Sweet Pain
"I love you."
Zuko longed to hear those words again; simple and innocent as they rolled off her tongue. It had been so long - too long. But there wasn't anything he could do to fix things.
He could still remember those last bitter-sweet moments, all blurred in the haze of what had been too much like a rushed and incomplete dream. She'd been the only person who could say those three little words who he wanted to echo them back to. And she was gone.
The memories were fading now, growing more and more vague as time passed. How badly he wanted to just pull them all back. To remember everything - every word; every movement; every diluted, painfully intense emotion. But they were so close to being lost to him. And even with those distant memories, he could never bring her back. Things could never be the same.
Coldly he wondered how long he'd known. How long he'd been able to tell something was wrong. But that was just one more thing he couldn't pull into focus behind his closed eyelids. One realization he never had and probably never would understand.
There was so much he couldn't understand. How had he lost her so fast? Why had he been the only one who cared - who still cared? Who had pulled her away from him? Resentfully Zuko decided he'd never have answers to those tormenting questions. There hadn't been anyone to ask; maybe no one knew. But he doubted that. Someone must have known.
And they probably still did. The cure to his growing insanity was probably right behind the scowling eyes of a man he'd tried so hard to love. But if that man was the only person who really knew what had happened, then Zuko would never know the truth. He'd simply have to live with the fact that he couldn't do anything to change things. He hadn't been able to protect her. And he wasn't brave enough to avenge all of those lost memories; all of that stolen time.
No one would ever again love him.
And those simple, innocent words would remain etched silently in the dark.
Unreachable. Unrepeatable. Unredeemable.