Title: Existence | The Beyond Lost Conclusion
Rating: PG-13
Summary: IN PROGRESS. Continuation of Beyond Lost. "It's as real as we make it to be."
Author's Notes: 4/3/2011.
It's happening!
After four years and four months (and two days, but who's counting?), I've caved and decided to continue Beyond Lost. If you haven't read that yet, I suggest you go do so now, or this will not make any sense, whatsoever. Even if you have read it, I suggest you refresh your memory before continuing on!
This continuation will not be a single one-shot. I have the remainder of the story planned and prepared, and I will be casting off the remaining segments as quickly as I can get them out.
Thank you so much for all those who reviewed and supported Beyond Lost. I never realized how strongly you all would feel about it, and I'm so excited to finally answer everyone's questions. If you leave a review and would like a response, please make sure to do so signed-in, so I can reply! :)
Without further ado, the first segment of the continuing Beyond Lost saga...
Chapter 1
There was nothing.
Nothing but ubiquitous white and silence. Nothing but this feeling of tightness in his chest, this difficulty to breathe. Zuko wasn't sure if he was awake or dreaming or alive or dead or a combination of them all, but he knew that something heavy was resting on his chest and the pressure was unbearable.
The blank abyss became a little clearer, and the haze of his confounding surroundings began to diminish. Zuko realized after a few eternal moments that the whiteness looked stunningly familiar, like the ceiling of a tent.
And suddenly, sounds greeted his ears. There was too much noise for Zuko to discern while still under this heaviness, but it was clear to Zuko that there were people around him shouting with quick, panicky voices. The haze continued to clear and he could make out flashes of colors dancing about, and could only assume that people were rushing past, though he could not decide who. And abruptly, the excruciating tightness in his chest receded.
It was replaced with a strange feeling of emptiness.
"He's waking up!"
That voice… Zuko's mind whispered. I know that voice… Toph?
"Sokka, get over here! He's snapping out of it!"
"Are you positive, Toph?"
"What kind of a stupid question is that?" Toph exclaimed, as Zuko's world reorganized itself. "I can feel his heartbeat changing, he's really coming to!"
"His eyes!" Sokka gasped. "They're focusing!"
"You moron, I can't see his eyes!"
And for Zuko, the visions of color slowly shuddered into the shapes of Sokka and his Toph, who were looking at him with wide eyes of anticipation. He took a few moments to take in the worry lines etched deeply into their faces, and to realize that he must be in a bed and must have been very ill or badly injured. Then, after testing the muscles in his fingers and toes and finding them fitting of his approval, he slowly turned his head to the side to get a better look around.
In the bed immediately to his right, he found a small figure tightly wound in bandages and covered by a mountain of blankets. The face was obscured by a mask of long, flowing brown hair, but before he could inspect any further, someone jarred his thoughts with speech.
"Zuko?" It was Aang. "Blink twice if you can hear me." Zuko kept his gaze focused on the bed beside him, but he blinked twice, meriting sighs of relief from his onlookers, only barely heard over the panic of the room. "Can you speak?" Zuko cleared his throat easily, then licked his dry lips. The only obstacle was how large and out of place his tongue felt in his mouth.
"I'm fine," Zuko said, gradually realizing the reality of his situation. How long had he been lying there? Were they still in battle? Had the troops followed through with their plans successfully? What had happened to him?
"Zuko?" Aang asked.
"What?" Zuko looked back to Aang.
"I asked how you are feeling."
Zuko looked back to the figure next to him. "Can't be worse than what he must be going through…" Zuko looked back to the others just in time to see them all wince. "I think I'll survive." For a moment, they were all silent, though Sokka kept sending subtle glances at Aang. Zuko, perplexed, continued speaking. "What happened to me? How long have I been asleep?"
"Only a few hours," Sokka said, looking relieved to be able to break the silence. "You were hit at the peak of battle—some of the freedom fighters managed to bring you back to safety before any harm was done and Toph has been watching over—er, sorry, keeping track of you since then. I don't know how they managed to hit you right at that pressure point directly on your neck… We're going to have to be far more careful. They are skilled."
"The battle is over?" Zuko asked, feeling hollow. He had failed. Again. Zuko couldn't imagine how he had been injured right at the time his troops would have needed his advice the most. He just hoped they followed his plans. "Were we successful?"
"Yes..." Aang said, turning and walking around to the other side of the bed next to him, so he could see the figure lying there and still face Zuko. "The palace has been infiltrated, just like we wanted."
"Everything is prepared?"
"Everything."
Zuko looked at Aang, who was staring at the figure lying still. "And… casualties?"
Toph shook her head slightly. "Most escaped with mere cuts and scratches, and only a few more than that sustained any serious injuries."
"Most?" Zuko asked, feeling his stomach churn in anticipation of knowing the fate of the rest. Their gazes dropped.
"Katara was hit near the very end of battle," Toph said softly, turning toward the bed where Aang was settled.
Zuko looked to the mess of blankets next to him, and Aang staring longingly into the face Zuko couldn't see. She had to have been in serious condition. His brow creased as he tried to take a closer look.
"That's…Katara?"
Sokka took a moment to clear the lump in his throat, then continued. "We'll need to have a doctor check your head to make sure you're all right, but you might have to wait a while. Things got pretty gruesome once you went down, and I'm not sure one will be available for quite a while."
Zuko turned to Sokka, and nodded curtly, ignoring the heaviness of his head.
"We'll have to get moving with a new battle plan," said Toph. "Their tactics are getting trickier, and we're not picking them up as fast as we need to."
Zuko felt something hard and cold form in the pit of his stomach. It was the recurring realization that they weren't going to win.
"That balm should help," Aang muttered quietly. "Katara made a special supply just before…"
Zuko nodded in thanks, and set the medicine bowl near the foot of the bed. He was still kneeling on the floor, stiffly resting on his upturned heels. Years of intensive training in both proper etiquette and self-discipline forced him to remain as still and as vertical as a cliff. "I appreciate you getting me out of the ward as soon as possible, but I assure you, I am perfectly capable of meeting with the others," said Zuko, finding his tone more clipped than he'd intended, but Aang did not seem to have noticed. In fact, Aang seemed to have not noticed any of Zuko's protests about immediately conferring with the other advisors since he first mentioned it upon leaving the hectic infirmary, and Zuko was growing more tense with each of his arguments. "Who knows how many are still without a proper hospital bed, but that is precisely why we should be planning our next attack." Aang did not move from his slouch against the pole near the door of his tent. Battling his impatience, Zuko continued on. "If we do not find a way to escape whatever new tricks they have planned for us, there will no longer be a shortage of sickbeds, Avatar, but a shortage of properly-dug graves."
Zuko's voice had grown coarse with his incendiary finish, as his patience continued wearing thin. Still, Aang remained seemingly unaffected. Zuko opened his mouth to unleash one final blow of opinions, when Aang interrupted.
"It will be over tomorrow."
Zuko paused. "Avatar?"
"The war," he said, still looking into space, somewhere toward a spot just over Zuko's shoulder. That feeling of being passed through, of being strangely invisible seemed eerily familiar to Zuko. "It ends tomorrow."
"What makes you believe that?" Zuko didn't hide the skepticism in his voice, but attempted to remain respectful. His focus on being civil coincidentally helped him to ignore the slight tremor of fear swimming in his stomach.
Aang and the world do not have the strength to win this war.
"I don't know," Aang said quietly. "I just feel it."
Zuko frowned. "Then all the more reason why we should be conferring with the others. There's no telling what—"
"What's going to happen when you are Fire Lord?" Aang asked suddenly, turning to look at Zuko for the first time. Zuko, taken aback, stared inquisitively into Aang's gaze.
"What?"
"We have always focused so much on the war," Aang began. "It occurred to me that I always just assumed that we could discuss the aftermath when the time came. But it's so close, and I haven't even asked you for your opinions." Zuko sighed. After taking a few moments to collect his thoughts, Zuko did his best to answer.
"I would have been Fire Lord. Or my Uncle Iroh, but—"
"What do you mean by would have?" Aang's brow creased in confusion. His usual habit of not interrupting was obviously not going to happen in this conversation.
"In light of recent events, it will probably go to whomever is next in line for the thrown. Which, naturally, may make reconstruction tricky if they have the same mindset as Ozai or—"
"What do you mean, 'in light of recent events'? You're… why wouldn't you take the throne?"
Zuko said nothing for a moment, but turned to look out his tented window at the darkness. "Well, for one, Avatar," Zuko said, and for once Aang didn't have the urge to correct him with a less formal name. "I doubt I'm going to live long enough for anyone to have put a crown on my head—"
"What—?"
"And if I do, can you imagine that kind of reception I would have?" Zuko chuckled a little, the smile on his lips a sad one. "The Water Tribes despise me, with good reason, most especially your waterbender friend out there. The Earth Kingdom fears me, and thus hates me, also very understandably. I've betrayed my own nation more than anyone else in history; my people only know me as the treasonous, failure of a son of one of their greatest leaders, the leader who has kept them in blissful, ignorant prosperity for years… a leader that I'm going to help you usurp. To them, I'm just the little, insignificant Prince brat who couldn't measure up to my sister, who couldn't be good enough for my father, who couldn't find my banished mother, and who has let every single individual in all of cosmos down… at least once, if not more." He turned to Aang, who was silent. "You sure you're still wondering why I'm not going to be Fire Lord?" Aang frowned.
"But… I still don't understand why you think you're not going to live for much longer." He tilted his head to the side, looking at the sheets on the bed.
"Well," Zuko said, another smile on his lips. "I already sort of told you. I can't imagine there being a single person in the world who doesn't want me harmed in some way." He chuckled again. "My father wants me tortured and burned to death. Azula wants me tortured and then wants to keep me as a constant plaything. The rest of the Fire Nation no doubt wants me imprisoned. The Earth Kingdom would most probably love me as a slave… I'm going to have to watch my back just as much as after the battle as during it… if not more." He leaned back against the bed frame. "In fact, maybe I should just let myself die at the end of the war." A small laugh. "There aren't many who really want me alive."
"But… I do."
Zuko laughed. "Thank you, but you only needed me to teach you how to firebend and to help you lead your army. Your friends, save Toph, would get along just fine without me, I know." Aang immediately moved to protest, but Zuko help up a palm to stop him. He looked out at the window again. "It's okay. I've given up on trying to ask for their forgiveness. I've obviously done too much bad in this life to redeem anything else."
Aang sat quietly for another moment. "I should probably go check on Katara," Aang said softly. "I'll send Toph in with the medicine from the doctors. It's late, and we still need to discuss our new strategies."
"I agree," Zuko said quietly. "And I wish your waterbender friend well. I know that she… Katara, and I have never really to gotten along, but…"
Aang nodded in understanding and passed out of the room.
Zuko scoffed.
"Fate is just some story we were told as children to make us feel better about things that we couldn't control. You could cop out of a significant parenting conversation just by throwing out the phrase, 'everything happens for a reason,' a few times and be done with the difficulty of explaining the injustices of the world."
"That's pretty harsh," Toph said, sounding almost hurt.
"So are most things, anymore," Zuko said flipping through his collection of maps. Palace grounds, nearby mountains, secret chambers, hidden doorways… He sorted them in order of importance. At least, he hoped he was. Who really knew what he was going to need?
"I know my share of kid stories," Toph said, with a defiant edge. "And I know enough of them to realize that most of them are made of useless crap. But I believe in Fate." She sounded angry. Zuko withheld a sigh, but couldn't stop from rolling his eyes, and Toph, knowing him well enough to visualize his response without sight, gave him a swift kick in the shoulder from her spot on his bed. As Zuko exclaimed in surprise, she continued. "I think Fate is what brought me to Aang and the others. It's what allowed you to join him, too. And I think it's what's going to make things right again." Zuko finished shuffling his papers. "And it's what's going to bring Katara back."
Zuko paused, hand in mid-reach for the "Necessary" pile. He glanced back at Toph, who was sitting on his sleeping mat and quietly shuffling her feet. Dropping his hand to his lap, he suddenly felt guilty.
"Toph," Zuko said quietly, sitting on the floor at the end of his bed. "What happened to her?"
Toph stayed still for a moment. She sighed, and allowed her shoulders to drop in defeat, causing her to sink deeper into the edge of his bed beside him; he could feel the dip from her small weight in the light mattress. She spoke more softly than Zuko had ever heard the normally abrasive creature speak before. "We were so close to the palace. We were afraid that the distraction would fail and they would notice our implants, so we went way too close… they had the perfect shot at Aang." Zuko watched the small girl quickly shake her head. He pretended he didn't really know what she was doing when she wiped a tear away and tried to pass it off as itching her temple. "None of us really knew what it was happening until it had already happened. There was a band of archers specifically formed to attack Aang, and once they fired, there was no way Aang could have gotten out of their path. So Katara found a way to jump in front of him."
Zuko took a moment to let the information sink in. "Arrows… how many were there?"
"There were only three," Toph said, monotone. "And because of what Katara did, the arrows missed all of her vital organs."
"But when I saw her in the infirmary, she seemed in far worse condition than what your story suggests." Toph's shoulders drooped all the more hopelessly.
"Their goal wasn't necessarily to kill immediately," Toph's voice filled with angry despair. "The arrows were loaded with poison. It slowly enters the bloodstream and taints the entire body in a matter of days… they had been hoping to have the world watch their Avatar slowly be eaten away at the very peak of the war. It would have killed all hope." Toph shook her head again, though Zuko couldn't tell if it was to dispel her rare tears. "They are surely just as satisfied with this new situation, though, as Aang…" Toph turned her head slightly in Zuko's direction. "Well, you've seen what he looks like, hovering over her bed all the time. He only leaves the ward if he absolutely has to, and even then, not for very long."
"And what of the doctors? Have they found a solution?" Toph shook her head.
"They haven't found out what the poison is actually composed of, so they haven't found a cure. And we would have absolutely no idea where to start looking if we want to retrieve it from the Fire Nation, itself. I was sure that Aang would have lost it out there and gone crazy, but to be honest, he really hasn't said that much." Toph frowned. "But their plan backfired. Katara is a martyr, and a sense of mob vengeance like this isn't something you mess with… Instead of destroying hope, they renewed it."
Hope, Zuko thought with disdain. The word disgusted him; it only served to breed ignorance.
"And what of her bandages?" Zuko asked, fighting to keep his voice from showing the edge he felt.
"She was hit twice in the chest and once in the shoulder, all away from her heart. But the bandages are to protect her skin from how filthy the air is. We noticed that the less skin exposure she had, the better she seemed to be doing. We think that the poison has something to do with her pores… When the air is able to seep in through her pores, her sickness worsens. While it's busy eating away at her system, it's doing all it can to collect all other damaging sources to use to its advantage."
"Has she been sleeping this entire time?" Toph nodded.
"She knew what she had done, but she didn't go down right away when she'd been hit. She even cut down a few more warriors before— "
"— before she collapsed."
Toph frowned. "Yes… Sokka managed to get her to safety while we finished our ploy. Aang was enraged, but he managed to keep his head. I don't know how." Toph sighed, growing tired of reliving the events. "The poison is already making its way through her bloodstream. The doctors say that it must be very painful, and so her body knocks itself out so that she doesn't have to endure it consciously… Aang is in a very tough spot. He wants so badly for her to wake up, but knows that if she does before they find a solution, that she'll be in excruciating pain." Zuko considered what she told him.
"How long does she have?" Toph paused.
"The doctors say only a few days or so… If that."
It will be over tomorrow, the Avatar had said. Now Zuko understood why. The Avatar was going to make sure it did.
Zuko nodded, thinking of how Aang was most probably at Katara's side at that very moment. "Thank you, Toph." Zuko spoke softly. "I appreciate you telling me this."
"Don't worry, Sparky," Toph sighed, standing from his bed and moving to his door. "I'm going to go ahead with the others. I figure I don't have to tell you where to find Aang?"
"No," Zuko said. "Thank you, Toph." She nodded.
"He'll come with you to the meeting, but only because he knows he has to." Toph said. "I'm just as impatient to get rolling again as you are, but remember… he might need a little time." She raised the flap of the door and passed through.
Zuko stayed still for but a moment more, then rose to gather what he needed for the discussion. He should have known the reason for Katara's injury, he decided in retrospect. The Avatar had been in love with that girl ever since he first saw her— he supposed it only made sense that she would eventually love him back.
Something was bothering him, tugging at the back of his mind and at the pit of his stomach… But there was a war to be concerned about, after all. Why shouldn't his every step make him feel queasy? Every breath come out shaky?
He made his way out of his tent and to the infirmary ward across the field, hugging a few large maps to his side. When he entered, he immediately saw the Avatar by a bed, a bed whose resident Zuko didn't have to guess. The uneasiness returned to Zuko's stomach in full force, but he took a deep breath and ignored it. He was the general of the Avatar's army, for Agni's sake.
Zuko advanced toward his comrade, and with stronger determination than ever before, Zuko decided that the Avatar was right.
One way or another, this ends tomorrow.
"Are we clear?"
Nods and shouts of approval came from all corners of the tent.
"You know your orders," Zuko shouted across the crowd. "We leave at dawn!"
Cheering and applause surrounded him. Celebratory fists pumped themselves into the air. People patted him on the back as they left the tent, talking seriously of the day to come, and most came to shake his hand.
"Lay off your drinks tonight," Sokka shouted out into the field as the last person exited the tent. "Save them for tomorrow!" The only ones left were he and Zuko; Zuko did not miss that Aang had taken off back to the infirmary ward as soon as he was no longer needed. He did not blame him. "That was a very inspiring talk you gave there," Sokka leaned against a post with his arms folded. "You were very convincing." Zuko didn't look up at Sokka as he collected his maps.
"As long as they have their blessed hope, none of them need to know about mine."
"Or lack there of," Sokka said sharply. He peeked outside the tent to make sure no one was around to hear them.
"What would you have had me done?" Zuko asked testily, straining to keep his movements controlled. Heat was already boiling inside him after an hour's worth of battle planning and lies. "Come in, sit down, and try to convince them the truth? That's it's futile?" Zuko lowered his voice. "That they're going to die trying?"
"I'm just as worried as you are," Sokka said seriously. "But I trust Aang. I know he can do this and I know things are going to turn out all right."
"How do you know?"
"Because it has to," Sokka said. "I can feel it."
Zuko was getting irritated with all these people having these supposed premonitions because they felt something. Zuko felt something, all right, but it was anything but a badly informed notion of optimism.
"I'll lead them as best I can," Zuko said, coming next to Sokka's side at the door. He paused, speaking below a whisper. "No one else will ever have to know that I think it's a lost cause. Don't you worry about your troops' morale."
"It's not just the troops I'm concerned about, Zuko," Sokka said. "Look, I'm not going to pry or ask you what you intend to do after all this is done and over with— "
"— If we're still alive."
"— But I just want you to know, that, well…" Sokka rubbed his neck absentmindedly. "We've had trouble getting along, I know. But… I just don't want you to think that we don't like having you around." Sokka looked at Zuko. "Whatever you want to do after all this is obviously your decision. I know this is weird timing, but I just want you to know that you have the option of sticking with us." More absentminded rubbing of the neck. "You know. If you want to."
Zuko, surprised by this sudden and unexpected act of friendly peace, nodded reluctantly in thanks. "I appreciate that, Sokka." And he meant it, too, albeit he suddenly felt strangely uncomfortable having this new pressure placed on his shoulders. "But I'm just trying to focus on making it through tomorrow right now."
"Fair enough," Sokka nodded. The two hesitated, then Zuko turned.
"Tomorrow," was all Zuko said in parting.
"Bright and early," Zuko heard as he slipped out of the tent. Luckily, most everyone was already in their tents, preparing for the night.
He was frustrated by this new development. Grateful, but frustrated, nonetheless. As if it wasn't enough to have the world's unrealistic expectations already on his shoulders, but now there was a potential invitation from Sokka that would require a carefully articulated denial. All Zuko wanted to do was to go back to his room and lose himself in meditation. Inhale, exhale, the monotonous, mindless pattern of mental safety. How he wished that some things could be so much easier to forget.
Again, that hollow feeling of sickness swept through him. He paused, bringing his hand to his hair, and grimaced slightly as a wave of lightheadedness rushed through.
There is no way my injury could have this much of an effect, Zuko argued with himself. All I need is meditation and sleep. But after a few steps, that same feeling of dizziness consumed him once again, and he had to stop walking to keep from falling over.
"What is going on?" He ground out through his teeth, rubbing his temple. His stubbornness stayed strong, and he continued on. After it happened again not more than three steps later, however, he envisioned himself giving the incendiary battle cry at the onset of battle the next morning and failing to finish it because he had fainted from a dizziness spell.
Maybe a quick word with a doctor wouldn't hurt…
He stopped in the infirmary, carrying his maps loosely at his side and walking as slowly as he possibly could to maintain balance and still manage to not look conspicuous. The panic inside the infirmary that he had hazily witnessed earlier was completely gone. Most of the beds were full, but all were asleep, or at least appeared to be. Only a few doctors were scurrying about the room, checking on patients and the Avatar was easy to spot amongst them.
Sitting in a chair to Katara's right, Aang had nestled his head in his arms on the mattress near her head. As Zuko came closer, he saw that Aang was wide awake, though staring intently at the wall behind the bed. Zuko passed his old bed, finding that the young man who now occupied had obviously been in more need of it than Zuko had been.
What am I doing here? Zuko thought. I'm not nearly as bad as the poor people in here. Meditation and sleep, Zuko, you idiot.
"Zuko?"
Just as soon as Zuko had turned on his heel to go back out the door, Aang called out his name. Zuko sighed and slowly turned back around, completely ignoring the ache that was screaming in his head from the action.
"Sorry," Zuko apologized. "I didn't mean to disturb you."
"Is everything all right?"
"Don't worry, I just came in to see if I could talk to a doctor about my head before I went to sleep," Zuko surveyed the room. "Then I realized how ridiculous that is, especially with so many far worse off than I." Zuko looked at Katara lying still on the bed, her face turned away from him, toward Aang and realized too late that the Avatar most likely did not need to be reminded of that. He was about to apologize when the Avatar asked him, worriedly, "are you sure you're okay?"
"Really, Avatar, I'm fine," Zuko said reassuringly. "I'm just going to head back to my tent and try to get some rest before tomorrow." You should, too, Zuko wanted to say, but knew that it was unlikely that the Avatar could, even if he wanted to. Before Zuko had finished turning around, he was met with two of the advisors rushing toward him.
"Master Aang," they said as they bowed politely, simultaneously blocking Zuko from the way to the exit. The higher rank announced, "we're horribly sorry to call upon you at this late hour, but we require your assistance in securing the safety barrier."
"What's wrong?" Zuko asked, his aching mind already running through the possibilities of a leak in their only shield against Ozai's searching eyes. With the bending-controlled storm clouds in place, Ozai was unable to send his sky fleets to search for their whereabouts, making their location very well-hidden. Even if Ozai were somehow able to know of their whereabouts, the battalions would still be prepared for an attack, but this night of anxious rest would be a much-needed luxury before battle the following day.
"The winds are stronger than we anticipated," he continued. "The storm is moving east, and quickly."
Aang looked to Katara's sleeping form. "How bad is it?"
"We're sorry, sir, but we wouldn't call upon you unless it were absolutely necessary."
Aang nodded, staring at Katara's limp, bandaged body, but after a moment or two, he rose and followed the messengers as they scurried out. Aang nodded to Zuko as he passed by, but the messengers were too preoccupied with their worries to acknowledge the royal general.
Zuko watched them leave, and sighed. The doctors all seemed to have vanished for the moment, going off to wherever doctors go when they are not looking after patients, and now it was eerily quiet in the sullen infirmary. Zuko took a few steps toward the door, peered around the room once more, and stopped when he looked back behind him, where Katara's fingers were twitching.
He immediately found himself at her side, in Aang's place, so quickly that he didn't remember moving there. He lowered himself into the seat, checking frantically for any other sign of movement, but Katara was just as deathly still as she was before.
"Great," Zuko scoffed in a whisper. "I'm hallucinating." Releasing an exasperated sigh, he set his maps along the side the bed, and leaned back in the chair. I'll just wait until the Avatar comes back. Crossing his arms comfortably, he examined the unconscious girl in front of him once more.
She was sickly pale; her normally dark lips had faded into a pallid color of ash. One arm was tucked against her side under her mound of blankets while the other was curled next to her cheek, bandaged, still, and lifeless. Zuko could barely see the rise and fall of her breath, though he hoped that it was the mass of blankets that made it difficult to notice. Her hair was a tangled mess around the pillow, and some had fallen into her face. Zuko slowly reached out, afraid that if he moved too quickly, he might break her, and gingerly brushed the strands away from her cheek. He sat back in his chair, unsure of why he had done something so intimate for someone who surely hated him and for someone he saw as ignorant and foolish, but was interrupted by a particularly sharp sting of pain in his temple, and that thought was lost. When it receded, Zuko looked back at the girl on the bed and concluded that, unconscious or not, she looked entirely too peaceful for someone who knew that they were probably going to die. Even though life held so little for him now and he felt no fear of death, he longed for her serenity.
Zuko had never had any real problem with her, at least not after he gave up on hunting the Avatar. He had merely found her annoying at times, and naively idealistic at others— he was both irritated by and jealous of her having lived so little. But he knew that what he thought of her didn't matter, because he knew that she would never forgive him for what he'd done in the past.
Zuko leaned toward the bed, resting his elbows on his knees. I guess I don't blame her.
"So," Zuko said quietly, feeling a tad ridiculous for only just deciding to have a meaningful conversation with her now that she was unconscious and incapable of articulating a coherent— and probably cutting— response. "That must have taken some guts to throw yourself in front of those arrows." Zuko interlaced his fingers and glanced up at her sleeping face through his bangs. Even in sleep, the soft pout of her lips wore a frown when he was near. Zuko shook his head, fighting his annoyance; she was irksome even in her comatose state. "Right," Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to return to his previous train of thought. "Arrows." His hand fell limp. "I'd like to think that I'd have the guts to do the same for someone I cared about," Zuko said. He frowned at her frown. "But to be honest, I really don't know if I even have anyone like that.
"You had probably been planning what you would do if you were ever in that situation all along though, hadn't you? You knew that you might eventually have the opportunity to sacrifice yourself for him, to save him, and the world and all that goodness, so you didn't hesitate when it came. Which is why it's funny to me that the Avatar is so… in shock, about all of this." Zuko chuckled without mirth. "You'd think he would have already realized that nothing could have stopped you, and that he'd stop blaming himself for what happened." Zuko shook his head. "But I guess that wouldn't really be him, would it? Nor would not jumping in front of oncoming death for the ones you love be you, either.
"I guess what I'm really trying to say, waterbender," Zuko paused, considering. "What I'm trying to say, ah, Katara," Zuko corrected. "Is that even though I think you're, well, a fool, and that you could use a serious lesson or two in what the world is really like outside your precious shield of naïveté… I think the Avatar must be pretty lucky to have someone as naively full of hope as he is… and who is willing to die for what you both believe in." Zuko opened and closed his fingers. "And to die for him."
Zuko stared at her frown, that sickly sheen across her forehead, and the glitter of sweat at the tip of her nose for a long moment, then shook his head, remembering that stinging pain behind his eyes. "But what do I know?" Zuko stood, deciding that no company was probably better for the girl than any company from him. "I don't know you. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow." Zuko picked up his maps and took one last parting glance at Katara. "I don't think I really know anything, anymore."
With a sigh, Zuko made his way out of the ward, feeling heavy. He didn't run into the Avatar on his way back to his tent, or see anyone outside their own, but he did get sidetracked by one detour. Outside the entrance of his tent, off to the right, was a large puddle from the previous day's rainfall. Without thinking, Zuko crouched to the ground and plucked a blade of dry grass. Without knowing the reason, he dropped it into the water.
The water shuddered with a few slight ripples and the blade, a tiny boat enjoying its pond, gently floated away. Zuko looked confused. Was it supposed to do that? Strange, but he couldn't remember. Zuko decided he was tired. He was tired of this war, tired of desperately trying to figure out what to do next but always choosing the wrong option, tired of everyone going on about their relentless hope.
And tired of my head trying to implode.
Zuko stood, staring at the mysterious blade of grass with indifference, then simply turned and opened the flap of his tent, and slipped inside for the night.
And still, the blade of grass floated contentedly in its puddle.
