A/N: ok so. Everything that could've gone wrong with my senior thesis did, and that's why i wasn't updating for almost 4 months this time, but thankfully it's been submitted and i have soooo much more free time. I'm sorry I was gone for so long, but hopefully this chapter was worth the wait (p.s. please still leave reviews so i know if you all liked it and are still interested in this fic)

Mai feels a lot of things in relation to Zuko. Anger, contempt, apathy, frustration, but hatred doesn't quite make the list. No matter how much she replays the maddening things he's done over again in her mind, she can never quite bring herself to say that she hates him, because she doesn't. She really and truly does not hate Zuko.

But she wishes she did.

Two days have passed since their latest falling out and they haven't spoken since, not even to say 'hello' in passing, or 'good morning' or 'I'm sorry', no matter how many times they cross paths in the palace corridors. To be fair, she's not sure who should even apologize in this situation. She thinks it should be him, she hopes it would be, but she doubts things will play out the way she wants them to. Even if he apologized, he wouldn't mean it. Even if he meant it, she wouldn't believe it.

And so, instead of trying to confront any of this, Mai goes on walks to avoid seeing Zuko in the palace. Mostly, it's to clear her head. The stifling nature of the palace has always gotten under her skin, more so now that she can't even speak Zuko's name without vexation burning a hole in her chest, and so she goes on aimless walks around the Fire Nation to make the days go by faster.

She used to go on walks just to pass the time when Zuko was busy. Katara joined her only once (thankfully, because one time was more than painfully awkward and Mai didn't need to experience it a second time.) Though neither of them had said anything, it seemed like unspoken knowledge that Zuko had set it up―and now Mai wonders if that was just so he could visit Azula. She's just as cross about it as she was two days ago, and she wonders if she'll always feel this way. Zuko's confession put things into perspective for her; no matter what they did or how much time passed, no matter how passive and humble and tight lipped she makes herself, no matter how cordial she is to his friends, she'll always feel suffocated by his past.

But when she goes on these walks, she can escape her own head for a while. There's never any danger in what she does. Her sleeves are lined with knifes, and regardless, she is not the talk of the town. The nation is still recuperating from a century of war. Between all the proposed changes under Zuko's regime and the rumors of the Water Tribe girl he invited to the palace, Mai's existence, just as it has been for most of her life, goes overlooked.

She likes it this way. She doesn't want any of these people parading around like they know her. She needs time to stretch her legs and remember that there is a life outside of the constant political jargon and economic policies that cloud her every conversation with Zuko, so she loses herself in a sea of people and quiets her thoughts for a while. She wouldn't say that this makes her happy, but at the very least it makes her happier than she has been recently, and there's hardly any denying that as of late, her relationship with Zuko is not making her happy. She can't even remember the last time it did.

And so, she walks, until her feet start to ache and the sun sets under a rich, honey sky, and she tries not to look as disappointed when she returns to the palace as she actually is.

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Zuko looks at himself and Katara in the mirror, and cocks his head to the side.

It's been awhile since either of them have been in green. Around the palace, Katara is always donned in blue, despite the insistence from his staff that if he has her here, the least he can do is require her to wear Fire Nation clothing. Which is a stupid request in his opinion, and he's made his stance on the matter known (that Katara is allowed to wear whatever she wants and if he hears of anyone pestering her about her clothing there will be consequences. It's an empty threat of course, but no one brings it up again.) Zuko himself is always in red, mostly wearing clothes that are too regal for the way he views himself, with his hair up in a topknot and his scar a lot more visible than he likes it to be.

But now, in the Earth Kingdom clothes that some of the servants designed specifically so he'd be able to disguise himself in Ba Sing Se, he feels average. Normal. The earthy tones look foreign on his skin after weeks of wearing red, but something about this attire, especially being worn in the palace, makes him feel humble.

In four days, it'll be two weeks since he declared he'd be leaving the Fire Nation to look for his mother, and resolutely, that will be the day he sets off on his quest. Arguably, he needs more time than just a few more days to embark on a mission like this and expect any kind of success, but time is just as much an important factor, so whether or not he is fully prepared, Iroh will stand in for him as Fire Lord, and he will be off in the Earth Kingdom with Katara.

Offhandedly, Zuko wonders if Katara has the same thought as she stands beside him in her own green get up, trying her best not to fidget as servants fiddle with her Earth Kingdom disguise and manipulate her hair in convoluted ways. Initially, Katara had dressed herself in her own chamber, and was then brought to Zuko as he tried his clothes on, so he could inspect both their outfits and make any criticisms he had known all at once, but he was pleased with the way they both looked, a far different opinion than he initially thought he was going to have. At first Zuko argued that Katara didn't have to wear Earth Kingdom clothes to go to Ba Sing Se; people would likely not blink twice seeing a Water Tribe native (whereas they might have a lot of reservations about a Fire Nation civilian). She countered that it'd draw less attention to the both of them if she was in disguise as well, but he did not miss the way her fingers clasped her mother's necklace, knowing that it was a dead giveaway of her ethnicity. He didn't press the issue further.

He also doesn't protest now when the servants fixing his clothing make quick, concise demands of him, stand like this, hold this position, allow us to hem this better despite him looking in the wide paneled mirror ahead of himself and feeling content. He doesn't mind being in green and letting his hair down even though it's starting to get in his eyes.

"How do I look?" Zuko asks, and without missing a single beat, Katara keeps her head straight and in the most deadpan voice says,

"You look absolutely adorable, Fire Lord Zuko."

There's a moment when everyone stills. Zuko whips his head to look at Katara but she's still looking forward, practically biting the inside of her cheek to keep from saying anything more. The servants all exchange glances, at the blatant, patronizing nature of Katara's tone, as if they're waiting to see how Zuko will reprimand her and somehow, that makes the whole situation even more ridiculous. He almost bursts into a fit of laughter when he replies,

"Why thank you, Master Katara. Your kindness is duly noted."

And he looks at her, in her own dark tunic with her face straight ahead, but he can almost see the semblance of a smile on her lips. He looks ahead as well, but he lets his smile show.

.

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"I keep asking myself why I'm not enough for you. Why I never was." Zuko snaps his head up to where Mai is standing. He hasn't had much time to come out to the turtleduck pond lately, but today, save for some meetings and getting fitted for an appropriate disguise, he's had just enough space in his schedule to come to his favorite spot. Now that Mai's here, it'll be a while until he'll be out here peacefully again. It's not irritation that he feels right now at her presence, it's something a bit more complicated than that. He feels apprehensive, exhausted almost, because they've had this conversation already. He's sure they've had it more than once. But he doesn't ward her off even when her shadow startles some of the turtleducks into hiding. No matter what she says, he'll listen. No matter what she says, he'll accept. He's tired of arguing and feeling inadequate, and as flawed and dangerous as he knows this mode of thinking is, he's complacent. He has far too much on his mind to still let this drag on.

A halfhearted apology is already on his lips but Mai's words interrupt him.

"I am trying, you know," she says as she takes a seat beside him. Zuko's attention is still on the pond and the shy turtleducks, who seem reluctant to return. "It might not look like it, but I am."

"What are you talking about?" Zuko says. "Is this still about me leaving to find my mother? Because none of that has anything to do with how I feel about you."

"No," Mai says. She picks at the hem of her sleeve. "I mean, I thought it was but… You don't love me Zuko. Not the way I wish you did." His first instinct is to contest this. It's the right thing for him to do in this situation, if his heart was in the right place… but, now that she's speaking these things all at once, he's faced with the damning realization that Mai is right. He doesn't love her the way she wishes he did. And he's not sure he feels bad about it.

"We―Azula, Ty Lee and I―we had a Kyoshi warrior in prison for a long time. And she always talked about the boy she loved coming back for her one day. No matter what we did to her or what we said―" The visible discomfort on Zuko's face reminds Mai to keep this anecdote about the torture of one of his close friends brief. "She always knew he was coming back. And I thought it was stupid, until Azula had me and Ty Lee thrown in prison after what I did for you. And I thought to myself, maybe that Kyoshi warrior wasn't so stupid after all. I thought to myself, 'Zuko will come back'."

"And I didn't," Zuko says.

"I waited for you Zuko," Mai says. "I know if Ty Lee and I tried to get out on our own we wouldn't even make it as far as the gondolas. But, you were skilled enough to sneak in and out. I thought, you love me as much as Katara's brother loved that Kyoshi warrior. You'd come back. You had to come back."

"I didn't even realize―"

"Did you know that Ty Lee incapacitated Azula to save me?" Mai interjects. "She wasn't protecting herself. I was the one that had let you escape on the gondola. If Ty Lee wanted to, she could've let me face Azula on my own, but she didn't. She didn't think twice about taking Azula down when she knew what the consequences were."

The turtleducks are silent.

Zuko is silent.

"And stupid me," Mai continues, "I thought if Ty Lee could stand with me, you could too. So when we were locked up I waited. And I waited and waited. But days went by and weeks went by and suddenly the war was over, but you never came back. I waited for you Zuko. Why didn't you come back? If my uncle hadn't been able to let me out of jail, would you have come back for me?"

"Of course I would have―"

"Please Zuko," Mai says. She sounds tired, defeated. "Don't lie. Would you have?" Zuko bites his lip, and stares out at the pond.

"Honestly Mai, I don't know." His heart slides down into the pit of his stomach when the truth of his statement finally dawns on him. He thinks of what it was like that summer when he stood alongside Aang and risked their lives to learn firebending from the dragons, or when he and Sokka risked their lives to free Hakoda from the Boiling Rock.

A hand finds a way to his chest and he knows it didn't take any thought for him to run in front of lightning for Katara. He only vaguely remembers being sprawled out on the ground, slipping in and out of consciousness and thinking 'This is it. I'm going to die and this is all I'll ever be.' And he can't remember quite how it felt, but he knows, beyond the confusion and adrenaline and pain, he felt secure in his snap judgment. It felt right. He didn't have a single regret.

The next thing he says is a question.

"Would it have made a difference if I had?" he asks. He thumbs the grass aimlessly, and now the words are starting to flow from his tongue; the issues he had buried in the deepest parts of him are suddenly overflowing with a newfound confidence. "Would it still feel like a burden to listen when I try to open up to you? Would it still feel like you had to change yourself when I needed you to be there for me? Would we still argue about everything? Politics? The Hundred Year War? My values? Yours?"

Mai stares at the pond, and shrugs. "I don't know."

"You know more about my past than most people, you know. You know why I was banished, you know about my mother, my whole family, and I feel like I should be able to open up to you but I just… can't. And I haven't felt this way since I last talked to…" Zuko stops himself, because he knows what he's about to say is unforgivable, but if he's being honest, he has to tell her.

"Since you talked to who, Zuko?"

"My father." He can practically hear her gasp, and when he looks at her, she's got her tongue pressed to the inside of her cheek, but he forges on. "You know how much I thought I needed his approval and how much he made me run around like an eelhound for his love. And… You're not Ozai. You're never going to be what he is to me. But I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't feel like I'm constantly doing everything to please you when nothing ever seems to work. And I don't want to feel this way forever."

"I see," she says.

"What if I had saved you at the Boiling Rock, and brought you along with the avatar?" Zuko asks. "Would you have been happy helping him? Would you have fought with us? Would you ridicule every step I take as Fire Lord now if you could see how I got to this point?"

"I don't ridicule you."

"You don't respect me."

A stalemate. Mai is silent this time.

"I think," Zuko pauses, as if to regain his footing in the conversation. "I think this was always our problem. You, thinking you were never enough. Me, thinking I was always too much. Too loud. Too emotional. Too angry. Too unstable. Too hard to love."

"I did love you," Mai says. "Don't you dare contest that."

"Did," Zuko says. The word puts a grim look on his face. "And how do you feel now?"

"I feel like… We can't keep pretending like we're compatible." Mai stands to leave, this time, leaving Zuko sitting in her shadow as she turns her back on him. Zuko knows this is not like the other times; this is final, and if he lets her leave, the damage will be too irreparable for him to ever beckon her name again.

"Mai," he says. He thinks of all the things he could do to make her stay, what he can't think of, is a reason to actually do any of them. Mai stops in her tracks to look at him, and he's tempted, maybe just to reciprocate her feelings, to say that he loved her too, but she knows that. She should know that. And instead, he stares at her and her glowering eyes and says, "I promise I'll come back this time."

"I won't be waiting for you. But I hope you finally find whatever you're looking for, Zuko. I really do." Mai takes a step forward and the turtleducks slowly begin to make rounds in the pond again as she utters one last sentence. "Did Katara know about Azula?"

Zuko doesn't reply, but he knows his silence speaks for him.

Even after Mai is gone, the turtleducks remain silent.

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Katara tries not to yawn too loudly as she's escorted through the palace by one of the guards to Zuko's chamber. She's almost accustomed to being woken in the middle of the night now, if not by or for Zuko, by her own hellish nightmares, and so she can't complain. Especially not to this guard. The way the palace staff have been treating her hasn't exactly improved, but it also hasn't worsened, so even when she rolled out of bed and struggled to push her mountain of hair out of her face just to be summoned to Zuko's room, she made no effort to be conversational.

She almost likes the palace now. Though it's still too big to be homey and is brimming with insufferable people, she's starting to learn the layout and even in her sleepy state, she's able to call the twists and turns it takes to get to Zuko's room. She's alerted with every step it takes to get to his room, slowly but surely perking up as they inch closer to the grand doors of Zuko's chamber. It's only when his room is in sight that curiosity really starts to get the best of her. Normally, if this were an issue of health, there would be no secrecy in why she was summoned. If Zuko was sick or injured, she would've been informed, or at the very least, she would've been ushered to his room at a much faster pace. But still, when they finally reach his door an unsettling feeling starts to drape itself upon her.

Something isn't right. She wastes no time in finding it what it is.

She enters his chamber without so much as a knock and quietly says, "You beckoned?" A few candles are lit all around to offer at least a bit of light, but not enough to take the strain off her eyes. The only thing her vision latches onto is Zuko, who's pacing back and forth in the middle of his room, wringing his hands together as if he were guilty of something, though what that could be Katara doesn't know.

"I should've told you this sooner," is his opening line, and Katara instantly feels anxiousness overwhelm her.

"Okay," she says. His pacing only continues, back and forth in front of her like a pendulum, and she stands, confused but still beside him as he moves. He doesn't say anything. He barely even looks at her. He just keeps his pattern of stepping in one straight line across from her, and his reluctance to speak only raises her concerns. She clears her throat to make sure she sounds as steady and confident as possible when she finally provokes the dialogue to resume. "What should you have told me?"

"I thought about telling you after I'd told Mai, but she took it so badly and broke up with me, and I wasn't even sure how I'd mention it to you. So I just avoided the issue altogether until she brought it up again and I realized how unfair I was being for withholding this information from you―"

"What are you going on about?" Katara asks. Zuko's pacing does not slow down. She only vaguely manages to hold on to bits and pieces of his ramble, Mai, a break up, witholding things it's hard to keep track when he won't even pause to breathe. Katara's not even sure if he's really listening to her when she interjects. He continues pacing and babbling, some of it too fast and garbled for her to make out any of it and in a faulty attempt to get him to refocus, Katara jumps in front of him and grabs his shoulders so he has no choice but to look at her.

"Zuko, you're hardly making any sense right now," Katara says. She also wants to add that he's scaring her, not because she thinks he'll hurt her but because she can't tell if he might hurt himself and his erratic behavior makes her unsure of how to approach this situation. She keeps him standing still, tightening her grip just enough to feel his pulse slowing down ever so slightly, and even in the poor lighting, she sees his eyes wavering less as he regains some composure.

"I'm sorry. You're right, I'm so sorry," he says. "It's just… I can't―I can't ask you to go to Ba Sing Se with me if I'm not being transparent with you, but… I'm just… I'm afraid…"

"Of what?" She drops her voice a few decibels and gives him a chance to continue. "You can talk to me, if you want to. You know that." Zuko sighs, and his whole body shudders from the force of it.

"I do," he mutters. "I just don't know what you're going to say. And that's the hard part."

"You'll never know if you don't talk to me," Katara says. Her hands fall from Zuko's shoulders but his expression still softens a bit. He's not quite smiling, at least he doesn't look like he really is, but he's calmer. He's taking deeper breaths and relaxing.

"I know," Zuko says. He turns away from her and walks toward a dresser on the other side of his room. "And I will, if you're willing to go for a walk with me."

"What are you doing?" Katara asks, but within a moment, he's back at her side, handing her a cloak to drape herself with, and throwing another one over his own shoulders. She's taken aback by the sudden switch in his actions; one moment he can't stop letting his words fill up space and the next, he's buzzing around the room, barely explaining anything.

"I'm going to take you somewhere, and I need you to trust me." Zuko begins to walk to the door but Katara lags behind, not even taking a step behind him. She looks at the cloak in her hands, then back at Zuko, unable to read his expression in the dark lighting. Maybe he put distance between them for that very reason. Maybe he's more levelheaded in this situation than she originally thought.

"Where are we going?" Katara asks. "Can you please stop being so cryptic and talk to me?"

"Where doesn't matter," Zuko says. "It's not a far walk, it's a little hut on palace grounds. It's who we're going to see that matters. But it's like I told you, I need you to trust me, at least just until we get there. Can you just award me that? And trust that I'll explain what's going on when we get there?"

Katara responds, but not with words. She throws her own coat over her shoulders and follow Zuko out of his chamber.