Chapter 21: On the waves of time

"It's coming along quite nicely." I leaned my head on Zuko's shoulder.

"In this speed it won't be finished before the next Sozin's comet…" He said entirely unimpressed and hugged me a little closer by my waist.

He was kinda right. The Golden Hall looked like an hour had passed since our Azula-smack-down and not three months.

The cleaning crew was still trying to mend the palace, and the royal historical conservators were doing their job very thoroughly. Especially the Golden Hall was getting exceptional tending since it was a ancient relic. A man with four sets of glasses on his forehead picked up a piece of tile, the size of a thumb and dusted it dramatically with a teeny tiny brush before placing it carefully in a wooden case. Zuko rolled his eyes. I just snickered.

"Do you wanna grab lunch?" I asked and held his hand instead.

"Yeah. In the garden?" He asked as we strolled leisurely out of the hall.

I shrugged and nodded. Even though the season had changed to early autumn, and some coolness emerged in the breeze, it was unreliably beautiful and worth bringing a blanket outside for.

Since the fight a pleasant calmness had seeped in to our lives. Of course the days right after had been frantic, Toph being furious at arriving a day late and a penny short to the battle and the Gaang organizing a ruthless man-hunt for Azula. And last but not least, making a scrambled attempt to get all the prisoners caught again. I'd stayed in the background for the majority of the Azula issue, but grabbing goons was a pleasant pass-time.

Ursa, Kiyi and Norren had been offered to live in the palace, but Ursa had come clean, and told her son about the memories and angst connected with the place. At first Zuko had been severely disappointed, but Ursa and her family had rented a modest house right in the royal city and Zuko's mom had been employed as the Grand Garden Consultant, so he saw her every day anyway.

Obake and Ran had left the Firenation to back-pack though the physical plane, and Zuko had instated their honoree status as protectors of the crown, as a thank-you for saving his life. I don't think he ever completely warmed up to Obake though, but I sure did.

Other than bringing the criminals to justice with the Gaang I'd been spending time being lovey-dovy with my handsome boyfriend and mentally preparing for my soon to be departure.

The process of crossing over would be simple, even painless, but there was a catch… And I hadn't told Zuko about it yet.

We sat down in the cushioned gazebo by the water-orchid. The orange leafs snowed from a tree in the far end of the sculptured lake and the giant koi, still babies though, moved calmly under the surface. I huddled under a duvet and tugged him beneath it too. Zuko watched the water and played absently with my hair.

A water wheel of bamboo made a soft noise of clucking of water. There was a calm over this place that I would never expect to find on my side of the door.

"Do you think it will always stay like this?" I twirled a button on his robe between my fingers.

"What do you mean..?" He bend down slightly and breathed in my hair.

"The water. The trees. Do you think they'll stay the same?"

"Not much I know of stays the same..." It was a whisper.

I bit the inside of my cheek.

"I think... I think I have to go soon."

There was a pause while we watched leafs sore silently to the lake.

Something pinched painfully at my heart.

"I'll come back. I know I will. I just… Don't know when exactly."

"So… Years?"

That was just it.

If I wanted to experience both worlds I had to live one life at the time. I would go back, then live until I perished of old age or something and then come here, and do it all again. That was the plan. That was what Obake had showed me in the chi-heart.

But… For obvious reasons, there was no knowing how long it would take before I came back here. Nobody knew their own 'death-date' as it were.

Even though time stood approximately still on whichever suspended world I wasn't in I'd calculated, roughly because I sucked at math, that in the three and a half years I'd been in this universe, two days had passed in my world. So, that meant if I lived to be an old woman, Zuko would maybe have to wait for my return for six or eight years.

"Yeah. Years…" I muttered. And I couldn't very well do it the other way around because my family was probably already freaking the fudge out over me missing for two whole days! What the heck would they do if they couldn't find me for eight years! And it was not like I could stick a note through the door, explaining my situation. 'Hi mom and dad, I'm a parallel universe traveler! Don't worry I'm doing just fine hanging out with my dreamy boyfriend in an alternative world, and I'll be back in eight years or so. Ps. Leave my room intact! That means don't touch my computer sis!'

I doubt that would fly in any regard.

"I'll wait years then." Zuko said simply.

"That's sweet. But I really don't want you to do that unconditionally." I pulled away from him and looked down at my hands. "I could be coming back when you're in your thirties, and by then you would have wasted the best years of your life..."

"I wouldn't consider it a waste." Zuko lifted my face gently. "Really. I wouldn't." He said as we locked eyes. The pinch in my heart was growing more painful.

I smiled bitterly.

"But I'm being so unfair." A tear rolled off my cheek.

"Kai. I love you. I want to be with you. Unconditionally." He kissed it away. "Don't think too hard about it. You can't just trample around the ship and expect things to turn out like you order them to… Remember you said that to me once?" He laughed softly.

"Heh… Not really. But it does sound like something I would say. Jeez, we were such stupid kids." I sniffed in a smile and hung my head. "And that was only three years ago..." I added a bit more gravely. A lot could change in eight.

"I still can't figure out why I didn't just kiss you right when I saw you the first time." He smirked and hugged me closer, dancing elegantly over my gloom.

"You were busy setting me on fire." I shrugged. He was trying to make me feel better, and it was working. A tiny bit.

"As I recall you was the one ruining my favorite shirt." Zuko lifted his brow.

"That was your favorite shirt? It was so dull and dark!" As I thought of our first encounter I couldn't help but to shake my head. I had been so awkward and silly and in love. My god. The feeling I had to go through. Ah the pain! And just to think he was the same. But, really, I'd had to be a little foolish not to have seen it earlier.

"… Actually come to think of it, I was forced to donate my favorite to you." He frowned comically.

I laughed out loud.

"Really? Hah! Nevertheless I greatly appreciated it. I don't know what I was thinking arriving in a kimono I could hardly move in!"

"It suited you." He said a little lowly.

"The dress? I would darn well hope so! It took me an hour to get in and out of."

Zuko stroked his fingertips over my collarbone and kissed my cheek.

The atmosphere shifted.

"Sure. The dress too, but seeing you in my clothes was very hot." He smirked.

The slang was one of mine, and I liked hearing it on his lips. I crawled slowly up in Zuko's lap with my legs around him. I kissed his lips sweetly.

"Stay for one more day." Zuko mumbled against me and ran his hands over the small of my back.

"I was planning on it." I whispered.

He hugged me close and deepened the kiss.

The orange and red leafs blew past us.

It was troublingly easy for me to push the thoughts of the approaching grief deep down for just another day.

Too soon the day of my departure arrived.

Zuko had helped me contact Wolfie in The Amid, I'd thought it respectful to include him in my plan, and the grand spirit of 'Zuan' had transported us all to the white world where the light still surprised my eyes every time.

The wolf spirit hadn't been to keen, to put it mildly, on my proposal to break the gatekeeper cycle for my own selfish reasons, but he was beginning to understand my decision. Or at the very least, he'd decided to not interfere.

I gripped Zuko's hands tighter.

The door that Wolfie had opened was still agape and a perfect square the colorful mountainside view overlooking the royal city hung in the white nothingness.

Because if the time slowing effects the sun was frozen in its setting and a flying bird hung almost motionless in the sky. Like the minute timer on the clock you could sense it was still moving but only in a small fraction at the time. The ocean was an orange and golden ripple without force inside the picture.

I turned my strained face back to my feet.

It had been an awful day already, and getting dressed had taken me hours, because I'd been stopping and staring at the wall between each item of clothing. Zuko had been very quiet as well.

I had changed my mind about this a hundred time before breakfast.

We stood with our heads bowed and almost touching. It felt like the world was weighing down on us. Crushing me gradually like the ant that I felt I was in this comic puzzle.

"You know… The greatest love stories are the star-crossed ones…" I could hardly find the words in my throat and they weren't strong enough to hold the humor I intended.

"We're not star-crossed Kai. We'll meet again." He breathed the words without their normal strength.

"I know." A breath got locked in my throat and even if I had anything else to say, I wouldn't have been able to.

The cruelness of it all made me cry. It was cruel that I had been put in this position. It was cruel that I had felt these emotions only to let them go for an important time, and it was a cruel choice between one love over another. I might be an intergalactic time and space traveler, or whatever Wolfie would refer to it as, but it was a cruel and unfair mishap that I should have met my great love simultaneously too late and too early in my travels.

I wept my heart out.

Broken and ugly and truly.

Zuko held my hand firmer and I felt his tears drip down on our fingers. I would have guessed that he thought it a little cruel too.

"… It's really not forever." Zuko mumbled.

The grand wolf had looked away for the most part, maybe to be polite even though I doubt that was a gesture the spirit was familiar with, but now it was turning to us and I sensed that it was time. Zuan sat on his hind legs and lifted his head. The lake stirred in the middle and slowly the great and glowing blue heart was emerging from the surface.

Zuko and I watched it grimly.

Greater powers were set in motion for my journey. Universal wheels and gears were turning and now that I had made my choice, I had to follow through. I knew I couldn't stay in the moment, I knew my time was calling, much like the first time I jumped the time-line with Zuko.

"I know what you'll say, but I was serious. Please don't wait too long for me…" I dried my eyes in my sleeve.

"… Shut up, kai." Zuko whispered and wiped his own eyes under the dark hair.

"But I want you to be happ-"

"I am happy." He interrupted gently and lifted my face to a kiss.

It was soft and warm, and I tried desperately to feel everything about the kiss so that I would remember it in detail for the time to come. I would grab the emotion and stuff it in a mind drawer where I could have it over and over again while I lived without him.

But that tactic never seems to work in the end because you can't memorize something and be present in the moment at the same time. Still, I clang to the moment in hope that I would succeed this time.

The hands of the chi-heart tugged at my sleeve before I was done.

It drew me away.

The grand wolf to a hesitant step towards us. Right above the lake the overwhelmingly huge chi-swirl floated in anticipation.

"I…" I started and caught his yellow eyes again.

We had said this goodbye before a long time ago.

"… Me too." Zuko just said and looked like he was in pain.

There was a wind rising. Like the wind in the tunnel before a train arrives. The warm breeze lifted the wolf's fur and our hair and clothes. The trees started to vanish in the far distance, like the whiteness was swallowing them up and erasing them from existence.

"The chi-heart... It's opening…" I let his hands go slowly. Reluctantly.

Zuko frowned at the small gateway to the Firenation.

He clenched his jaw.

The frustration was already brewing in him. A coping mechanism turning the hurt into a more manageable emotion. I had the same process lining itself up for a later use.

"It's going to suck hiking all the way down after this…" I muttered a little absently.

He lifted his brow to me in surprise, then a wonderful laugh escaped his lips. I had to chuckle along for no other reason that it was nice to see him laugh.

I followed him to the door. I wanted to come with. I didn't want to let him go. I was regretting my choice a hundred times over again.

"Yeah. It's going to suck." The smile lingered and he took a deep breath. "I don't regret any of it Kai. No matter what you think. And I'll be right here when you come back." Zuko smiled at me and we kissed one last time.

"Alright… See ya'." I smiled back but I felt my cheeks getting wet again.

As soon as he'd stepped over the border the door started narrowing and closing that colorful window where time again set in motion. The bird sored over the rolling waves behind him.

My heart seemed to vanish inch by inch with it. We caught a last glimpse of each other before the white shut him out.

Summer was in the air, bringing drying spice, sea salt and fresh tropical blooms in every breath and breeze. The mountain had been lid by the moon's spotlight and the orange lanterns had been burning in the royal palace deep below. It was almost as if they had been gleaming blushingly up to me while I'd wandered down the mountain trail.

I had recalled how I saw the door close so many years ago, how the mountain-view had been a fading day and I'd been standing there at the brim of night, as if only an hour or two had passed and not a lifetime.

Now that I was on the palace balcony I felt doubt sitting on my shoulders. I should perhaps use the front door after all. I ran a nervous hand through my hair.

I didn't know if everything was the same as I'd left it. I knew that the past five years had meant conflicts and resolutions in and around the nation, but I had absolutely no other idea what else had changed. Well… He would be 27 years old instead of 22…

A sudden gust from behind urged me to proceed.

I took a hesitant step towards the open doors, chiffon curtains were lively in the will of the breeze. I prepaid myself for the worst. After all I had told him to 'move on', and he could very well have done so. Silently I peered through the curtains and in to the dark bedchamber. There was a light burning on the bedside table.

I gasped without sound.

Zuko was sitting alone, thankfully, under the covers and a he was deeply engulfed in a very old book. His dark hair was loose and a little messy. It was a lot longer than I'd expect. His age had made his chin sharper, his eyes more almond-shaped and his lips even more attractive as Zuko had them in an absent smirk while he was reading. I guessed it was a good book. Power and authority seemed to radiate off him. Something had clearly happened while I'd been away.

I bit down in a smile.

Zuko was so hansom I could hardly believe it.

"Knock knock." I said as I tapped on the doorframe.

Zuko snapped his eyes to me, then lifted his head from the book. He closed it slowly. I would've anticipated him to smirk or laugh or even be furious with me, but his face didn't change.

I was suddenly afraid I'd overstepped a line.

Five years of separation was no child's play for most long-distance relationships. Not to mention weird fated analogous-universe ones without contact.

Not ever taking his golden eyes off of me Zuko got up and walked across the room. My cheeks burned. He was wearing silken pajama-pants but nothing else, and now I was sure I'd overstepped. The dark hair was flowing down over his shoulders and bare chest.

Even though I was a year older than him in this word, looking at Zuko made me felt like I was a teenager again.

Transported mercilessly back to my younger and more uncertain self I was suddenly striped of the era of existential knowledge. I bit down on the inside on my cheek like the girl I'd once been.

When he stood in front of me I felt like he was scanning me for weapons or something.

"Eh. Maybe I should come back tomorrow." I cringed slightly and started backing away. Zuko grabbed my wrist and pulled me in to the champers gently.

"I can't believe it." He muttered and turned my hand. His voice was so deep. Much more like a man's than a boy's. "Am I dreaming?" Zuko asked himself.

"… No?" I said hesitantly.

"Kai? You look older!" A switch flicked and his eyes widened. Now he was seeing me, now he comprehended who I was. And the first thing he notices is my age. Jeez.

"Thanks." I rolled my eyes.

Zuko laughed and grabbed me, like really grabbed me and lifted me off my feet in a hug. It almost reminded me of something Sokka would do. When he'd put me down I smiled a little sheepishly.

"Did you miss me a little?" I scratched my arm. It didn't look like a loaded question from afar, but it was to me.

"Every day." He smiled and tugged a lock of hair behind my ear, then abruptly froze mid-motion. "Oh. Is this okay? I mean… Do you mind?" Zuko asked unsurely.

The light flickered in its lantern. I grinned up at him.

"Not even a little bit." I touched the ends of his hair. "It's so long now. So different."

"It's tradition…" He stroked my hands and looked down. "A lot of time has passed." More than a lot I felt like adding. Zuko kissed my fingers, and I found the gesture to be so tender and so unfamiliar that it emphasized his words.

"You got the sweeter deal though." I spoke softly and almost in a whisper because he drew me closer. I had after all waited my whole life to be here.

"Indeed I did. And nothing has changed for me in that time." Zuko leaned his face down to me and brushed his lips to my cheek. "Except the hairdo maybe." He breathed sarcastically.

I snickered at that and because his touch tickled.

"Can I kiss you?" He was not really asking permission as Zuko was almost kissing me already. I tuned my head slightly and met his warm lips. The thrill was like I was whooshing down the roller-coaster. Like plummeting from the sky before releasing the parachute. Like dream, fate and reality melting together in a beautiful and overwhelming feeling of happiness.

This was it.

This was worth crossing the parallels and fighting the lurking demons for. And suddenly the rushing realization that life with its never-ending series of unexpected moments had led me here from the very first step. My wonderment, my search, my endless nomadic journey had found the place to rest for eternity.

His arms embraced me tighter. Holding me to him like he was holding on to our love itself.

The summer stars twinkled like the eyes of a hundreds of worlds that they were, and I lay on the cushion of comforting knowledge that I didn't have to know them all anymore.

I like to think that in the end we'd both found our way home.

The end