Pillow Talk: Chapter 15

All We've Lost; All We've Gained

Slow, unsteady steps carried Zuko through the doorway to his personal chambers as he numbly made his way to the plush couch and fell boneless again the supple cushions. At this moment, all he wanted was to drive away the crushing defeat and stifling, suffocating sense of hopelessness that had slowly consumed him body, mind and spirit and devoured any expectation that had foolishly been born from his sense of optimism. He had hoped…ignorantly it would seem, that he would finally have control of his life. He should have known better, known that the world was too cruel to grace him with that sense of peace.

He may have remained this way for hours; he had no way of knowing, with his face pressed against the cushions of the couch as though burrowing himself into the depths of pillowy comfort. He couldn't even remember shifting his position, didn't know that his place on the sofa had changed until he looked up to see Mai's face staring at him with understanding eyes, his head resting against her lap, and not for the first time he blessed the spirits for letting him find this remarkable woman.

For her own part, Mai had stood at the balcony of their bedchamber for the better part of an hour and watched with understanding eyes as Zuko made his way weakly into the palace. She watched him enter the room from her vantage point, watched him collapse against the couch and sighed for her lover at the apparent, devastated emotional state he was suffering. But she would not run to him, would not coddle and elicit mindless words of comfort that would do nothing to ease his troubled spirit.

Zuko was not a man who accepted the world's gifts easily. Everything had a price and he knew well enough to keep a cautious guard when dealing with those he cared most about, because in his life, nothing was permanent. It helped greatly that Mai was not the coddling type, she would tell him what he needed to hear, not what he wanted. For those two things were often very different animals.

And so, she did not rush to embrace him, did not speak those empty promises that things would work out, no matter how much he wanted to hear it. Instead, she waited several moments, waited until the stiffening of his body eased and the heavy breaths of nervous energy fell away from his jumbled form on the couch before taking her place at his side, sliding his head onto her lap and offering her presence as his solace.

"That bad huh?" she asked simply, and though the question was unnecessary, his body language telling all she needed to know, it was an important step in their give and take relationship to establish that initial fragment of conversation.

Several moments of uninterrupted silence passed between them as Mai began smoothing the lines of stress in Zuko's face while the newly crowned Firelord lay dejectedly in her lap. Taking several calming breaths to ease his apprehensive mind, the young man turned his full attention on his beloved girlfriend, "He would barely even look at me." His voice sounded so dejected, Mai could almost feel his body quiver in bitter self-pity. He hated feeling sorry for himself, hated knowing how weak and powerless he was in this situation, and Mai greatly hated knowing there was nothing she could do to remedy that.

"What happened to my family Mai?" A rhetorical question, and one he did not expect an answer for as he closed his eyes at the memory that left him emotionally paralyzed. "Maybe I'm wrong, but I seem to remember we were happy once. Now…my sister's gone insane, my mother is missing and my father is rotting in prison, powerless and hated by his people. And still, he refused to tell me where she was. He even rubbed my face in it, saying that I've taken everything from him…he could at least take this from me.

"What did I ever do to make him hate me so much?" It was a simple question with no simple answer, and Mai knew what he was really asking. Zuko had helped win the war, had helped free his people from a hundred years of conflict, and yet that one thing he had desperately wanted, more than anything, to find his mother, was denied to him. It was as if the universe was not yet done making him suffer. And the universe, it seemed, had manifested itself into a singular being…his father. "I miss her so much," Zuko said brokenly, a single tear managing to slip beneath the closed lid of his eye despite his best efforts to restrain its descent.

Mai raised her thumb to wipe away the arrant tear, a rare gesture of compassion from the often-stoic young woman. "You can be a real idiot sometimes, you know that?"

If he were not so accustomed to Mai's often overly critical assessment of the situation presented to her, Zuko would have been deeply hurt by the scathing remarks. As it was however, he couldn't help but be a little put off by her comments. "Thanks for your bottomless sense of selflessness Mai, it really helps."

"If you want to be all warm and fuzzy Zuko, I'll get you a blanket," the young woman responded blithely as she continued to smooth the troubled lines of his forehead with her delicately dangerous fingers. "But you're missing the larger picture here."

"Which is?"

"Just because someone is related to you by blood, does not make them family."

"Thanks, that helps a lot." Zuko sighed, his head turning away from Mai's so he could brood in his own, silent misery.

"It should," Mai replied, turning his face back to hers, locking his eyes with her own poignant stare. "Because for the better part of half a year, you've been traveling around with a tiny group of friends who are more a family to you than your own father and sister. You even chose to stay with them over your own nation. And you can tout all you want about saving the Fire Nation and your sense of duty, but the truth is Zuko, you stayed with them because you needed them. Because they gave you a sense of purpose and a place to belong, without proving yourself, without expecting anything in return.

"Your father held your honor and respect hostage, only returning it to you if you succeeded in a useless quest. Your sister used you to get what she wanted. Does that sound like the loving family you've been craving?"

"No, it doesn't"

"You know it isn't," Mai recanted as she focused her eyes on Zuko's face, her fingers coming to rest on the scarred and puckered skin of the left side of his face. "A family would never do this to you, a father would never banish his 13-year-old son into the world with no hope of survival or success. A family accepts you for who you are, the good and the bad."

"Do…do you think they really see me that way?" It was small, minute even, but there existed a glimmer of hope in his otherwise skeptical features. There had been so many times, so many desperate moments on his three year exile that he was alone and scared that truthfully, the thought that he belonged, even if it was with his mismatched group of friends, that it remained the only thing would keep him from drowning. Because no matter he might protest, it remained a staple of his psyche that he just wanted to belong.

"There has to be some reason they'd put up with you all this time," Mai replied dryly, shrugging her shoulders, as if the matter was beyond her understanding. He didn't need her to say it, because she really wasn't going to anyway. But the truth was, they needed him as much as he needed them. They were all part of their own orphaned culture, and whether it was the loss of their mother, the inability to live their life how they saw fit while under the oppressive thumb of their over-bearing parents, or the utter ruination of their entire culture because of the war, they all shared a common bond with Zuko in one way or another. Because Zuko had experienced all three emotionally hardening lessons, and he was a reminder in the darkest times to each of them that he survived and thrived despite all of that, and they would too.

Raising his hand to cup Mai's cheek, his eyes swimming with words unspoken but sentiments fully readable on his face, he smiled gently at the woman who watched him expectantly. "When did you get so smart?"

"About the time I started dating my idiot boyfriend," she replied, the hint of a playful smile toying at the corner of her lips.

It was enough. For now, lying in the lap of the young woman who had given him insight and peace of mind in his most troubling times, he found peace with the world. The issue of his mother's whereabouts was not yet settled; it would never be until he found her. But for now, in his own little corner of the world, with this woman and the makeshift family he had not even come to appreciate, he was happy. And that's all he ever wanted.

-End

A/N: For my readers who requested a Maiko fic. I had this one in the back of my head for a while, and I've read a lot of fics where Ozai gives Zuko the information on his mother's whereabouts, but I just don't buy it. Ozai has lost everything, he's bitter and angry. It seems only natural that he'd withhold the one thing Zuko desperately wants.

Anyway, love it or hate it, reviews are always appreciated.