"I've got nothing to show for these dead end dreams. My heart will ache again, it seems." - Dead End Dreams, Man Overboard

Two Years Later

He watched silently as she spread out her towel and sat down on the sandy beach beneath his feet. She was wearing her hair down, and it framed her face. He loved it when she wore her hair down. She smiled up at him and beckoned for him to join her own the ground. Slowly, he knelt down beside her and placed light kisses across her exposed collarbone. A soft moan escaped her lips and he lifted his head so their lips could meet.

"You know better than to do that," she said. "I can't help what becomes of me."

He smirked. "I know; that's the point."

She shook her head as she laughed and stole another kiss from him. He grabbed the back of her head, and used his free hand to steady himself as he lowered her until she was lying down on the towel. He towered over her and started planting more kisses across her jawline, down her neck, and back to her collarbone. Her hands found his hair and she gripped; she wasn't going to let him stop anytime soon. He smiled against her smooth skin and he felt her shiver underneath of him. This only caused his smile to widen.

"You like to torture me," She said, faking a pout. He took advantage of this expression and lightly bit her puffed out bottom lip.

He moved so that he was straddling her sides with his legs and cupped his hands underneath her back. He started massaging up her spine and her eyes narrowed up at him.

"Yeah, you definitely like to torture me."

He smirked. "No, I like to pleasure you. There's a difference."

As he massaged her spine, her hands roamed up his thighs and he felt himself growing more eager as her fingertips folded into the insides of his bathing suit shorts.

Zuko's eyes snapped open and he could feel himself breathing heavily. He had yet another dream about her. Well, the beginning of another dream. He always woke up before they were finished. Growling, he shoved the duvet off of his bare chest. He snuck a glance over at Mai's sleeping figure before silently getting out of bed. It was nearing dawn and Zuko's inner flame was coming to life. He usually took this time to meditate outside, but today he sat on the cushioned couch next to the double glass doors. Sighing, he dropped his head in his hands.

He absolutely despised the dreams he had of Katara. They were always of the life he wasn't allowed to have—the life in which still haunted him. He didn't know why his subconscious still toyed with his emotions. It had been two years. Two long years and he were still struggling. But it's not like she knew what he had lost, what he was forced to give up. She didn't know what they, as a couple, had lost. She couldn't remember.

If he focused hard enough, he could hear her ear-shattering scream perfectly. He could hear the sound of her hitting her head against the metal railing before falling into the ice cold water. He could see Sokka diving in after his sister, and the look of fear when she wouldn't cough up the water she had swallowed. Zuko thought he was going to crack a rib or two trying to revive her. Once she had started coughing, and the water was out of her, she was quickly pulled back into unconsciousness. But she was breathing, and that's all he cared about.

Everyone had agreed to stay in the South Pole until she woke up. The healers said she would, but they did not know when. When she did wake up—a month later—he knew they were doomed. The sheer panic on her face when she had looked up at them after opening her eyes said it all. She was only able to recognize her father, Hakoda, and that's when he fled. He returned to the Fire Nation heartbroken and angrier than ever.

He was pulled out of his reverie when the smell of burning hair hit his nostrils. He had managed to lose control of his temper, again. Yelling out in fury, he stood up and punched the glass of one of the doors that led to the balcony. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mai jumping up from the bed, dagger in hand.

"It's happening again, Mai." He explained before she would have the chance to yell at him. He turned, sitting back down on the couch. His breath was coming and going in shaky intervals. He looked down at his warm fist. A few shards of glass were sticking out of his bloody knuckles.

"You had another dream?" She asked, sitting down next to him on the couch. She draped an arm across his shoulders and rubbed his arm. He nodded.

"The second one this week," he explained. "How am I supposed to rebuild my nation when I'm too busy trying to forget about a girl?"

Although Mai was his fiancé, he told her about the dreams. A few months after his return to the Fire Nation, Mai returned from Omashu. In the beginning, she merely took his mind off of her when the nights got lonely. Eventually they rekindled their teenage relationship and he managed to love her in a romantic way. Not as strong as he loved Katara—nobody was ever going to be able to replace her. But enough to where when his advisers badgered him endlessly about a wife, he proposed to her. They were childhood friends, and Mai was familiar with politics, so she would not be as useless as a random noblewoman from the Earth Kingdom.

"You're the strongest person I know, Zuko. We have been getting through this, and we will continue to get through this. Hasn't Sokka told you that she has been getting better?"

Slowly, but surely, Katara has been able to piece together a bit of her forgotten past. According to Sokka's letters, she's remembered at least one or two memories with each member of their group. They decided together that she would never find out about the war. She was lucky enough to not have to remember, and they were going to let her live her life as normal as possible. Everyone else would suffer the nightmares of the war for her.

Zuko might tell his fiancé about the dreams, but he keeps the truth of what they are about from her. He resents the happiness he feels from the dreams because he knows it's not fair to the woman who loves him. He also resents it because reality always comes crashing down around him. He does not have her. She does not love him. She does not remember, as he remembers, who he is or the times they spent together. Whenever he chose to be irrational, he blamed her for his suffering.

"I thought my days of suffering were behind me when I decided to join the Avatar's group." He settled on saying. He watched as Mai took his wounded hand in hers and placed it in her lap.

"You should go get this cleaned up," she said. "Then you should meditate to clear your mind. I will talk to your uncle when you are in your morning meetings."

"What good could that possibly do?" He asked, standing up and pulling his hand out of her grasp.

"He has those herbs, you know, the ones that will make sure you have a dreamless sleep."

He occasionally drank his uncle's concoction, but never told the old man why. He didn't want to explain the fear, the pain, and the guilt he felt once he woke up after having a dream. He sighed, defeated. Even if he did use the herbs for the rest of his days, she was never really gone from his mind. He still had the memories, and they liked to appear whenever his mind wandered. He fled from her when she probably needed him the most and this was his way of suffering.

"Katara, did you hear me?" Gran-Gran's voice snapped Katara back to reality. She was sitting at the table in their small kitchen, and she looked up to find her Gran standing at the counter with her hand on her hip. She was also holding a knife in a very threatening manner.

"No. Sorry, Gran. What did you say?" She fixated her gaze on the chopping motion of the knife her grandmother was using to chop up vegetables for their soup. She couldn't make out the older woman's mumbling, but she knew she was being scowled.

"I said Hahn is leaving today. Shouldn't you be at the port to see him off?"

Katara shook her head even though Gran could not see it.

"No," she explained. "We agreed that last night was our goodbye. I'll see him in a few weeks, so it's alright."

"I'd think a young woman like you would stand at the edge of the water until his boat was completely vanished from sight." Gran-Gran teased, offering her granddaughter a sly smile.

Katara rolled her eyes. "I don't know where you got that idea about me, but it's completely inaccurate."

"Well you seem distracted. Is everything alright?" All joking was brushed to the side as her Gran set down the knife, wiped her hands on her apron, and joined her at the table.

"I'm just…distracted." She said.

"By what?" the older woman asked, "You know how I worry about you."

Katara sighed. She laced her hands in her lap and looked down, as if ashamed.

"I…had another dream last night about Fire Lord Zuko." She explained, sighing in irritation.

She could feel her grandmother's heavy gaze on her.

"Why is this bothering you? Shouldn't you be happy that you are remembering someone enough to dream about them?"

"But, Gran, these dreams…it's like they aren't my own. It's like I'm catching a play after an intermission," she explained carefully. She knew she would not be able to have this situation make sense, but that's how they came to her. There was never a beginning; only an end. It was as if they were the second half of someone else's dreams.

"When the healer was asking me questions when I first woke up, I explained to them that it felt like I was living in another life. I was myself, but I lived in the Fire Nation with Fire Lord Zuko. Afterward, I would occasionally have dreams about him. But at the time, I didn't know who he was. It was so weird to me, but then Sokka said we knew each other. All of us were friends. He said Zuko returned to the Fire Nation after I woke up because it was too painful for him to see me without any memories."

Now the dreams were coming to her more frequently than ever. It used to be once every few months, but now she felt like she knew the boy in the dreams. She would wake up so happy, but then she'd realize she knew nothing about the man. Sokka told her that they had met in the Earth Kingdom—along with Toph and Suki—and they were inseparable ever since.

When she was first getting re-situated with everyone, it was unbearably hard. She saw Sokka cry because she didn't remember him. Tensions were high, and they were awkward. She listened to endless amount of stories of her life, and then she would end up crying. She so badly wanted to remember.

For a long time, she felt like a ghost. Eventually she started remembering pieces of memories, and she would either ask her brother or father for clarification. Toph, the blind earthbender she met at a tournament, went back home to Gaoling. Sokka and Suki were married, and they returned to Kyoshi Island, the place she learned they were returning from when she had her accident. She never got re-situated with the Fire Lord—the man who replaced Fire Lord Ozai—the man she remembered being on the throne before her accident. They told her that the war had been resolved, and the world was working on getting back to normal.

That's when she met Hahn, her boyfriend. He was from the Northern Water Tribe, and he came down with his fleet for a week of meetings. Since her father was Chief of the Southern Water Tribe, they had been introduced. At first, Katara was scared to get to know someone new. But they spent the week together, and Katara thought he was very handsome. He made her happy. Something she had not genuinely been in a long time.

"What was this dream about?" Gran inquired, curious.

Katara felt her cheeks heat up and she cleared her throat. She met her grandmother's gaze and shook her head. The older woman gave a knowing smile, but let the discussion drop.

"You two were friends, Katara," her grandmother said. "There is no harm in contacting him."

"If he wanted to be reunited I'm sure he would have tried to contact me by now. He and Sokka exchange letters, so I know he isn't out of touch with people." Katara gave a wistful sigh.

She watched as her grandmother stood up and returned to chopping up food at the counter. Katara knew it was pointless to dwell on her dreams—they were meaningless. She just wanted to understand why someone who was supposed to be a good friend of hers never seemed to take the initiative to see how she was adjusting to life after the accident. She had only seen him the one time, and that was when she first opened her eyes.

A/N: Poor Zuko. Poor Katara. Thanks for reading! Reviews are appreciated.

By the way, yes, I hate that Aang is dead in this story. But you will see why it has to be this way at the end.