Shell Shock

Summary: I am drowning in a pool of hazy mist that coats a darkness over my eyes. A constant fog surrounds me. I feel as if I am hearing, seeing, speaking, all underwater. Somewhere submerged deep inside me something is screaming, hysterically crying, breaking, but it is so far down that I hardly notice. Yet it is ever present, a nuisance to my hazy reality that annoys like a persistent gnat. Disturbing images plague my mind and memory, taunting in their familiarity... So I sleep.

Zuko POV...

Misunderstood

I tell her everything. The words like wooden blocks tumbling awkwardly from my lips.

Slowly the smile slides from her lips and her eyes. She looks away from my face.

I watch her hands as I speak. I watch her nimble brown fingers twisting in the faded hem of her tunic. I watch as they go still, her fingers buried in the folds of fabric. Her knuckles are the tense white of the ice that surrounds us.

The last words leave my mouth, echoing in the silence that lies between us. For a long while there is just silence and the loud thud of my heartbeat. Then slowly... tentatively... "...Katara...?"

Silence.

"Katara? Say something! ... please."

"Is this what you want?"

The sudden question catches me by surprise. Her tone is even, her voice serene. Her eyes clear and bottomless.

I can't read her eyes. I don't know...

...she's looking at me as though she doesn't know me. She's looking at me like she did the first time I ever saw her. Her eyes wide, deep, and searching. Like she can see through my bulky armor and puffed out chest, see straight to the scared, weak child inside. She looks like she is doubting me. I feel accused.

It makes me suddenly angry. So I do what I do best. I lash out.

"I don't want this! I could never want something so terrible!"

Real disgust colors my voice as I remember the hard strength of my fathers hands twisting against my shoulder; how powerful that small gesture was, how it could make me fear him.

She recoils from me. Something shuts off in her eyes and before I can know what she is on her feet facing away from me.

"What are you saying."

Her voice is as icy as the temperature around us.

"I... I don't know" now I am uncertain. What does she want to hear? What do I say to make this alright again?

"You think your better than me. Don't you?" Her voice is still even but as she whirls around to face me I see how livid she really is.

"You think a water tribe peasant is beneath you."

"What! No? I never said that!"

"Yes you did! Thats what you think. You can't help it, after all its all you know!" she says with a wide mocking jester to the red flame banner on the wall beside us.

"You would never want to dirty your family heritage," she spats the word, "with a mixed blood child."

"No! ... no your wrong. I'm not like that anymore. I don't care about crowns or titles I just want to do what's right. I've changed!"

"YOUR LYING!" she screams.

"You as good as said it when you said you didn't want me." At the words her voice crumples and the hurt she has been holding back floods her eyes. Then she turns in a violent swoosh and runs into the small partitioned bath room.

I am stunned. I understand nothing. I only know this...

...girls are crazy!


School is consuming all of my time. And work so doesn't help with that. But summers almost here and I'm determined to finish this story so never fear.