Chapter Text
"Katara and I are going for a walk," Sokka says to his dad over his shoulder. He turns around a little faster than he meant to, trying to avoid Hakoda's eyes. Sokka didn't want to move to Omashu at all, and he'll let himself be mad for a bit longer.
Katara glares at him as soon as the front door closes behind them, "Can you give him a break, Sokka?"
"What? It's not like any of us wanted to come here in the first place," He pulls his jacket tighter around himself, scowling.
Katara doesn't say anything else but scoffs before turning to look at the yellowing trees. It's officially Fall now, partway through October, and it's hard not to notice. Carved pumpkins sit on half the porches, and there's a scarecrow every other lawn.
The between them is awkward in a way it hadn't been until they moved, and Sokka feels the urge to fill it, "Did you meet anybody at school today?"
"Not really. The kid who was showing me around was sweet, though. His name is Aang," Katara says, sounding grateful for the subject change.
Sokka grins and nudges her with his elbow, "He was sweet, huh? Sounds like you made a friend," he singsongs through the last words, and her face turns red.
"I've only met him once, Sokka!" Katara says with a smile in her voice, elbowing him back, "What about you?"
Sokka sighs, his 'tour guide' was pretty useless, going as fast as possible, "I got stuck with some senior who definitely hated me. He didn't pause at all."
"Oh please, I'm sure he just had places to be," Katara laughs, but even Sokka can tell she's not really sure.
He shrugs, and they fall into silence again, except this one is comforting. Sokka glances down at his feet briefly, avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk out of habit. When he looks back up, there's someone up ahead that definitely wasn't there before.
"Who's that?" Sokka asks.
Katara scoffs, "How am I supposed to know? You seem to forget that I have spent the same amount of time here as you."
The person hasn't moved, and Sokka vaguely notices how much colder he feels. "We should say hi. Maybe he goes to our school?" Katara whispers and Sokka doesn't have time to respond because she's picking up her pace.
They're close enough to see him, now, and Katara has a point (he'd never tell her, though): the kid does look about their age.
He's got long hair that's honestly pretty messy and does not match his otherwise put togetherness. His clothes look like they're straight out of those old movies Sokka's mother used to watch. Sokka almost misses the massive scar going across the left side of his face, but when he sees it, he involuntarily sucks in the air through his teeth. The other boy either doesn't notice Sokka's reaction or is nice enough not to say anything.
"I'm Katara," his sister says, going in for a handshake, "and this is my brother, Sokka."
"Lovely to meet you," he says, and God is his voice great to listen to, Sokka thinks, "I'm Zuko. Do you two go to Republic High?"
"Uh, yeah, totally!" Sokka stammers, and Katara gives him a strange look, "What grade are you in?"
"I'm a junior," Zuko grins like someone made a joke, but Sokka hardly notices, "Try and find me tomorrow, maybe we can sit together." He smells a little like smoke, and Sokka briefly wonders if Zuko smokes cigarettes.
Katara shifts next to Sokka, "Yeah. We'll see," something in her voice makes Sokka nervous. Zuko evidently doesn't notice her shift in tone and stares out into the street.
Sokka's about to turn to his sister when he sees something. It's weird and definitely impossible, but Sokka swore he saw Zuko flicker. If Sokka blinked, he would've missed it. Katara grips his arm. She must've seen it, too.
Zuko furrows his brow, still looking away from them, and says, "I have to go. See you at school?"
"Yeah, probably," Sokka says.
Zuko finally meets his eyes and smiles slightly, "Great. I live in that massive house on your street." Katara nods as Zuko walks away and disappears around the corner.
They pass three houses before Sokka says, "You saw it too, right?"
"Saw what? The way he just fucking blinked out of existence for a split second?" Katara's grip on his arm is starting to hurt.
"Listen, maybe we just imagined it or something. It's not like people can actually do that," Sokka tries to be reassuring, but he can hear his own voice waver.
Katara grumbles something he can't make out, "He acted really weird too. He dresses like it's the fifties or something."
"That's not fair. Maybe Zuko just has a particular aesthetic," Sokka says matter of factly.
"No, you just thought he was hot. That's what's not fair," Katara retorts. She's feeling better, then, if she can find it in her to tease him. "We should ask around tomorrow and see if anybody else knows him."
Sokka doesn't respond, too busy trying to keep his face from turning red. Even if he did think Zuko was hot, Katara was right. The dude was weird as hell.
The next day, it became apparent that nobody knew who Zuko was. So, definitely weird as hell. Katara had made friends with a couple of sophomores but still demanded Sokka sit with her. Sokka had then dragged his new friend, Suki, with him.
"So, nobody's heard of this kid?" Suki says, gesturing with her plastic fork.
Sokka nods, "From what I can tell, anyway. Just our luck, we move in and immediately meet the local creep."
"I bet he's not even real, and you both just got a contact high off something," Toph, one of Katara's friends, jokes. Apparently, being funny and blind is some kind of killer humor combo, because Sokka laughed for practically ten minutes when they were introduced. Her seeing-eye dog, Badgermole, was laid down underneath the table.
Katara makes a face at that, "We weren't high! I swear we saw him."
"Calm down, Sugar Queen, I know you aren't cool enough to get high, even on accident," Toph says, and Suki chokes on her lunch. Katara glares at Sokka when he stifles a laugh.
"You guys could try checking the yearbooks!" Aang chirps, "I bet he just doesn't have many friends, so no one knows his name!"
Katara brightens at that, "That's a great idea, Aang!" Sokka notices Aang's cheeks go pink when Katara says his name and files it away for later. He may be an annoying older brother, but he can't humiliate Aang in front of his crush. Bro code and all that.
After two hours spent in the library, there's still no sign of Zuko. Every book he would've been in school is entirely absent of his name or photo or anything. Suki, Aang, and Toph had come to help. Well, Suki and Aang were helping. Toph said that she was just invested and wanted to hang out. To each their own.
"God, are you guys sure he wasn't just messing with you?" Suki says, looking up from a page of freshman, "We're looking in grades he's not even in at this point."
"Listen, I don't think he was lying about going here," Sokka says for what feels like the thousandth time, "But he could've already graduated or something. Maybe check farther back?"
Katara raises her eyebrow at him and closes her eyes, running her hand along the spines of the various yearbooks. She stops and grabs the book she landed on, eyeing the year, "Well, he certainly dressed like it was 1955."
Sokka rolls his eyes where she can't see and flips back to the beginning of the book he was holding. Maybe he just missed the photo?
"Why do you guys even care so much, anyway?" Toph asks from where she's sitting near Suki.
"Sokka thinks he's cute and mysterious," Katara singsongs before Sokka can open his mouth.
He glares very pointedly at his sister, "No, I don't. I'm just curious, is all. Even she agrees, he was super suspicious."
Katara shrugs and turns another page in her book. She gasps just as Aang opens his mouth to say something, "Holy. Shit."
"What?" Everyone else says at once, scrambling to see over Katara's shoulders.
She points at a black and white photo, and holy shit is right because looking back from the page is Zuko. Sokka almost doesn't recognize him. Picture Zuko is missing the scar and generally-unkempt hair.
"Is that him?" Suki asks, and all Sokka can do is nod. He saw Zuko yesterday, and yesterday, the kid was sixteen, not seventy-something years old.
"If this is 55' then he should be like, super fucking old, right?" Toph says, looking across Aang's head.
Sokka takes the book from Katara, flipping through the other pages, "Yeah, definitely. He was not 'super fucking old' when we saw him, though."
Katara meets his gaze, and he can see her silent question. Did we actually see what we think we saw? Because apparently, Zuko's sixty years older than he's letting on.
"Maybe he's just named after a grandfather or something. What's the last name?" Suki says.
There are pictures of this kid all over the book. At football games and school events, in classes, and even a quick little interview about that year's production of Romeo and Juliet.
"His full name is Zuko Sozin," Katara says, her chin resting on Sokka's shoulder to see.
Aang visibly relaxes, "There's a senior with the last name Sozin, too. I bet that's his brother or something, and Suki was right about the name."
"That doesn't explain why he isn't in any recent books, though. Besides, I know what Zuko looks like, and even without the burn scar, I recognize him." Sokka shakes his head, scanning other photos for any evidence of Zuko.
"He's not in the next yearbook. For 1956-1957," Suki adds, "He couldn't have moved away, or you wouldn't have seen him."
Toph stands up and sighs, "Sounds like you weirdos found yourselves a mystery. I'm gonna go home, tell me if you figure out who the old-but-not old kid is."
Katara checks out the yearbook to bring home with them. They're sitting in Sokka's room, sprawled on the floor, when he asks her, "Why do we care so much?"
She doesn't answer immediately, but after a long moment, she sighs, "I don't know. It's easier to focus on this, I guess."
He gives her a meaningful look and turns back to the pages in front of him, "So he got to junior year and just vanished?"
"I'm not sure. There is another kid with the same last name that keeps showing up, so unless he moved and she didn't, he just disappeared," Katara says, rolling over onto her back.
"Wonder if he died or something," Sokka laughs, as though the answer would be something that stupid.
Katara raises her eyebrow at him and snorts, flipping through the yearbook. Sokka looks up at the ceiling.
Hold on.
The answer can't be something that stupid, right?
Dead people are dead. Sokka's seen it himself. First, his mother, then Yue. Dead people don't come back. And even if he spent a long time wishing otherwise, there are no exceptions.
Except, Zuko Sozin should be at least seventy. All evidence points to the fact that this kid was born in 1940. But, last Sokka checked, anyway, Zuko looked like a sixteen-year-old boy. He dressed weird, talked funny, and that massive burn scar pointed to something.
"Hey, Katara?" Sokka says hesitantly, "What if he is dead?"
She raises that damn eyebrow again, and Sokka feels his face heat up.
"Are you being serious?"
"I mean, kind of?" He refuses to look at her, "Ok, listen. He apparently went to high school in the '50s, and he acts super strange. You said it yourself."
He can practically hear her thinking about it, "We did see him vanish, didn't we?"
"Yes! Exactly! There's no way both of us made that up at the same time!"
"I don't want to immediately jUmp to 'ghost' territory, but I think there's a possibility you're right," Katara sighs.
"We could ask him. Say we never saw him at school and give him the chance to admit to it himself," Sokka tilts forward a little on his knees toward his sister.
She rolls her eyes and closes the yearbook, "Fine. We'll confront Zuko. But I have English homework, so save it for tomorrow."