We meet Aang. Sorry if the info is a little sketchy don't know anyobody that….wait! You'll find out soon enough *evil, sneaky, smile*.
Chapter 10.
Zuko woke up in a strange room. He looked around for some time trying to remember what happened and why he was here. He stared at the ceiling for sometime before he remembered.
"I'M A WHORE!"
He closed his eyes. He needed a second.
"Hello!?" Said a small voice by the door.
Zuko opened his eyes and saw a small boy standing by the door.
"What?" He asked harshly.
"Oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean to bother you I just felt like you needed some company now that all your friends have gone."
"What friends?" Zuko asked the boy while his eyes squinted.
"Why are you here?" The boy asked Zuko.
"WHAT FRIENDS?" Zuko yelled before realising that the boy probably didn't know Azula or any of his old "friends". Also the boy looked like he was about to cry with squinty and watery eyes.
"What did you want?" Zuko asked the boy. The boy then forgot about his harshness and begun to speak the fastest stream of words that Zuko had ever heard.
"What?"
"Oh sorry." The boy said sheepishly. "I wanted to know what your name was and why you were here."
"My name is Zuko." Zuko then kept quiet.
"And why are you here?" the boy asked the biggest eyes Zuko had ever seen.
"What is your name?" Zuko then asked instead.
"Oh!" The boy exclaimed "Didn't I tell you?"
"No." Zuko said.
"Oh, no? Then I'll be gone." The boy said before whizzing off.
"What just happened?" he asked the air.
The next time he saw the small boy was after he had had his afternoon nap, courtesy of the medication they were keeping him on, they relieved the pain but also made him drowsy. More sleep means that there were more dreams., more nightmares.
"Run Zuko, Run Zuko! Don't stop. Keep going. Keep going…." The voice slowly faded away whispering "Run Zuko", and left him a corridor of portraits. He didn't recognise anyone, yet he knew he should for they all felt so familiar.
He remembered the voice, "RUN!" It yelled in his mind again. He started to run down the corridor.
"RUN!"
He kept running, but where to? Where was he going?
"RUN!" The urgency in the voice had increased, like it was scared.
He then felt a presence against his back and he sprinted down the corridor towards a large looming door he hadn't seen before.
"Stop." A different voice whispered. A weaker voice. "Just stop."
He kept running, the door had all the answers.
"Stop.' The same voice whispered again.
The door turned into a fish. The same soul sucking fish from his previous dreams. It slowly opened his eyes and looked at him. It had his mothers' eyes.
"Mum?" He asked the dream fish.
"Mum, I'm sorry." He started to weep.
"I'm sorry mum." He whispered the fish head. To the fish's eyes. "I didn't want it mum."
The fish closed its eyes and opened its mouth.
"Mum?" Zuko asked the fish.
The fish then ate him.
He woke in a cold sweat to find that somebody was watching him.
It was the small boy from before.
"Hi." He said with a small smile.
"Hi." Zuko mimicked.
"Are you okay?" The boy asked.
"Yeah." He lied as easily as he had lied before.
"Okay." The boy said. "I just wanted to tell you that some of your friends and uncle Iroh are back."
"Why do you call them my friends?" Zuko asked the boy.
"Because, they always visit you." The boy said simply.
"Then why have I never seen them?" He challenged the boy angrily. He felt like a fight.
"Because you've only been awake for less than 24hrs." The boy replied. "The first time you woke up it was well after visiting hours." The boy then looked puzzled. "Didn't you notice?"
"No." Zuko said simply.
"Oh?" The boy responded. "Okay." He said with a beaming smile before he left.
"Wait!" Zuko yelled. The boy stopped.
"Why did you call Iroh your uncle?"
"Because that's what he is?"
"You're genetically related t Iroh?" Zuko asked shocked.
"No." The boy responded before leaving.
"What just happened?" Zuko asked the air.
"I believe that you just met Aang." A voice near the door said.
He turned to look at a nurse by the door. In so many porno's nurses were Victoria Secret models. In many Hollywood movies they were fat. She was neither. She was tall and pretty with soft wrinkles around her face. Her black hair was tied back into a tight ponytail and she was wearing a simple soft pink scrubs with white trainers.
"Aang?" Zuko asked. "What kind of name is Aang?"
"It's the name he calls himself."
"What?"
"He calls himself Aang." The nurse said with a smile.
"If I said I called myself Lucas, would you call me Lucas?" Zuko asked the nurse.
"No." She responded quickly with a no nonsense edge to the statement despite her open smile and kind eyes.
"Why not?" Zuko asked the nurse angrily, while noticing that the nurses' name tag said that her name was Mary.
"Because," said Mary as she stood right beside his bed, fiddled with some dials and checked something on the EKG currently scanning him, before nodding and writing something into the chart that the doctor would read later.
"Because…" Zuko prompted.
"You don't call yourself Lucas" She said with a simple smile before leaving him pondering the boy Aang and the hospital staff.
Not a few moments after the nurse Mary had left, Iroh was standing at the door. He smiled. "You look better."
Zuko wanted to yell at him but instead bit his lip. "Are you here to visit me alone, or are there other people with you?" Zuko asked Iroh tentatively.
"It's only me Zuko," Iroh said softly, "No one else. I sent them away because I thought that you would be vulnerable."
"Do they know what happened to me?"
"Who?" Iroh said.
"Everyone!" Zuko exclaimed.
"No one but your physician and I know what happened to you, and he has sworn not to tell anyone."
Zuko looked at the starchy but somehow soft hospital bed sheets. It triggered a distant memory of his mom in hospital. His fingers wrapped in her hands as she held him close and sheets wrapped around them both as she told him his bed time story before visiting hours ended and he had needed to go home. Then she had gotten better. The next few years were mixed adventures and a series of highs and lows that those months his mother had been in hospital had begun to feel like a dream and then had faded from his memory completely. He clutched the sheets gently. He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream, he just wanted some relief.
"Zuko," Iroh said softly "I do not and cannot judge you for what you did."
"I'm a freak." He whispered softly.
"No your not." Iroh said "For thousands of years the male gender of the human species have been able to get pregnant and have children. Some scientists claim it came about when a massive virus killed off so much of the human population that in order to survive as a human race the men needed to be able to reproduce as well as women. Nowadays its quite a common happenstance."
"That's not it."Zuko said. "Just forget it."
Iroh looked at Zuko who had just turned away from him.
"One day Zuko, we will have t talk about this. But for now get some rest."
Iroh turned to go.
"Iroh wait." Zuko suddenly remembered. "Do you know someone called Aang."
Iroh looked at him and smiled. "Very many people know Aang." Iroh stroked his beard and asked, "When did you see him?"
"Today, before you arrived."
"Okay." Iroh said. "Get well soon Zuko." Then he turned and left.
"Who is Aang?" Zuko asked himself.
A.N: So here's a new chapter. The next one will be uploaded soon, until then enjoy this chapter and please review.
TLAD ;-)
P.S Dani, OwlNinja, Silver wolf, Lovely Girl Iroh, JetMarino are the official muses for this chapter as well as the reason I was able to write one and a half chapters in one day so the prize for you guys is two chapters posted about 3-4 days apart max. Thanks for giving a kick up the ass ;-) TLAD
