Well some nights, I wish that this all would end
'Cause I could use some friends for a change
And some nights, I'm scared you'll forget me again
Some nights, I always win, I always win

But I still wake up, I still see your ghost
Oh Lord, I'm still not sure what I stand for
What do I stand for? Oh what do I stand for? Most nights, I don't know

—"Some Nights" by fun.


Zuko is a good friend.

Or, at least, he tries to be.

Not that he has many friends.

Mai has been kept in the palace for the past couple of days in her own private room. The Royal Physician told Zuko that it was poison, and that if Zuko had not found her when he did then she probably would have died.

The good thing is that Mai is not dead, and that as of last night she is awake and coherent.

Zuko walks into her room this morning, followed by a servant carrying a tray of tea.

Mai is sitting up in her bed and leaning against a couple of massive pillows, looking prim and irritated beyond all belief. "How wonderful," she drawls when Zuko walks through the door. "Tea time with a Prince."

Zuko pulls a chair up next to Mai's bed and instructs the servant girl to place the tea tray on the bedside table. Then he waves the girl away.

"How are you doing?" he asks his friend politely.

She fixes a withering look on him. "Well, I was poisoned. How do you think I'm doing?"

Zuko smiles and pours tea into their teacups. "You're right. That was a terrible question."

Mai is inspects her perfect fingernails for a moment before glancing over at Zuko. "I know what you're going to ask me," her voice is lower than usual, less sure.

Zuko stiffens and then slowly takes a sip of tea, careful not to make eye contact. "Oh?"

Mai sighs. "I don't know who poisoned me. I don't remember anything from the other night. So there's no use drilling me about it."

Zuko offers the second teacup to Mai. She takes it, wrapping her long, pale fingers around it, as if trying to absorb the heat. Zuko notices how drawn she looks, the dark shadows underneath her eyes, and the way her hair isn't quite in place. His friend is on the edge.

"You know it was her," he says firmly. "You know it was Azula."

Mai flashes her amber eyes onto him; they're alight with anger. "No, she didn't'," she states sharply. She stares at him for a long moment before continuing. "I know that you and your sister are on the outs at this time, but Azula has been my friend since we were children—"

"Mai, I know that you're not that stupid." Zuko leans forward and laces his fingers. "Stop trying to protect her. You know as well as I how fantastic she is at stabbing people in the back."

"I'm not trying to protect her." Mai looks away, black hair coming out of her up do and falling into her eyes. She doesn't bother trying to brush it away. "She didn't poison me." But her voice isn't strong. It wavers.

"She did." Zuko tries to make himself sound as calm as possible for the sake of his friend and nothing more. "She poisoned you and then sent you into the palace as a message."

"At what message would she be trying to send?" Mai sounds a little snide this time, which Zuko finds a relief.

His mouth turns downwards into a deep frown. "She's trying to say that anyone is fair game."


He's supposed to have lunch with Ozai. He's supposed to, but he doesn't.

Instead he walks into the kitchens and grabs a bowl of fruit. In all honestly, he's not all that hungry. But he can think of someone who probably is.

One of the kitchen serving girls looks at him funny as he starts toward the exit door. He pauses, raising an eyebrow at her. She flushes bright red and quickly goes back to her work.

Zuko quickly racks his brain, wondering if he's slept with her before, and if that's why she's looking at him in that way. But he can't remember her face. Zuko has always been good with faces.

The head chef clears her throat and bows her head toward him respectfully. "Excuse her impertinence, Prince Zuko. She is quite new."

Zuko nods and briskly sweeps himself from the kitchens. On his way out he realizes why she might have been looking at him strangely. Zuko has always had a reputation for messing around with cute servant girls.

This kitchen serving girl is new and relatively attractive, and yet Zuko hadn't even considering making a move on her.

Interesting.


He walks right into the waterbender's room, thinking that since he's brought fruit that Katara will probably forgive him for not knocking.

His assumption proves to be correct.

Katara immediately stands up from her makeshift desk and practically rips the fruit bowl out of his hands. Zuko smiles at her enthusiasm.

She climbs up onto her bed and quickly pops a couple of grapes into her mouth, sighing happily as she chews and then swallows. Her hair is down this afternoon, so Zuko cannot see her scars. He's only a little disappointed.

After a few minutes of silence, Katara sets the bowl off to the side and looks at Zuko with one inquisitive blue eye. "So, no Interviews today, huh?"

Zuko shakes his head. "Not for you. But I have to go and oversee one in a couple of hours."

Katara actually looks a little curious. "Oh? How do those things go, anyway?"

Zuko shrugs. He understands the gist of them, although he's never actually sat in on one before. He moves over to Katara's desk and surveys the parchments scattered on top of it. Clearly she's been attempting at working on her writing. Unfortunately, most of her work is either a bit off or dead wrong.

"You've been working on your vocabulary." He glances over his shoulder at the waterbender. She's folded her hands over her lap and is refusing to look up at him.

"Your characters could still use a lot of work, though."

Her jaw quivers and a blush rises to her cheeks. "Can we not do this anymore? Please? I'm not connecting the words to their meanings. I'm not understanding. This is humiliating, so can we please stop?"

Zuko narrows his eyes at her. The waterbender has proven that she is fierce in so many other areas. It is interesting that something as silly as reading and writing has managed to best her.

And then he is struck with an idea.

"I'll be right back," he says.

He returns with an armful of scrolls, scrolls of old folktales, fairytales and legends. He stands in front of the bed and jerks his head, indicating that Katara needs to move.

She crosses her arms stubbornly.

Zuko rolls his eyes. "If you think it would be easier to write while sitting on your bed and not at your desk, then by all means, try it."

Frowning, Katara slowly climbs out of her bed and straddles the chair by her desk, picking up an ink brush as she does so. She looks at the scrolls with both interest and suspicion.

Zuko sits on the edge of the bed and sorts through the scrolls until he finds the one that he wants. He pulls out two copies of the same scroll. He hands one to Katara and keeps one for himself.

Now Katara just looks confused.

Zuko gestures for her to open the scroll. "Try to follow along as I read."

Her eyebrows furrow, but she obeys, spreading out the scroll over her desk and leaning over it, visible eye sweeping over the characters.

Zuko opens up his own copy and starts reading to Katara about the Painted Lady.

He tries to put as much emotion into his voice as he can, and he articulates as best as possible. And soon, much sooner than he expected, Katara starts to make the connection with the words that he's speaking to the words written out on the scroll.

She begins to circle random characters on the page, characters that obviously stand out to her for whatever reason. Occasionally she'll ask him to stop and reread a paragraph, or she'll have him explain to her what one word or what a group of words mean.

Slowly but surely she starts to understand.

An hour passes, and finally Zuko stops reading.

Katara looks up from the desk in aggravation. "Why'd you stop?! Keep going!"

Zuko almost laughs. "I have things that I have to do, waterbender."

She pouts. She literally pouts.

On the way out of her room he instructs one of her guards to go into her room and finish reading the scroll to her. All of the guards look at him funny, but they know not to argue with him.

He makes his way back to his room, preparing himself for the Interview that he is going to have to sit in on.

He doesn't spare any glances for the servant women that pass him in the hallways, even though he's already slept with quite a few of them before. He doesn't even notice them. He doesn't even care.


This earthbending girl is on the chubby side. She's got a cute face, though, and long, shiny brown hair. She'll probably be matched with someone quickly, but then again it isn't Zuko's opinion that matters, it's technically her potential matches that have the most say.

They're both sitting in a small parlor room that's near the volunteer's dining hall, waiting for the nobleman that she's supposed to meet today to show up. He's late and Zuko isn't pleased.

He sips his tea impatiently. The earthbender, Len, chews on her crackers loudly.

That's when Zuko pulls a small flask out of his pocket and pours a little bit of clear, potent liquid into his teacup. He has a feeling that he'll come to need a drink. Might as well start now.

Len is quirking at eyebrow at him, but Zuko refuses to acknowledge at her.

Finally, the door bangs open and in struts a pompous looking young Fire Nation man, about twenty, with black hair cropped close to his head. He bows to Zuko and then pulls out a chair and slumps down into it. He frowns at the table.

"Who ate all the raspberry tarts?" he demands before pining a suspicious glare onto Len.

The girl meets his gaze easily. "Well, you were late."

Zuko presses his lips together so that he won't laugh. This is going to be fun. He props an elbow up on top of the table and focuses on the blank parchment in front of him. He's supposed to be taking notes and recording how the two people next to him at the table interact. It's his job; he has to find the best match for Len.

However, with every sip from his teacup his head starts to feel more and more fuzzy. He clears his throat and pushes his teacup off to the side. "Right. We all know why the both of you are here."

"Stupid parents," both Len and the nobleman mumble at the same time. Then the both of them look at the other in surprise, before turning their heads away from each other.

"Please," the nobleman snorts. "You can't have it any worse that I do. I was supposed to join the Army, like my older brother. But no. I'm stuck marrying some inbred earthbending girl for the better of—" He then freezes and ducks his head, as if remembering who else is in the room with him.

Zuko frowns. "I'm going to assume that the final part of that sentence was about how completely and utterly thrilled you are to marry some inbred earthbending girl, because you're willing to serve your country in whichever way it might need you?"

The nobleman turns red and Len looks distinctly amused.

Fighting the urge to groan, Zuko glances down at the list of conversation starters that he's supposed to use so that he can determine how much these two have in common.

Instead, he decides to take a swig from his teacup. "All right. What are some of your favorite pastimes?" he asks them both, urging them to start up a conversation.

Len crosses her arms across her chest and sighs. "First, what's your name?"

The nobleman looks taken aback. "What's my name?"

Len rolls her eyes. "Yes. I would like to know your name so that we can at least attempt to have a civil conversation."

The nobleman narrows his eyes. "Fine. My name is Zhen."

Len nods. "See, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

"Don't talk to me ask if I am a child!"

"Then stop acting like a child."

"I am not acting like a child."

"Could've fooled me."

Zhen lots out a growl of frustration. "You're infuriating."

"You're tardy."

"That's because I had better things that I was doing!"

"Please. Having this argument with me will probably be the most intellectually stimulating part of your day."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I think you're an idiot."

"What makes you think that you can just speak to me that way?! You'd be lucky to marry someone like me!"

"On the contrary, if I manage to avoid marrying you then I should count all my lucky stars."

"Bitch."

"Bastard."

Having finished his cup of special tea, Zuko has gone to drinking straight from his flask. He quickly busies himself writing down positive comments about this potential couple's progress.

Zuko sets his ink brush down and looks up with a smirk. Both Len and Zhen are leaning across the table angrily, but their faces are only inches apart. Upon realizing this, both of them jump back at the same time, looking flustered. Len smoothes down the nonexistent wrinkles in her dress and Zhen pops a cracker into his mouth.

Neither of them speaks to the other for quite a length of time, but Zuko notices them sneaking glances at the other on occasion. He rolls up his parchment and tucks it into a pocket in his shirt. "Great. I will see you two at the same time tomorrow."

Both open up their mouths to argue, but the prince cuts them off with a raised hand. "Save it, because, frankly, I really don't care."

Zuko is the first one to leave the room.


He's tipsy. He knows that he's tipsy.

He makes his way back to his room with ease, his pace steady despite the alcohol influence. He's really not drunk-drunk, and he doesn't plan on getting that way. But right now he feels good, and that's what is important.

His sister has been murdering people around the capitol and leaving their bodies for Zuko to find. So what?

His sister has also poisoned his childhood friend and has therefore thoroughly threatened him. So what?

His father is irritated with him for acting like a fool outside of the palace. So what?

The guilt over what he did gnaws at him during the night and he can barely bring himself to think about it. So what?

He finally sees his door. Well, there is one thing that he can do to offset the guiltiness. He marches into his bedroom and heads straight for his desk, immediately finding the letter to his Uncle that he's yet to send. He leans out his door and places the letter into a servant's hand. "Send this to my Uncle as soon as possible."

The servant looks astonished. "Y-Your Uncle, sir?"

"Yes," Zuko says, exasperated. "My Uncle, General Iroh? The one who currently resides in Ba Sing Se?"

The servant nods quickly. "Yes, of course, Prince Zuko. I will have this sent out immediately."

Zuko smiles. "Good. And while you're at it, send for the waterbender."


He feels hot, but he waits for her at his desk.

When she walks into his room he sits up a little straighter. She glares at him with her visible blue eye when she spots him. "What are you doing? I was almost done with my second scroll!" she exclaims.

Zuko raises one eyebrow. "Second scroll? Quite the fast learner, aren't you?" He leans back in his chair and allows himself to feel a little smug. He managed to teach the annoying, stubborn waterbender how to read. Finally.

"Don't look so proud of yourself." But Katara doesn't look all that upset. Zuko notices how the tips of her fingers are stained black from all of the scribbling she must have done.

Zuko lifts one shoulder casually. "You were illiterate before; now you aren't. I did a good thing."

Katara walks across his room and looks at the door leading out onto his balcony. "Yeah. You did." She opens the door and lets herself out.

The prince stands up to follow her. The sun is setting outside, casting a bright, nearly blinding orange light into his gaze; he lifts one hand to block it.

Katara is leaning against the wall. "How did the Interview go? Are they going to be a good match?"

He thinks of Len and Zhen arguing and he almost smiles. "Possibly. They have to sort through some issues first."

Katara looks our across the palace grounds thoughtfully. "At the very least, perhaps they can be friends."

"Friendship is not what the Project is looking for."

"Right," Katara agrees, bitterness creeping into her voice. "All you're really looking for is tolerance from both sides."

They both know what she's thinking about. She's thinking about her own Interviews, and how she'll have to be matched with someone as well.

Katara slides down the wall until she's sitting and a moment later Zuko joins her. They leave some space between their bodies so that they aren't quite touching.

Soon the sun has almost set, and the moon has drifted to her specified spot in the sky. Both the sun and the moon coincide together in their brief, peaceful way.

Katara lets out a breath and Zuko tilts his head toward her. The wind picks up her unruly hair and whips it around her face.

"I guess I should thank you for what you did," she says.

Zuko's chest tightens. He didn't think that he'd ever hear those words come out of her mouth. "You're welcome."

One corner of Katara's mouth lifts up in a half smirk. The wind has moved her hair away from her face so that she is exposed. Zuko isn't really surprised to find that he likes it better like this.

In fact, the waterbender has stopped catching by surprise. Or perhaps he's just learning to accept everything about her.

Katara turns an eye onto him and suddenly their faces are close. Very close. Too close. They could lean in, they could do something about it. But both of them stay absolutely still.

"I've decided that you're not all bad." Her voice is barely above a whisper, and the sound of it is nearly blown away by the ferocious evening wind.

Something jolts inside Zuko, but before he can speak Katara continues. "Don't get me wrong, you're messed up. But who isn't, really?"

"You're wrong," Zuko says sharply.

But Katara shakes her head. "You let June go. You let Toph go. You taught me to read. You worried over your friend after she was poisoned. You care about your father. There's a part of you that's not bad, Prince Zuko."

She has called him Prince Zuko. She's never done that before.

He can't look at her anymore.

"You're wrong," he states again. "You don't understand. I did a bad thing."

There's blood on his swords.

Zuko forces himself to keep talking. She, out of anyone, deserves the truth. "My father has always preferred my sister. She was the better bender, the better politician, the better everything."

Dead. Dead. Dead.

Zuko swallows thickly. "I did something that I knew would earn his respect. And I was right. He respects me now. He prefers me now." He sounds crazy. He knows that he sounds crazy.

Katara has scooted a couple of inches away and has turned her body so that she is completely facing him. Zuko can understand why she wouldn't want to put her back to him right now.

"What did you do?" Her voice wavers.

"I killed Zhao." His voice isn't inflicted with any emotion. He says "killed" and "Zhao" and puts them together like they're just words, like they don't mean anything.

"So, you see," he continues, forcing his body not to shake, "I might have done a couple of good things. But that doesn't make me good. A good person doesn't take the life of someone else."

"Things aren't always that black and white," Katara says softly.

"No. I murdered him. With my swords. I cut him up into pieces, just because I could. Because a small part of me kind of wanted to. And then I dumped his body in the sewers." He laughs. He laughs. "Sorry, Uncle. But I am like them, no matter what you say."

He looks into Katara's eyes. "Well, aren't you disgusted with me now? Aren't you afraid?"

But she doesn't move.

"I've killed someone," Zuko insists. Every part of his body is hot and his head is swimming.

She blinks, eyes wide. "So have I."

It is as if all the blood in his veins has frozen. "Who?"

Katara's eyes shine with unshed tears. "I killed my mother."


A/N:

Oh boy.

Don't forget to review! :D