4. IT'S A MODEST HOME, BUT THE STANDARDS THAT I GREW UP WITH, BUT THEN AGAIN, MOST THINGS ARE. It's simply furnished, all plain wooden tables and chairs and simple shutters covering the glassless openings that serve as windows. All of these shutters have been thrown wide open, and the air inside the house is fresh and clean. After she lets me in, Katara guides me to what I assume is a kind of dining room, where I set the box down and start rubbing and rotating the shoulder that Sokka tapped. Katara's one her way to the kitchen when she pauses, turns, a frown on her face.

"You alright?"

I nod, trying to look relaxed. "Yeah, I'm fine, probably just carried this box for a little too long, you know?"

Her frown grows stronger, her eyebrows arching up and down, edging towards each other over her nose. "Uh huh. Wanna try again?"

I give her a smile. "What do you mean?"

She crosses her arms, tapping a finger lightly on her elbow. "That's the shoulder that my brother just punched you in, right?"

I shrug, such as I can. "It's nothing, really. He just gave me a light tap. It really has nothing to do with him."

Her grown is beginning to slowly turn into a glare. "Uh huh. Like I said, wanna try again?"

A faint sense of panic begins to roll up my throat. I swallow it, or, at least, try to, running through a litany of excuses and explanations, before the look in her eyes convinces me to give up the fight. Resigned, I heave a bit of a sigh. "It's just…I took an arrow in this shoulder over the winter, and it's still kind of…well…gimpy, I guess." I give her another smile. "It's nothing, really. It's not your brother's fault he picked the worst possible place to give me a man tap."

She looks at me long and hard, in a way that's vaguely unsettling. I find myself squirming a little under her gaze, not least because I'm well aware that it's concern that her eyes are full of. Having people be concerned about me is not exactly a familiar sensation, and it's definitely not something my childhood prepared me for. Still…

Well, I have to admit, it's nice…

"Well," she says, a smile creeping back into her eyes, "in that case, I'll have to give him a bit of a talking to. We can't have idiots socking you in a shoulder that needs to heal all the time."

I chuckle. "There's…there's no way I'm going to be able to convince you that's it no big deal, is there?"

She giggles. "Nope!" Concern floods her face again, and she takes a step forward. "Would you like me to…well…look at it?"

I twist my mouth in confusion. "Why? What would you do?"

"Well, I am a waterbender…"

I nod. "I know that. What's it got to do with an achy shoulder?"

She arches an eyebrow. "You know waterbenders have healing abilities, right?"

I shake my head. "I didn't not know that." I really didn't. In retrospect, it was kind of a stupid thing to not know, considering how much time I'd been spending among the Water Tribes at that point. I give my shoulder a final rub, before stretching my arms out and back in. "Well, I won't stop you if you want to see what you can do, but first, we have work to do. Deal?"

She nods. "Deal." She waves at the table. "Feel free to make yourself at home. There's an ashtray on the windowsill if you want to smoke, and there's plenty of space in here for you to lay out your things. Just…well…"

I'm already rolling up my sleeves to start digging around the box when I notice she isn't talking anymore. I look up, befuddled. "Well…what?"

She bites her lip, before reaching up and brushing some of those ever-wandering hairs from her face. "Just…umm…leave some room here at the end, you know, so we can…umm…eat?" She nods, as if reassuring herself. "Yeah…eat." She looks up from the floor, seeming to put great effort into focusing on my eyes. "You didn't eat breakfast, did you?"

I shake my head. I won't lie, I was rather lost. She got thrown for a loop rather quickly… "Nope, just had a cup of tea and headed out, just like you told me to do." I tilt my head. "You alright?"

She nods slowly, her lip trembling slightly as if she wanted to bite it. Her hand flies up to her brow, as it to wave aside some more stray strands, only she finds none. Her hand floats in the air for a moment, before she gives her head a quick shake and fixes me with a warm grin. "Oh, no, I'm fine." She stretches out her arms, claps her hands softly together. "Right! So…breakfast! You, me, some food!" She nods, though I have a feeling not at me, before turning back to the kitchen and heading in. Just before disappearing, she pauses, looks back over her shoulder. She seems to debate something for a few moments, before finally speaking, all while flashing a rather coy smile.

"You know something, Zuko?"

I look up from the box, a roll of blank parchment in my hands. "Quite a few things, actually. Anything in particular?"

She looks down at my arms, her smile growing wider. "You have, like, ridiculously sexy forearms." She tosses me a wink, says, "Just thought you should know," and disappears into the kitchen.

It's a few minutes before I fully regain my faculties…

Breakfast that morning is rather simple affair, very Water Tribe. It consists of a bowl of spiced seaweed noodles, a few strips of seal jerky, and some sliced fruit, served with an ice-cold glass of juice. I'm not normally a big fan of seaweed…well…anything, but it smells heavenly and I'm pretty hungry so I pick up my chopsticks and dig right in, after complimenting Katara, of course, and thanking her profusely. When she blushes bright red under my praise, I blink a few times, and ask, "Do you not cook often?"

She shakes her head, nibbling on a piece of jerky. "Oh, no, I cook all the time." She gives an exasperated sigh. "What, you think Sokka cooks his own meals? Please." She washes down the bite of jerky with a gulp of juice, looks up at me. "Why do you ask?"

I feel rather flustered (how does she keep doing that?!), but press on. "Well…you just seemed to…be rather affected by all my compliments…"

She smiles at me over her glass. "Oh, yeah, it's just…people don't really thank me very much when I cook. It's just kind of…expected, here, that women will do that, you know? So it's not really…commented on."

I shrug. "I guess. To be honest, I never actually ate a meal with the same person who cooked it. Like…ever." I pause, rummage through a few boxes of stale memories in the back corners of my mind. "Actually, I don't think I ever even met the people who cooked my meals until I left home and started traveling on my ship."

She mulls that over while she swallows a few noodles, before pointing in the air with her chopsticks. "Really?"

I nod. "Really."

She ponders the implications of that statement for a few moments. "Well, then…I gotta ask…who cooked your meals before you left?"

I shrug. "Servants."

She nods. "Right, you were rich and stuff."

I roll the taste of that around in my mouth before deciding that I like the noodles better. "Eh, I guess you could say that. I'd be more inclined to just call myself rather well born." I frown into my bowl, still slightly uncomfortable with the words I'm saying. "We don't really equate wealth with power or social standing in the Fire Nation."

"Well, what do you equate with those things?"

"Well…you know how, here, your standing in society is all about how much you contribute to the community? How, the more you do for the tribe, the more respect you tend to get? It's kind like that, only more violent."

"I see…only, not really. How do you mean?"

"Hmmm…" I struggle for words to describe the concepts we're touching on, only…the words don't really exist in Suomi. Every culture is like that, at the end of the day, home to a veritable plethora of complex concepts and idea that are unique to that particular culture and, as such, have words attached to them that don't really translate across culture lines and linguistic divides. Finally, I settle for a shrug. "Actually, I'm going to have to admit defeat here. If you don't speak Nihongo, then it'll be almost impossible to explain. Point is, in the Fire Nation, it's all about power, and getting what you want, being the strongest and meanest kid on the block."

She shakes her head. "Sounds kind of…well…awful."

I can only nod at that. "It actually is, to be honest. I'm sad to say that it took me a few years to realize that."

She shrugs. "None of us are born perfect, Zuko."

I laugh. "Isn't that the truth? But, you know what? Enough about me. What about you? If you're to be my student, then I should know a bit more about you."

She smirks at me around a piece of fruit. "You don't like talking about yourself that much, do you?"

I sigh, slump down onto the forearms I have lightly resting on the edge of the table. "Not really, no. I mean, I don't mind really talking about me, per se, but…if you go back far enough, you run smack-dab into this," I tap my scar, "and then I get all uncomfortable and tight-lipped."

She gives me a comforting smile, and, before I know what she's doing, she's reached out and laid her hand lightly on my scar. For a brief, terrifying moment, my heart leaps into my mouth and I almost bolt away and out one of the windows. My chest burns and my one good eye flies as wide as it possibly can and I feel dizzy and weird and just what the fuck is she doing?! People just…people don't do that to me. They don't touch my scar like that, or look at my scar like that, or even, well…look at my scar at all. That's why it's so easy to hide the fact that my left eye is completely dead and blind; people are so eager to move to my undamaged side that they don't bother to question the real reason why I'm so happy to have them there. Without even thinking, without even trying, Mai's last words to me ring in my ears like city bells at noon.

I'm sorry about your face, Zuko. It was…I really liked your face…

The words didn't hurt. I remember that. Why should they? We never liked each other all that much, anyways, or, at least, I never liked her. It was just that…she was trying to be nice. And, to be honest, that hurt the worst of all…

Instinctively, I start to lean back. The terror in my face registers in hers, and for a moment, she almost pulls away. I feel the tremble in her fingertips, the hesitation racing along her skin, and then, I finally look into her eyes, and I see, I see, I see…

I see kindness…

I don't move. I don't breathe. I just…wait…

And then, after what feels like a long time, she rests her hand fully on my scar and runs her thumb softly across what used to be my eyebrow.

"Well," she says, nibbling on her lip, "just so you know…um…I actually like your scar."

I swallow hard. My mouth is very dry. "You do?"

She nods. "I do. I just…it's part of what makes you…well…you." She giggles at herself. "Does that make any sense?"

I try on a thin smile, a smile that I'm very surprised to feel seep into the rest of my face. "Yeah…I think I do. I mean…I wouldn't have thought that a few years ago, but…now?" I reach up with my left hand, rest it on hers. "Yeah, I think I see what you mean."

A moment passes, long and slow, silk running smooth and cool over a warm finger on a soft summer day. Her thumb moves again, retracing its route across the ruined eyebrow, gently following lanes and grooves. It almost feels as if she's drawing the pain away, sending it like morning dew, making it vanish and float away with the summer breeze.

I really don't know how long we would've sat like that, looking into each other's eyes, her hand on my scar, my hand on hers, if that damn dog hadn't barked. But bark it did, somewhere outside, shattering the silence and making us both jump apart. We sat for a moment, blushing like children caught kissing behind the schoolhouse, running our fingers through our hair and over our clothes and taking drinks from our juice glasses practically in unison. Finally, she coughed into her hand, flashed me a shy, slightly embarrassed smile, and said, "So, umm…you wanted to know a little about me, right?"

I nod, trying hard not to laugh. The sparkle in her eyes is definitely not helping. "Well, umm…if you don't mind…"

She giggles. "No, I wouldn't mind at all." She picks her chopsticks back up, and begins to gather some more noodles. "So…umm…where should I start?"

I mimic her movements, desperate to have something to focus on other than those endless blue eyes. One could really get lost in those eyes…

"Oh, well…wherever you want, really…"

"Heh…well…"

And we're moving right along! I really like this chapter. Actually, I'm kind of digging this story in general. It's kind of sweet. Man, I sure don't hope that I'm not planning to give you twenty chapters of fluff just to hit you with a roundhouse kick of awfulness. I mean, I know we all know that I'm kind of cruel, but surely I'm not that mean…right?

Right…?

Anyways, for those who didn't notice, this version of Zuko doesn't really talk about the fact that he's the former Crown Prince of the Fire Nation. It's really not something he likes to think about. Early in his exile, it just made him angry and sad. Now, it just makes him depressed. I like the idea that he doesn't talk about it with anyone, except maybe his uncle.

Well…and someone else, but he doesn't know that yet…

In the next chapter, we talk about teaching, and maybe some other stuff happens…or not…whatever! Stay tuned!