50. IT'S A FEW DAYS BEFORE ANY OF US SPEAKS AGAIN. Even then, we talk mostly in monosyllables and nods and grunts. Toph is completely inconsolable. I've never seen her like this, and neither have any of the others. None of us is entirely sure what to do, so we take turns holding her. We don't try to tell her it'll be okay. That would only make her angry. Instead, we let her cry. She cries and cries, cries like a baby, until she finally cries herself to sleep.
The rest of us aren't that much better. My eyes burn for days. Sokka barely even moves. Suki curls up in a corner and sniffles to herself. My uncle sits up in the pilot's seat with Aang. They don't say anything, merely watch the world go by.
Katara and I sit in the back. We barely let go of each other. We rise together, eat together, sleep together. We're quite simply too sad to do anything else.
We travel hard and fast. Before we left the rest of the army (such that it is), we packed a good week's worth of supplies, mostly bread and cheese and fruit and salt-packed meat, things that will keep and don't need to be cooked (even the meat was cooked ahead of time). Carefully rationed out, it should last us at least two weeks. We end up not needing to ration things very much. None of us has much of an appetite.
We stop for only a few hours at night, to stretch and feed Appa and let him rest for a bit. We don't take very many precautions. Every single one of us is spoiling for a fight. We look off into the horizon from our make-shift campsites and glare. We almost beg for my father's legions to come find us. Airships, battleships, tanks, wave-upon-wave of Royal Guard, we want it all. A kind man named Lobsang has left a massive red mark in our ledger. Even Aang clenches his fists and grinds his jaw and hungers to collect.
One night, Katara and I have walked off for our smoke. There's no reason to wander off, not anymore. Aang has gotten so used to our relationship that he barely even notices, accepts it as a fact of life. Something's changed in him, something fundamental. When he continues to decline meat, he seems downright apologetic about it; as he puts it, he would, because it seems silly to cling to that principle at a time like this, but he just can't stomach the smell or the taste after so long without. When others light up around him, he seems almost comforted by the smell. He walks taller now, his back straighter, and his eyes burn with a determination none of us had ever guessed he had.
We no longer wonder why he was chosen as the Avatar…
I can't help but wonder if it makes the others as sad as it makes Katara and I…
That one night, I sit against a thick tree, my back to the bark. Katara lays between my legs, her back nestled into me, her head laid on my chest. It's one of her favorite ways to sit with me. She says she can feel my heart beat, and that it always soothes her. We don't talk that night. The pain is too fresh. She sits and listens to my heart, and our cigarettes blaze in the night. It's been only three days since our escape. My uncle has taken over all cooking duties. He says it calms him. He and Suki help each other out. Sokka generally sits with Toph. She's stopped crying, but she's still not speaking.
None of us are…
The brush rustles behind us, in the direction of the camp. Neither of us are surprised when Aang steps out into our little spot, walks over and sits down by our feet. He faces away. His hair is getting downright shaggy. We don't say much for a long time. The night is cool and breezy. The trees bend and sway around us. The moon is growing in the sky, still a sliver of white in the darkness, but the sky is clear and the stars burn fiercely above us. Here amongst the trees, it's very quiet, very still. Katara and I finish our cigarettes. We toss them aside, and I tighter my hold on her. She shifts, turns on her side, nuzzles into me. Her breathing changes. It's soft and shallow. I lean down, kiss the top of her head softly. I smile as her hair tickles my face. I think back to that moment, before Lobsang dove out of the clouds, of what we said without saying it, and I almost smile.
Almost…
That would've been a good moment for an ending…
Perfect, really…
"Zuko?"
I look up. Aang has turned. He still doesn't face us, but instead, is kind of…perpendicular to us, his legs forming a right angle with ours. His legs are pulled up, and his forearms rest lightly on his knees. He looks like he's gone very far away.
"Yes?" I ask.
"Is Katara asleep?"
I shift her lightly in my arms. All she does is purr and burrow deeper. "I believe she is."
He sighs. "You guys are…you're really good together, you know that?"
I press my lips into her hair. "I know."
"At first, it made me really angry."
"Oh?"
"Yeah…I think I knew before I…knew…if that make sense. I'd see you two together, how you'd hang off each other, how you were always around each other, how you seemed to have these little things with each other and these little inside jokes that no one else understood and…I must've known, you know? But I didn't want to. I had this…teenage weird crush on her, and I didn't want to believe that I'd never really had a chance. You know how I felt, at first, when it finally dawned on me?"
"How?"
"I was angry. Like…really freaking angry. I think that's part of why I took all my frustration out on you, at Shu Jing. I was confused and lonely and angry because of all this…this stuff…that people kept saying I had to do, and I wanted to take it out on somebody, and this…thing I was beginning to suspect just made you the easiest person to take it out on."
I sigh. "You're not still torn up about that, are you? You're only human, Aang, and…well…let's face it, a kid to boot. You can't be perfect."
He scoffs. "No, I'm not. None of us are. I…I get that, now. I don't know what that means, but I get it. But you know what? You two, together, you're perfect. You're these…two imperfect people who, combined, make a perfect one. Does that make any sense?"
I nod. "It does. More than you could possibly know what now."
He turns his face to me, a soft smile on his face. "How do you mean?"
I wink. "You'll understand someday."
He chuckles. "Not anytime soon. Toph likes girls and Suki's way too old and she's got enough stuff on her plate anyways and, well…" He looks back to the trees before him. "Even if I still wanted Katara to like me, I wouldn't interfere. The last thing you need is some teenage brat on a power-trip trying to ruin the one thing you've really got going for you right now."
I shake my head. "Aang? You're not a brat. Well…not anymore."
He hangs his head. "I wish I could believe that. I think back to the way I acted sometimes, and…gods, I want to throw up. Like. It actually turns my stomach. I mean, you should've seen the way I reacted when I first caught Sokka and Katara smoking, stomping my feet and throwing a fit and thinking that I was their boss or something. And you won't believe why we hung around on Kyoshi Island for three weeks."
"You wanted to ride some sea-serpent thing?"
"Heh…man, Katara really does tell you everything."
"And Sokka thought it was a funny story, too."
Pause. "Do you tell Katara everything?"
I nod. "I do. I tell her things I don't even tell myself."
He sighs. "Good, I like that. When I get old enough, I'm going to aim to be like you guys."
"Thank you, Aang. That means a lot to me."
"Really?"
"Yeah, really."
The wind blows, the trees dance in the breeze.
"Aang?"
"Yeah?"
"What're we really talking about?"
He frowns. His lip trembles. His eyes gleam in the starlight.
"I'm mad at Lobsang."
"Okay. Why?"
He rounds on me. "Don't you think that's ridiculous?"
I shake my head. "Nothing's ridiculous, Aang, when it comes to things like that. You know how I felt, for a good year after my father burned me?"
"How?"
"I was angry at myself. I blamed myself for bringing my fate down upon me. I was furious and angry, because my father was basically a god to me and if he burned me, then it was my own damn fault, and therefore I deserved every moment of pain and aching."
He looks back to the trees. "Really?"
I nod. "Really. Fucking stupid, I know that now, but I was only eighteen, and besides, there's no normal way to respond to something like that. So, tell me, why are you mad at Lobsang?"
He reaches up, wipes his eyes. "Because I should've been in his place. I should've leapt off Appa and taken those airships down. I'm easily as much of an airbender as he was. What was I doing, standing there? I should've gone and done my duty as a friend. I should've saved my friends and sacrificed myself. But I hesitated. I was too scared. But he wasn't. He did what I couldn't do, and a part of me that's larger than I care to admit hates him for it. For showing me how small I am." He sniffs, lays his forehead against his arms. "And if I'd just done my duty a century ago, none of this would ever have happened…"
I don't know what to say. I really don't. Here is this fifteen-year-old kid, crying out in pain, trying to express emotions that are impossible to fathom or comprehend, reaching out to me, of all people, to help him. With a shock, I realize…he looks up to me. No one's ever really looked up to me before. Confusion seizes my throat like fingers of ice.
Of course, I never had actual friends before, either…
"Aang?"
"Yeah?"
"I don't have any answers for you. There are no answers for things like this. I…I wish I did, but I don't. But…don't beat yourself up over this. You're a good kid, and someday, you're going to be a good man, and you won't get there until you stop selling yourself short."
He looks to me, tears glittering in the corners of his eyes. "That sounds like something Katara would say."
I chuckle. "Oddly enough, it's not. It's just…how she makes me feel. And I like to imagine that it's how I make her feel, too."
He smiles. "She definitely doesn't mother us as much anymore. She used to cluck over us like a hen. But since you became a part of our lives, and a part of hers? It's like she decided, Nah, I've got better things to do. This guy over her things I'm hot shit, and maybe I am, and that means you can clean your own damn clothes."
I wink. "We're getting away from the actual issue, Aang."
He sighs. "I know. But like you said, there aren't any answers. I mean, how to explain that I feel sad and mad, all at the same time?"
I shrug. "Life?"
He nods. "Life."
Life.
So, the other day, my girlfriend accused me of doing filler episodes. She's big into anime, and one of the things she hates are filler episodes. Now, she said this by way of saying that, if all filler episodes were like mine, she wouldn't hate them so much, but I think she made a good point. One of the things that it took me literally fucking years to learn was what to leave in and what to leave out. I've been writing more or less constantly since I was in high school, and it's only in the past year or so that I've learned how to get to the fucking point. There's often all this stuff I want to detour into and go for a swim in, but in the interests of plot and pacing, I cut out. But here, in Fan Fiction land? Fuck that. I'm having fun, and that means that I'm going to find time for Aang and Zuko to have a heart-to-heart that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the overall plot.
Though, on the other hand, it does. I'm showing, very clearly, how much Aang has grown up over the course of this story. I do think this important to show, because Aang is the Avatar, and you know what? That's pretty fucking important.
So, tonight, in the absence of the girlfriend, I'm doing something I haven't done since college: Drinking and writing. I think I'm going to write until I'm out of beer or doze off. Personally, I blame Sam Adams for figuring out how to put their Boston Lager in a can, because drinking out of cans is fucking awesome.
In the next chapter, the Gaang hook back up with the fleet, and discover that their little escapade has made waves that they couldn't even imagine. Stay tuned! For the record, by the way, we're about two-thirds or so of the way to the end. I hope you're as excited as I am!
Other things to look forward to: We're actually very close to meeting Hama.
