She is walking on the beach when he finds her, half-draped in moonlight. In truth, she doesn't want to return to the house yet, not with Azula practically having a mental breakdown and Ty Lee wailing about how nobody's ever respected her individuality- she can't handle the overflow of feelings right now. Weren't they sent here to have fun?
"... Hey," Zuko says, still hesitant.
"Hey," she replies, equally as awkward. What is she supposed to even say after emotional revelation around the campfire time? "Want to walk with me?"
He nods and follows, large footprints transposing her smaller ones. The beach is silent at this time of night, the narrow shoreline dwarfed by a sheet of obsidian.
"I didn't know you were so unhappy here," she says, dragging a toe in the sand.
"I'm just kind of confused, okay? A lot has changed. I'm not sure if I've done the right thing, coming back here."
Mai isn't very good at expressing sympathy- she has none to give. Too many people wanting more than she has and she becomes flat, apathetic. But Zuko is her boyfriend, and for once she feels a nagging sense of guilt for not noticing his obvious disease.
"I didn't know you were so unhappy," he interjects. "I mean, with your parents. You never told me."
"Like you need to hear my sob stories," she scoffs with a well-timed eye roll, uncannily echoing Azula. "My life isn't nearly as bad as... some people's. I could have anything as long as I kept mum and didn't embarrass my father in public. I don't even have to see them anymore. They've got Tom-Tom and their governorship in the bleakest place on earth, and I've got the run of their old house. It's all great."
"You don't miss them at all?" he asks, raising a skeptical eyebrow.
"No," she tells him, more to convince herself, "I don't. It's not like we were close, anyway. I went to boarding school, then to Azula. Most daughters aren't so lucky."
"It must have been... hard, not being able to care about anything," he acknowledges, voice an inch away from apology.
"Caring about things is harder," she admits, and they are quiet for a while after that, wandering back and forth aimlessly. If she squints, she can still see the burnt wreckage of Chan's house, a moment of vindication against a backdrop of uncertainty.
"Listen, I'm not going to tell you that you did the right thing under Ba Sing Se." It's the truth- she isn't his mother, to wipe his snotty nose and try to wrap everything up in a tidy little bow. "I hardly count as a good moral compass. But I am glad that you came back." He smiles out of one corner of his mouth; she kisses him, almost with tenderness, thin lips against her own. I waited, she thinks, I waited for you like a stupid lovelorn girl in a dragon tale, even though you were never supposed to return. I'm not letting you go that easily.
A/N: Goddammit this is short but I'm already like three days behind on this.