That day, we decided that the next place we would hide out was Ember Island. Zuko said that it was where he and the royal family had gone when they were actually normal. The Fire Lord's beach house still stood there. Once again, we had to pretend to be part of the Fire Nation(authors note: Liiru's outfit on site).
I sat up after about two hours of trying to sleep. The Fire Lord's beach house was huge, so all of us had our own rooms. I looked out at the moonlight shining in my room from the open window for a couple minutes and then got up out of my bed. Right now, I was only in the black tube bra and black shorts I wore underneath my clothes. I laid back down on my bed and faced away from the window. I had to get over this... Sleeping wasn't hard. I'd been sleeping without him near me for a long time... Then again, it was hardly "sleeping". I hadn't gone into a deep sleep for a while. I was able to be woken up very easily by the slightest noise. I also woke up every hour to two hours and tossed and turned in my sleep. I closed my eyes and after a few minutes of tossing and turning, I heard my door open from behind my back. I turned around to see a figure walking towards my bed. When the figure passed the window, the moonlight showed that it was Zuko. I turned around, facing my back towards him... The nerve of that man! He stood at the edge of my bed and I could feel his eyes on me.
"Do you need something?" I asked rather harshly.
"I miss you, Liiru... and it kills me to see you, but not be able to talk to you or touch you. I don't know how many times I have to apologize to you before you forgive me, but I'm gonna keep trying... I still love you. I've always loved you, I never stopped. What I did before was a mistake. I know that and I'm sorry..." he said.
I bit my lip. After a couple minutes of silence, I reached my hand behind me and raised the covers.
"Just get in. We'll talk about this in the morning..." I said.
"No..." Zuko said.
I turned around and sat up, leaning my weight on my arms behind me. "What do you mean 'no'? You should be happy I-"
"I wanna talk about this now. It'll never get sorted if we keep putting it off." Zuko answered.
I sighed and tossed the covers off of me, swinging my legs off of the bed. I walked up to the pile of clothes on the floor next to my shoes and threw on my skirt and shoes. I sat on the window sill with my feet hanging out of it.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" I asked.
Zuko shook his head and walked up to the window sill as I jumped out of it. I landed softly on the ground and stood up, waiting for Zuko. He followed shortly and motioned for me to follow him as he walked. We walked in silence next to each other until we stopped in the middle of what I guessed to be the Fire Lord's private beach. Zuko sat down in the sand, facing the waves. I sat down next to him. It was a lot colder than I expected it to be... Should've put on my shirt and arm warmer.
I sighed. "What now?"
"Why won't you forgive me...? I've apologized to you at least fifty times... I got all of my past enemies to forgive me and accept me, but I can't get my girlfriend to..." Zuko answered.
"Who says I'm still your girlfriend...?" I spat out at him.
He stayed silent for a minute before he spoke again. "What do you want me to do, Liiru? I'll do anything..."
I looked at him. "I left, Zuko. It took me a while to get enough strength to from the souls of rats since you sent the guards away, but I went to the Spirit World. The only reason I'm here now is because I was told that my time in the Physical World wasn't up. I need to help the Avatar before I can go home. Once that's over with, I'm going home. I know what I want... The question is, do you?"
"I want to help the Avatar restore peace. I want people not to fear the Fire Nation anymore. I want to be accepted. I want my uncle to forgive me. But most of all, I want you... I meant what I said before, Liiru... You're my world. You're everything to me." Zuko said.
"Yeah, and you tossed 'your world' into a cage... Let me try enslaving you for five years and then seeing how you feel when I toss you back in there after being free for about ten months, give or take."
He didn't answer.
"Exactly..." I said.
I looked away from him for a while. We were silent for about ten minutes, but neither of us moved from the spot we were sitting down in. We just stared out at the waves and listened to the crash against the shore.
I looked back at Zuko with tears before I spoke again. "You've got no idea how it feels to have the person that you love the most turn their back on you and put you back into a hell that you dreaded so much... I thought you had changed, Zuko. I really did... but that only made it hurt more."
"I was confused before... You know me... I couldn't live like that. I realize now that would've been a good life, but that wasn't my destiny. I had to go through this to realize what my real destiny is... but that's still no excuse for putting you through that." Zuko responded.
He looked away from me, but I still saw tears running down his cheeks.
"I'm sorry, Liiru. I love you." he said, barely over a whisper.
That apology was genuine.
I put my hand under his chin and made him face me. "I love you, unconditionally. You're lucky for that. You could carve me up with a knife and I'd still love you... It's just that now, I can't trust you like I used to... That's something that I doubt will change. It's going to take a lot for me to trust you again..."
"How can you love me, but not trust me...?" Zuko asked.
"I don't know, I just do... I trust you with my life, but the thought that you'll betray me will always be in my mind, Zuko, and it's always going to be there."
Zuko pulled away from me a little. "I understand..."
I made Zuko face me again and pressed my lips against his. "That doesn't mean that I don't forgive you, though. I do... and I've missed you, a lot."
Zuko put his hands on my face and kissed me. "I did too.."
He wrapped his arms around me and leaned back on the sand. I slipped my hand under the arc of his lower back and leaned my head on his chest with my other hand up against him. One of my legs was in between his. I smiled as I closed my eyes. Sleeping like this was something that I had longed for, for so long.
I jumped in the air when I heard Aang shout. "I FOUND THEM!"
"WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU, AANG?" I yelled back at him.
"Oh, heh... Sorry guys. Zuko wasn't outside in the courtyard for my firebending training and he's always there. So I checked in his room and he wasn't there. Then Katara said you were missing too, so we thought you guys got kidnapped or something." Aang answered.
I yawned and rubbed my eyes while Zuko just glared at Aang.
"You've got sand in your hair." Aang said casually.
Zuko threw a clump of sand at Aang. "You've got sand in your face!"
Aang spit it out. "Hey! We were only worried, no need to get all angry... angrier..."
Katara, Toph, Sokka and Suki ran up to Aang.
"Thank God we found you-... You guys were right here?" Katara asked.
"And you guys were together...?" Suki added.
Sokka looked at Aang. "You've got some sand on your face, buddy. Watch out before it goes in your eyes."
Aang scowled at him a little. Zuko got up and brushed himself off. Then he extended his hand to me. I took it and he pulled me up. I also brushed myself off.
"Sorry for oversleeping... We had to talk about... some things last night. C'mon Aang, we'll start training now." Zuko said.
"Suki and me are gonna walk around town a little bit, you guys wanna come?" Sokka asked me, Katara and Toph.
"Nah, I don't know about you guys, but I'm headin' back to the house. How about you Katara, Liiru?" Toph asked.
"I guess I'm gonna-" I started, Katara interrupted me.
She hooked her arm in one of mine while Suki hooked hers in the other.
"We'll meet you back there, Toph." Katara said.
"I'll catch up with you in a second, okay Sokka?" Suki called.
Both of them started dragging me away from the beach.
Sokka sighed. "Girls..."
Suddenly I was flooded with questions by both of them:
"What happened?" - Katara
"Why're you half dressed?... By the way you've got sand all up in your hair, which needs fixing." - Suki
"Did you guys make up?" - Katara
"DID YOU HAVE MAKE UP SEX ON THE BEACH?" - Suki
"What did he say to you?" - Katara
"What did you guys do?" - Suki
"Start at the beginning, tell us EVERYTHING!" Katara and Suki both said as we were walking.
I shook them both off of my arms and walked forward a little.
"Woah, woah, woah, slow down with the questions!" I said.
"Is that the only tattoo you have that's not of an animal besides the ones on your face?" Suki asked.
"Huh?" I asked, confused.
I turned around and faced both of them.
"The one on your back." Suki said.
"Oh, that one... Heh heh... Yeah." I said.
"Suki, stop changing the subject!" Katara scolded her.
"Sorry, you got me on a question streak." Suki said.
They both turned to me.
"What happened?" they asked at the same time.
I began answering their questions that they had just asked. Right as one of them would open their mouths, I would answer the question they were going to ask.
"Okay, okay, okay. I am half dressed because Zuko came into my room last night and he said he wanted to talk. Since we were just walking, I didn't get dressed all the way. I know there's sand in my hair, I slept on the beach, and yes, I just woke up so I didn't do anything to it. Yeah, we made up. No, we didn't have make up sex on the beach. He told some stuff like 'I love you', 'What happened before was a mistake', 'I'll do anything to make it up to you', blah, blah, blah. Then he gave me an actual apology as opposed to his crappy lip service ones that he was giving me before and after that I said that I loved him unconditionally so it was okay, I just don't trust him anymore. Then we kissed and fell asleep... Happy?"
"Aww, that's so sweet! I'm happy you guys made up, somewhat. I knew you were having trouble sleeping without him. It must have felt good to be with him again." Katara said.
I blushed a little at her comment.
"Oh, c'mon! You guys so did it! You both have sex hair covered in sand! Besides, who just passes out on a beach if they didn't do anything?" Suki stated.
I laughed. "I swear, we didn't do anything!"
After our little conversation, Suki ran off to walk around town with Sokka, and me and Katara went back to the house. We found Toph resting in the courtyard while Aang and Zuko trained. I went back down, where everyone else was after getting fully dressed.
"Doesn't it seem weird that we're hiding from the Fire Lord in his own house?" Katara asked next to Toph, who was laying down.
"I told you, my father hasn't come here since our family was actually happy, and that was a long time ago. It's the last place anyone would think to look for us." Zuko said while he wiped the sweat off of his body with a small towel.
He smirked a little when he saw me looking at his body. I shook my head and pouted a little at him. Sokka and Suki returned from walking around town. Sokka was holding what looked like a rolled up poster.
"You guys are not gonna believe this! There's a play about us!" Sokka exclaimed.
"We were just in town and we found this poster." Suki said as Sokka showed off the poster he was holding.
It had him and Katara on both sides of Aang with Zuko's eyes faded in the background... Although the scar was on the right side of his face.
"What? How is that possible?" Katara asked as she got up and walked up to Sokka and Suki along with me, Toph and Aang.
Sokka turned the poster around so that he could read it.
"Listen to this: 'The Boy in the Iceberg' is a new production by acclaimed playwright, Pu Wan Tim, who scoured the globe, gathering information on the Avatar, from the icy South Pole to the heart of Ba Sing Se. His sources include singing nomads, pirates, prisoners of war, and a surprisingly knowledgeable merchant of cabbage."
"Brought to you by the critically acclaimed, Ember Island Players." Suki finished.
Zuko got up and made a repulsing noise as he walked over to me. "My mother used to take us to see them. They butchered 'Love Amongst the Dragons' every year!"
Katara turned to Sokka. "Sokka, do you think it's a good idea to attend a play about ourselves?"
"C'mon, a day at the theater? This is the kind of wacky time wasting nonsense I've been missing!" Sokka pleaded with a large smile.
"What do you guys think?" Katara asked, turning to me, Toph, Zuko and Aang.
"I guess we all need a little break since things have been a little hectic lately. I'm up for it." Aang said.
"I'll go anywhere. It's better than just staying here." I said.
"It's whatever to me." Zuko said.
"I'm with them. Let's go see the play." Toph concluded.
"Alright, it's tonight at eight at the Ember Island Grand Theater!" Sokka said, walking away.
Toph walked back to the spot she was in and laid down.
"Okay. C'mon, Aang. We're not done training." Zuko said.
"Okay." Aang answered.
Zuko kissed me on the cheek and then turned around, walking back to the middle of the courtyard with Aang.
"Hold on a second there, Zuko!" Suki said.
Zuko turned around. "What is it?"
"Did you see what I saw, Katara?" Suki asked Katara.
"What are you talking about?" Katara asked.
"Come over here!" Suki yelled to Zuko.
Zuko reluctantly walked over to Suki, Katara, and me. "What is it?"
"Turn around..." Suki said with a smirk on her face.
Zuko gave Suki a weird look and then slowly turned around so that his back was facing them.
Suki's smirk turned into a grin from ear to ear as she giggled. Katara started giggling a little too. I blushed when I found out what they were laughing at.
"You see it now?" Suki asked.
"Yeah!" Katara exclaimed.
"I thought that looked familiar!" Suki said.
Zuko turned around. "What are you guys talking about?"
"Aww, that's cute! You guys have matching tattoos!" Suki stated.
Zuko and I both turned red as tomatoes.
"I... forgot about that..." Zuko said, touching the spot on his back where the tattoo was.