Toph is visiting Zuko again after he becomes firelord. She's getting a guided tour when she's interrupted.

Don't own Avatar, do I. :)

I've started doing some Zutara shadowing in my Toko fics. Just makes it all the more... complicated.

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"What's in this room?" The girl asked with a curious smile.

"This was Lord Zuko's mother's room."

She touched a silken sheet across the bed.

Almost feeling like she didn't care, she remembered the tragic downfall of his family and knew there was something more here to why he acted like he did. "What happened to her?"

The guard, her tour guide to the firelord mansion, was of little help.

"She gave herself up for her family" came a tense voice from behind, full of emotion.

"My Lord" said the guard.

Toph stuck her bottom lip out. "I thought you weren't going to show me around"

"And now I'm going to show you around."

She was a petty annoyance when he had trained Aang, and frankly he thought she and Aang deserved each other. Both immature. But Aang wanted Katara and left him with nothing.

He supposed he had to be thankful. What could the Firelord do with a water tribe girl? She couldn't take the throne with him. She couldn't take his mother's place. Like his mother, she was passionate, self sacrificing... but only for Aang. Only for her joker brother. Not for him.

"Aang wants to show us around the southern air temple."

His jaw hardened. Too soon. "I have duties here."

"I don't. I thought I'd be glad when all this was over and I could go back to my parents. But I don't belong there." She kicked at the ground with her feet and it rumbled.

She blushed, not meaning to do that.

"Touching" said Zuko. He was a bit of a jerk, but he preferred to be alone. He always preferred to be alone.

She sat down on his mother's bed.

He took a deep breath. People weren't supposed to be in this room. She wasn't supposed to be in this room.

He used to smirk when she would take Aang down a notch. Let him eat dust for a change. Now she was just overstepping her boundaries again.

Uncle Iroh would have loved her. The type of girl who didn't know when to quit. But come to think of it, he would have loved Katara too. Anyone that would make him happy.

There wasn't much hope in that now.

"Was she beautiful?"

Katara?

He must have seemed confused because she filled in the blanks.

"Your mother."

He didn't sit down next to her. "Yes."

"I wonder what beauty is" she heaved a sigh. She wasn't new to being blind. But sometimes she just thought. "A voice. A touch. Probably different to the way you see beauty."

"Probably."

Zuko remembered his mother. She was beautiful. She had faith in him. Faith that was so hard to find anymore. Faith he hadn't found since Iroh. He'd mistakenly thought he found that faith with Katara.

He turned around and a tear slid down his cheek.

She smelt the new smell of salt in the air.

"See being the operative word" she continued in a muse.

Zuko started walking out of the room and just kept walking until he got to the command room. His sanctuary. And where he first spoke his mind and got himself into trouble with his father.

Abandon all compassion.

He still wasn't any better at it.

He still had to deal with the fact his mother wasn't coming back.

And he still felt alone.

A door was cut into the wall and moved back. The pesky annoyance had scented him out.

"Go away."

"It's rude to leave when somebody is talking" She said matter of factly.

"I said, go away" he turned and shot out a spark of electricity at her. It cracked in the air. She threw up an earthen sheild.

"If you want me to leave, you're going to have to fight me" she said again, bringing the sheild back into the floor.

He said nothing. Tears kept falling, blurring his vision.

For once. She was at the advantage.

She pointed her fingers at him and flicked her wrists. Stalactite like structures came out from the ground trapping him.

"Forget it. This is a waste of time. I'm going to see Aang" she said, turning around.

"Stop" he said, his voice choaking.

She smiled.

She turned back and put down the trap he was in.

He wouldn't let anyone touch him when he was this vunerable, and frankly she didn't want to.

She had enough on her hands with Haru goody-two shoes without getting invovled with an irate firelord.

"So tell me about your mother" she said.

He brought up a fire in his hands to dry his face. "My mother is gone."

She slid her feet along the smooth floor, ever cautious. "How about you take my mother?" She said quirkily and sat in front of him, feeling warmth on her face.

It was his turn to smile. "I don't think the firelord would have an eath bender mother"

"She doesn't bend."

"Then you would have something in common with her" he stated arrogantly.

She brought up a sharp fragment of rock under his neck, fast. The flame was gone. "You want to say that again, 'dances with fire'?"

"I'm sorry. I forgot how renouned the Blind Bandit was" his voice dripping with sarcasm.

She clenched her fists and it went up higher into his neck.

"I'll let you go if you tell me what 'beauty' is like to one of you seeing people."

He considered her ultimatium. He could just engulf the whole room in a flame. But it wasn't worth going on a suicide mission. He looked at the girl. A fringe of black over glazed eyes. A tough, yet lighthearted disposition and realized that young earth bender WAS beautiful.

And so unaware of herself.

"I don't know what beauty is like" he lied,staring right at her. His eyes like a cats - focusing on every movement.

"Wasn't Sugar Queen beautiful?"

He didn't answer. She let down the threatening spear. It sank back down to the ground.

"It's tragic. The more you hang on to the girl, the more lonely you'll be."

He looked at the girl in front of him and thought about letting go. He got up out of his meditating area and straightened himself out.

"Write a proverb about it" he said noncholantly.

She grinned a wicked grin "I did."

She was beautiful. A lot like Iroh sometimes. But beautiful.

"Come on." he said, walking towards the door. She got up and dusted herself off.

"I'll show you the rest of the mansion." He finished. He was feeling a lot better.

Perhaps he would let go. Some time.

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