Chapter Thirty-Five

Although they'd had a week off at the safe house before they'd been sent to Rinchaka Falls, both of them were exhausted. Months of living on the road, living only on what they could carry in their packs, eating trail food, hard traveling, and the tension and stress they'd been enduring from one mission to the next was suddenly overwhelming them.

They spent their days haunting the fussy little house on the rocks, lying in bed together for hours at a time, napping, sleeping, or just talking to one another. They talked about everything and nothing at once, skirting around the subject of Rinchaka Falls as best they could. They were both still raw, damaged, and shaken by what had happened.

When he wasn't sleeping or with Azula, he paced the balconies, checking the windows, the doors, peering out to sea, and at the road. Azula did the same. He didn't have to ask what she was waiting for.

They both knew this couldn't last. They couldn't hide forever; eventually one of the Smoke Demons would find them. Or they would have to leave, to warn Zuko of the plot against him. The day was coming when they couldn't put it off any longer, and they both knew it, but they were so exhausted and heartsick it was hard to make themselves do anything more strenuous than go into the village to buy food with their dwindling supply of gold.

And even that seemed like a task fraught with dangers. He had paced the market the entire time, too keyed up to stand still, certain he would be recognized, that the Smoke Demons were just biding their time.

Sokka's nerves were shot and he knew it. He kept jumping at small noises. And he was starting to have nightmares. More than once Azula had woken him from a dream that had left him thrashing and drenched in sweat. She'd held him tightly to her, calming him as he'd calmed her so many times.

Azula was still having nightmares too, and they seemed to take it in turns to calm one another. She seemed as on edge as he was, but there was a calmness to her that he couldn't quite pin down. She seemed sad, but resigned, as they whiled away the days together.

About a week and a half into their self-imposed isolation, they were lying in bed together, dozing with the windows open, a warm breeze blowing in from the sea. The days were getting hotter and summer wasn't far off. They were sharing the same pillow, their breaths mingling, one of Azula's legs slung over his. Her hair was spread out on the pillow and he was absentmindedly twisting one of his fingers in a strand that had fallen across her shoulder.

"If you could go anywhere and do anything, what would you do?" Sokka asked her.

"Do I have lots of money?"

"Tons. More than you'll ever need."

Azula drew in a deep breath, biting down on her lip as she thought for a moment. "I'd buy an island."

"A whole island?" he said impressed.

"No, just half—of course a whole island! With a beach and cliffs and a little cottage beneath the trees."

"What color is the cottage?"

"Red."

"Naturally," he said, grinning. "And what do you do on your island?"

"I fish. I garden. I have my own flower garden where I grow lavender and peonies and roses. And there are wildflowers everywhere. I also have a vegetable garden, and I grow the biggest pumpkins you've ever seen."

"How big?"

"Huge! You could live in them," Azula said, grinning at him. "I have fruit trees too, and I keep bees for honey. I bake pies and my own bread. And in the afternoons I drink tea in the garden. When it's hot I swim in the ocean and lie on the beach and I don't want for anything at all."

"That sounds pretty nice."

"I also have pig-goats," Azula giggled.

"Pig-goats? For cheese?"

"For cheese. And bacon when I get a hankering."

Sokka laughed, soft and rich, twirling her hair around his finger. "I can just see it now. Azula the Pig-Goat Herding Princess."

"Naturally I make the pig-goats bow to me."

"Well, obviously," he said, tugging on her hair a little bit. "You know, your island might get a little lonely after a while. Do you get many visitors?"

"Just one. A merman."

"A merman?!"

"Yes. He pleasures me every high tide and twice on Sundays," she said seriously as Sokka's eyebrows lifted.

"Oh, he does, does he? And how does he do that, he's part fish! He doesn't have man-bits."

"Details, details...this is my fantasy, remember?" Azula shot at him, prodding his hard stomach with the tip of her finger.

"It's definitely a fantasy. You can't bake for shit," he said, sticking his tongue out at her. She rolled her eyes at him.

"True...and I'm fairly certain I have a black thumb. I've also never fished a day in my life. And I hate pig-goats."

"I still like your fantasy."

"Me too," she said, her hand over her mouth as she smiled. "I wouldn't mind being on an island with you, though. Just the two of us."

His heart clenched in his chest and he found himself returning her smile. "Isn't that what we've been doing this whole time?"

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do. And me too." They stared at one another for a moment, his smile soft, his body relaxed against hers.

"What about you, Sokka of the Water Tribe? What would you do, if you could?"

Sokka felt his throat closing, and there were warning sirens scream in his head, but he ignored them. He let her hair slip from his fingers and then slowly brushed his hand down her bare arm.

"I'd be with you. I wouldn't care where or how or why. I'd just be with you."

Azula drew in an unsteady breath and her eyes dilated, flicking to his mouth and then back to his eyes. The tension between them seemed to sizzle, crackling and popping like electric sparks.

"With me, with me?" she asked, her voice tight, her body tense. Sokka leaned forward on the pillow, his hand settling on her hip.

"However you wanted me, my Princess. I'd be yours. Heart, body, and soul."

Azula squeezed her eyes shut tightly at his words, drawing in a few ragged breaths. Then she shook her head and rolled over and away from him.

"That's a fantasy and we both know it."

He did know it, didn't he? Sokka rolled over onto his back and put one hand over his eyes. "I shouldn't have said that."

"No. You didn't mean it."

"Yes, I did," he said quickly, lowering his hand. "I meant it, Azula. I shouldn't have said it, but I meant it."

"We can't keep having this conversation," she bit at him, drawing her legs up to her chest.

"And you don't think there's a reason we keep having it anyway?"

"No. Yes. It doesn't matter!" she said as he rolled over and scooted across the bed to press his chest against her back.

"You know how I feel about you."

"I know how you think you feel about me," she said, looking at him over her shoulder. "And I don't want to talk about this anymore."

She pushed away from him and got out of the bed, grabbing her singed green robe and slinging it on. She marched toward the door as he sat up, one arm slung across his bent knee, the other plucking at a frayed string in the duvet.

"Azula, sometimes I think that if let myself I could fall so deeply in love with you I would never be able to find my way out again. And sometimes I think I already have, and that scares me. And sometimes...sometimes it doesn't scare me at all," he said, his voice a soft rumble. He felt so tired. Tired of pretending his heart wasn't aching for her.

Even though he shouldn't feel that way, for every reason in the book, he still did. It was real. What he felt for her was real. He knew she felt the same way. He could see it in her eyes, feel it in her touch.

Azula turned back to face him. Her eyes were huge, glistening, her brows drawing together as she stared at him for a long moment.

"You'll get over it."

And she walked out of the bedroom, leaving him sitting there with his confession hanging in the air like the echo of a scream.

Thunder played in the sky outside, rattling the glass windows in their frames. Beside her, Sokka mumbled her name and rolled over, pressing his face into her hair. Azula stiffened as the thunder seemed to seep into her bones, rattling her down to her marrow. She shifted in the bed to face Sokka, staring at his face in the flashes of light from the window.

She lifted her trembling hand and traced the slope of his nose, trailed her thumb across his lips and down his neck, memorizing the rough feel of his stubble. She breathed in his scent—how it would haunt her, how she would cling to it until it faded from her senses, but never her memory.

She felt like someone was squeezing her heart, pulping it, shredding it with hot iron spikes. Sokka's hand spread on her hip, lifting up beneath her shirt, his skin hot on hers. It didn't frighten her. It didn't make her shudder away from him.

It made her feel loved. He had told her that he loved her, admitted with sadness and wonder in his eyes, and she had wanted nothing more than to confess, to throw herself at him. But she hadn't. She couldn't.

Sokka slept on, as the storm built outside, the rain pinging on the tiled roof. She screwed up her courage, and stared at his face in the flickering darkness.

"I love you, Sokka," Azula whispered, her voice nearly drowned out by the rain, her hand over his heart. She could feel his steady heartbeat, the bass thump the only music that had ever made her blood dance, her own heart sing. "I love you. This was real. We were real, for a moment. We were real and I loved you. I will always love you."

"'Zula," Sokka mumbled, and then shifted away from her in the bed, his hand sliding off of her hip. With his hand gone, she felt untethered, set loose like a balloon sailing off into the clouds.

There was nothing to hold her there. Maybe there never had been.

She let out a soft sob and withdrew, slipping away from him and out of the bed as gently as possible. Her bare feet touched the floor and then she was off, running light-footed out of the open doorway and into the hall, down the stairs to the doily-infested living room.

She pulled her back out from behind one of Lo and Li's painted screens, her hands trembling as she pulled out her clothing. She yanked her pants on over her nightgown and threw on her cloak, then tugged on her boots, her pulse thundering as loud as the wind was pounding the surf into the rocks below.

She grabbed her pack and turned to the door. Tears were blinding her now, running freely down her face. She swiped at them, trying to make herself leave. To walk out into the storm and never look back. To disappear again, like she had tried to do so long ago.

She had nearly done it; everyone had almost forgotten about her. She could do it again.

She was strong enough to walk away. She knew she was. She had to be. He would be better off without her, better off if he didn't have to deal with her panic attacks, and visions, and nightmares. Better off not feeling guilty and confused about his feelings for her.

She was doing this for him. She had to do it. There was no other choice. There was no future for them. There never had been.

He would go back to Suki and he would move on and she would be...

She would alone. Alone on her island, the fire in her heart slowly dying without him. She would finally be broken. Totally. Completely.

He wouldn't understand why she had left and she knew that he would stop her if she wasn't being a coward and leaving in the night. Leaving him to deal with this mess they had gotten into together. She winced, remembering the letter she had written while he'd been down at the docks yesterday, catching their dinner.

She swung her pack around, swiping at her blurry eyes in the darkness and fished into the front of her pack, where she had stashed the letter. Her hands came up wanting, and she felt a jolt in her stomach that had nothing to do with the boom of thunder that rattled the house around her.

She felt in the pouch, even though she knew it wasn't there. She frantically checked the other pouches, but the letter was gone.

"Looking for this?"

She jumped, wheeling to face Sokka, who was standing at the base of the stairs. She could see her letter in his hand as he waved it. Lightning lit up the room and she could see the stormy look on his face.

"Sokka!" she gasped, swiping at her wet eyes.

"You were just going to leave, just like that? Just walk out into the night and never look back, huh?" Sokka said, his voice full of hurt and barely banked rage. "After all we've been through, and you'd just...walk away."

"I was going to leave you that letter. I wasn't going to just disappear," she said defensively. "I just... I didn't know how to say goodbye."

"You don't have to say goodbye. You don't have to leave, Azula!"

"Yes, I do."

"Why?"

"You know why! Dammit, Sokka, you know exactly why! It's for your own good," she said.

Sokka let out an incredulous laugh. "For my own good? As if waking up to find you gone wouldn't hurt me more than a mine falling on my head? As if I wouldn't be going out of my mind thinking that the Smoke Demons might find you? That they might hurt you? I'd lose my fucking mind, Azula."

"You'd get over it."

"No, I fucking wouldn't," he snapped, stepping down off of the stairs and walking toward her. He stopped about halfway, the letter crumpled in his clenched fist. "I would do anything to protect you, Azula."

"But you can't. You can't protect me, Sokka. I know you want to take away everything that's ever hurt me. You'd heal me if you could."

"Damn, right!"

"But you can't. I have to do that on my own."

"Okay...yeah, you do. I get what you're saying, Azula, but you don't have to do it alone. You don't have to leave," Sokka said, his voice wrenched tight in his throat. "I don't want you to leave."

"Yes, you do. Don't you get it? I'm trying to make it easy on you! You need to go to Zuko, to tell him about the Smoke Demons. He needs you to warn him. You can go back to Suki and have your stupid perfect life and you can forget all about the crazy woman who made your life hell-"

"Don't call yourself that."

"Why not? I am crazy! Sokka, I'm fucked up in the head. I can't even..." Her breath caught in her throat on a sob. "I can't even make love to you."

"I don't care about that!" he said heatedly, starting forward another step. "That's not why I lo-"

"Well, I care about that! I need to leave, before you hate me for not being everything you need."

Sokka's eyes were angered, but there was sadness there too. "Azula, I could never hate you. And certainly not for that. I don't need you to be everything. I just need you to be you. That's enough. Azula, you're enough."

She stared at him for a long moment, her shattered heart dropping to her toes. "And what if I stay? What's going to happen? We still have to warn Zuko. You'll go back to Suki, and where does that leave me? Huh? What happens then, Sokka?"

He hesitated, closing his eyes. "I don't know."

"Yes, you do. We both know how this ride ends, so excuse me for getting off before it explodes in my face. Forgive me if I'm not strong enough to see you with her. I know you love her. She loves you, even if you think she's fucking my brother."

He winced at that, but shook his head. "I think she's in love with your brother."

"But you don't know that."

"I think maybe I do."

"Are you going to break up with her?"

"I...I don't know," he said, hanging his head.

Azula pushed back the sob in her chest. "There was only one answer to that question, Sokka. We can't keep doing this. We both know how this ends. It should never have happened in the first place. One day you'll thank me."

"Don't leave. Please."

"I'm already gone, Sokka. Please don't look for me. Please?" she said, turning away from him, her hand on the doorknob. She felt him move up behind her, his hand closing over hers, stilling her.

"Don't go, Azula. We'll figure this out."

She turned to face him, and he was much too close, his scent in her nose, the realness of him closing in on her, so solid and strong. She felt a deep, aching need to push her face against his chest, to grasp at his skin, to pull herself into the safe harbor of his arms that it was a physical pain. It shattered what little resolve she had and she let out a soft cry.

"I can't." But she didn't know if she meant she couldn't stay, or couldn't leave him. It didn't matter. Stuck in her heartbroken indecision, Sokka leaned in and kissed her, softly. So softly that it startled her into chasing his kiss, pressing for more when it seemed he wouldn't deepen it. His lips feathered against hers, the barest brush, as tingles shot through her skin. It was maddening, and she had no defense against it.

He pulled back before she could satisfy the deep hunger rising in her like a tidal wave. His hands lifted, cupping her cheeks, his thumbs brushing away the tears that had spilled from her eyes.

"I can't stop you from leaving, Azula. If walking through that door is what you want, then go with my blessing. I want you to be happy. It's all I want. Wherever you go, whatever you do, please find happiness, my Princess."

You're my happiness, she thought hopelessly.

His hands dropped away from her and he stepped back, the apple of his throat bobbing as he swallowed. She was left, bereft of his touch, spun loose in the wind. Alone on her island.

He wouldn't stop her. She could walk away and he wouldn't chase her. She knew it by the look in his eyes. She couldn't tear her gaze away from him. She could still feel the soft brush of his lips against hers.

This was her last chance. Her only chance.

"Sokka, I lo-" she started as lightning flashed, illuminating the room. The words died in her throat in that flashing moment, as she saw a dark figured framed in the balcony doors over Sokka's shoulder, two daggers gleaming in their hands.