “The reason why I stuck around with you so much was that you didn’t seem like Jet. The way you talked to me the first time when we were in the Fire Nation tent versus how Jet talks and acts. I was just kind of disappointed to see you supporting Jet’s ideas sometimes.” Sokka concluded. Y/N couldn’t help but feel hurt after he said that, knowing he was right.
“I know, I,” She paused. “I guess I just love Jet too much sometimes. I don’t want him thinking I don’t appreciate how much he wants to keep me safe and protect me. So I never speak up.”
“You don’t seem like the kind who needs protection though. If you and Jet were in a fight, I’d put my money on you.” Sokka said as he turned around and smiled at her. Y/N looked at him and smiled.
“Thanks, Sokka. I’ve never really opened up to anyone so this helped a lot.” Y/N said to him. Opening up to people was always a challenge for Y/N, but something about Sokka was comforting and made it easy to do.
“Also, since you don’t really have anywhere to go, I trust you. You should join me, Katara and Aang. You’d be a great part of the team. And I know after today, Katara and Aang will trust you again.” Sokka said to her. Before she could respond, they heard a blast. Sokka led Appa above the reservoir. The dam had exploded and water flooded the village. They overheard Katara, Aang, and Jet fighting. Jet was frozen to a tree while Katara turned to face him.
“Jet, you monster!” She yelled to him as her voice began to break.
“This was a victory, Katara. Remember that. The Fire Nation is gone, and this valley will be safe.” Jet said. Before he could continue, Sokka led Appa to the edge of the cliff.
“It will be safe, without you,” Sokka said. Aang and Katara looked at Sokka with relief.
“Sokka!” Katara shouted, relieved to find her brother okay. Y/N peeked her head out from the saddle. Jet was shocked to see her there.
“Y/N.” He said with shock. Y/N looked away from him.
“We warned the villagers of your plan, just in time,” Sokka said as Momo jumped down to Aang’s embrace.
“What?! Y/N you could’ve gotten caught!” Jet said with an astounding look.
“I didn’t go down to the village, Jet. Only Sokka did.” Y/N snapped back.
“At first they didn’t believe me. The Fire Nation soldiers assumed I was a spy. But one man vouched for me, the old man you attacked. He urged everyone to trust me, and we got everyone out in time.” Sokka said. Jet looked to Y/N and back to Sokka.
“Sokka, you fool! We could have freed this valley!” Jet said while Aang jumped onto Appa’s saddle with Momo.
“Who would we free, Jet? Everyone would be dead.” Y/N said, defending Sokka. She looked at Jet in sadness and anger. Jet groaned in frustration.
“You both are traitors!” Jet said angrily, trying to pull himself off of the tree. Y/N looked away from Jet, holding back tears.
“No, Jet. You became the traitor when you stopped protecting innocent people. You became the traitor when you hurt people for Y/N’s namesake.” Sokka spat back. Y/N bit the inside of her lip to prevent her from crying.
“Y/N, please, help me.” He said, giving her a look of helplessness. Y/N looked back at him in remorse and anger. She loved him and she couldn’t leave him like that. Sokka looked to her, her face filled with conflict.
“Y/N, I understand if you want to stay,” Sokka said to her, making sure Jet didn’t hear. She looked to Sokka as she frowned at him.
“I’m sorry, Sokka.” She whispered as she grabbed her stuff off of the saddle, trading places with Katara. Y/N looked back at Katara, Aang, and Sokka. “I can’t just leave him like this.”
“I understand. Just know that if we ever meet again, the invitation still stands.” Sokka said to her, smiling. “Just take care of yourself, please.” With that, Sokka led Appa and the rest of the group into the sky, leaving Jet and Y/N alone on the cliff.
thank you for reading!
