Summary: "What happened with Zuko…Aang, it was a one night thing. You don't understand. We had been there for weeks." Sometimes she apologized without realizing what she was apologizing for. Exploration of the Swamp, years later. Kataang, Zutara, Rated M.

-4-

I don't know what possessed Mai to leave me, but it must have been something big. She said, It doesn't feel like it used to feel, or something like that. It was such a hard decision, she said. So confusing. So heartbreaking. A really sad story, if you had the patience to listen to it. A series of complexities and loveless interactions that took place between us where she realized—after a considerable portion of our relationship—that I was not right—but no. It was not me, she said, but her. It was her realization and her thinking and planning and wondering and sitting and our sex. It was good sex, but there was something else about it too. Something 'else' that was missing, or present but not the right way. And it was not impulse that had driven her—not passion, or desire, or lust, or yearning—but time. Time, in its fickle inability to remain constant, in its fickle inability to remain fickle. It was time, she said. It was time the whole time.

Time, like Mai, was a bitch.

An entire week, she thought, and no sign of Aang. It was amazing how accustomed they had grown to each other in the meantime. Zuko was reliable and stable—she had anchored herself in the intricate details, a daily part of their routine.

He woke up first, rolled up the tarp he slept on or—if it had rained—folded his end of the blanket and put his pillow away. He stretched—Katara had once awakened early enough to see him—stretched his fingers towards his toes and then reached backwards, then towards the sky, then to his sides. He would collect wood for the fire—always just enough—and light it, taking the thin stone they were using as a makeshift pan and placing the kettle Katara had brought with her right on top. Tea would be ready by the time she came out of the tent, groggy and yawning.

"Oh," she would say sleepily. "You're up?"

Or, more recently, "Still nothing?"

It would be a lie to say she wasn't angry, or at least concerned, about Aang's apparent disappearance. Where was he? The conference was over, and she should have been home by now. But she wasn't. If that wasn't cause for alarm, Katara wasn't sure what was. No sign of Appa's outline in the sky. No team of Earth Kingdom officials. Nothing. Nothing at all.

"What do you think is taking them so long?" she asked him that morning over tea.

"I'm sure they're looking," he replied shortly. "You can't expect them to find us so quickly. They have no idea where we could be. I mean, for all they know we..." He hesitated and took a sip from his cup. "I mean. I don't know. You can't expect them to look for us here."

"What were you going to say?"

"What?"

"What, what?" She was looking at him then; her eyes fixated on his chin. He wiped it with the back of his hand casually and felt some wetness from the tea. "You were saying something," she said, not taking her eyes off of him. "For all they know? For all they know what?"

Zuko didn't answer right away, and that was enough for Katara to drop it. She looked at the tea cup in her hands. It was so lucky that she had come prepared—what had prodded her to bring two cups? The kettle? What had made her reach for the tarp and the tent and the pillows? The extra, extra sets of kimonos? The soap, the teabags, the brush, the towels, the bandages? Most of these things would have been provided at the hotel, and yet she had diligently brought them. Expectant.

"I have four teabags left," she stated suddenly then, turning her attention to the half-full kettle. "And two bars of soap...how long will that last? Maybe we should start reusing teabags."

"We aren't going to die without tea."

"I'm not saying that we would."

"You are worrying for nothing."

"I just want this to end," she admitted quietly. After a shaky seven days with Zuko, she felt as if there was nothing she couldn't tell him. The tears, the screaming, the hallucinations, the desire she felt for Aang when she sat alone, or when she slept in the tent as far away from Zuko as the space would allow. What a delicious series of circumstances, she had thought. Strangers who hated each other, entangled in a damp forest, with nothing but a few irrational supplies, and a soggy tea bag, and a dull dagger, and dirty clothes, and nothing to say.

"You think I don't?" he was poking at the fire now, with a slim twig that he held like a pencil. "But we have to be patient."

"I know." She sighed impatiently. It was cloudy this morning; the sun hadn't come up or—if it had—they couldn't see it through the canopy. It was dark. If it wasn't for the fire under the kettle, she wouldn't be able to see a meter in front of her.

"We used to play a game when I was younger." Katara picked up a smooth stone, oval in shape, with a thin film of moss over half of it. "Everyone has to say something in the dark. We pass around a rock, and if you're holding it, you tell a joke, or a fact, or a secret. It was back when we were younger...it's so fun. I haven't played it in years."

He smirked with the corner of his mouth and stated lightheartedly—with a hint of sarcasm—"I guess when you're older, you find more enjoyable things to do in the dark."

She laughed, taken aback, and nodded. "I guess you do."

"But that is out of the question here."

"Yes, exactly. So this game is perfect."

Zuko looked at her quizzically. There were shadows over his face from the fire, and an unkempt brush of facial hair that somewhat resembled a beard. He hadn't brought a razor; she had, but was weary of asking him if he wanted it.

She tossed the stone in her hand and caught it between her fingers and palm, posing the challenge: "You want to play?"