Chapter 15

Toph awoke the next morning to the distinct sound of rain falling. She looked over to see Zuko still asleep beside her. She wondered what time it was—her husband was usually her alarm clock, rising faithfully with the sun every morning. But she wasn't really surprised that he was still sleeping. The last few days had been pretty rough on him.

As for herself, she felt much better after a long, unbroken night's sleep. She pushed herself up from her cot, then wondered how much longer she'd be able to get up and down so easily. She placed her hand on her belly and concentrated. Then her concentration turned to daydreaming.

Would she be able to sense the baby with her earthbending abilities? Ever since that day on the beach on Tuzai Island, she'd been able to see Zuko. Since then, she'd gotten better at seeing the minerals and salts in her own body and to a lesser degree in other people. But Zuko still stood out to her sight like a granite statue in a garden.

But what about the baby? How well would she be able to see it? Him—she corrected herself. Lian Shen had said it was a boy.

Lian Shen. Her thoughts were so mixed about the swamp spirit. She was extremely glad to know about the baby and extremely grateful that the spirit had helped Zuko get better. But she was also extremely ticked off that she'd also decided to just keep her husband around for a while as a sort of pet hostage. Zuko was nobody's yard ornament.

Toph had half a mind to tap the next earthbender she met as king of Omashu so she, her husband, and her baby could go back home on the next sky bison out of there. Plus, she couldn't wait to tell her parents.

Then she smiled to herself. And Zuko would be able to tell Iroh he was going to be a grandfather—well, granduncle to be technically correct. Then she corrected herself again—Iroh would be this baby's grandfather in every sense that counted.

She realized she needed to stop dreaming and do something with herself before breakfast. So she made her way to the table where the water jug stood, pouring a little into a shallow bowl to wash her face. Then she tried to arrange her hair into some semblance of order, but without a brush or hairpins, she was reduced to running her fingers through it to pull the tangles out.

While she was working on her hair, her mind began to wander again, back to the night of their official wedding—Zuko had pulled the pins out of her elaborate hairdo. She could still feel his hands in her hair as he brushed it. She glanced over at his sleeping form, a soft smile on her face.

Suddenly the sound of the door opening startled her from her reverie. She turned to see Katara enter the room carrying a tray of some kind.

"Good morning," Toph said with a smile. "Is that breakfast?"

"Lunch is more like it," Katara replied with a little laugh. "It's well past noon."

Toph was surprised. "I can't believe we slept this long," she said, moving to help Katara place the tray on the table.

"Everybody had a good night's sleep for once," Katara stated gratefully. "Even Jet and Mai slept in—together." The tone in Katara's voice practically shouted gossip alert and Toph sat down to listen as Katara filled her in. Not only had Jet and Mai returned to the village instead of leaving, they'd spent the night on the same cot, but hadn't spoken a word to each other since waking up late in the morning.

"And it's been pretty hard not to notice that they aren't speaking since we're all pretty much stuck in the same hut with this rain pouring down," Katara finished. "Jet finally just went out—he said to check on the treegecko—but I think he just needed to get out for a while."

"I can certainly understand that," Toph replied. "Zuko can't stand to be cooped up in the rain. He says the sun feels farther away on a cloudy day." She glanced over at him where he lay sleeping. "I'm going to see if I can't get him to wake up and eat something."

Katara nodded, "He needs to get up and move that leg some too. I don't want him to overdo it, but if he could just walk around the room a few times this morning and this afternoon, it will help preserve his range of motion." She got up and went to the door. "If he needs help getting up, just call me."

Toph agreed and watched Katara walk out into the invisible rain, probably bending a huge umbrella over herself as she walked. It must feel good to be surrounded that way by her element though. The longer Toph spent in this mushy wetness, the more cut off from the earth she began to feel. Kind of like Zuko on a rainy day, she thought.

She pulled up a small chair next to Zuko's bed and gently touched his shoulder. After Aang had brought him back from the spirit world the night before, he'd only stayed awake for a little while before drifting off to sleep again. He hadn't had much to say about his spirit journey, apparently he'd spent most of it asleep there too.

He stirred a little and she spoke to him, "Sparky, you need to wake up for a little while and eat something." He groaned a little and opened his eyes. "How are you feeling?" she asked softly.

He blinked and looked at her as if trying to focus his eyes—they were gold, she remembered. That was one other good thing to have come out of her trip to Lian Shen's place. She knew the color of Zuko's eyes.

Zuko tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a ton. He'd never been so tired or so sore in his entire life. Years of habit and training prompted him to seek out the sun's energy, but he felt like a wet blanket covered him, cold and dense. If he hadn't been able to see the daylight filtering in through the room's windows, he'd have sworn it was nighttime.

Rain pounded on the roof of the hut. He groaned again. Toph reached out to help him sit up, stuffing pillows behind his back. "How long have I been asleep?" he asked in a hoarse voice.

"All together, you've been out of action for a few days," she replied. "You gave us all a pretty good scare. How do you feel now?"

"Tired," he managed to reply and closed his eyes. He tried to remembered what had happened to him, but all he got was a vivid sense memory of unbearable pain.

And a garden with soft grass.

And his mother.

He'd dreamed about the last time he saw his mother. The memory of her face, so still and pale, floated to the surface of his mind, then the image flickered away from him as if his brain was too exhausted to bother trying to recall more. It made him sad.

"Baby," Toph's voice came to him and he opened his eyes again, "do you think you could eat something?"

"I'll try," he said and reached to take the cup she offered, his hand shaking with the effort. She held it for him as he took a sip of some kind of thin soup. It tasted pretty good and he managed to drink it all, aware that he was seriously hungry. But even that small act exhausted him.

"Katara said you need to try to walk a little to help your leg heal," Toph continued.

"Later," he said, closing his eyes again in weariness.

Some time later, Toph's voice woke him again. "Sparky, you need to wake up," she called to him, and he could feel her hand on his shoulder, then his forehead. He forced his eyes open. His instincts for daylight immediately told him that it was several hours later, probably mid-afternoon. He reached for the sun, but his element stayed shrouded and distant. The rain still pounded down.

This time Katara was also in the room along with an old woman. Zuko was supposed to know her—the old healer—what was her name? Everything still seemed so fuzzy to him.

His leg was sore. It felt like he'd been running sprints without stretching first. He tried to rub the muscle, but his hand just didn't have the strength to do it.

"Does it hurt?" Toph asked. At his nod, she began to rub it gently, working some of the soreness out. Katara pulled her waters out and followed up with a healing session that eased some of the remaining muscle burn.

"Since you've been so out of it," Katara explained, "we've been working that leg for you. But you're going to have to get up and walk on it yourself, you know."

He nodded in agreement. He had to get up. Toph held another cup of liquid to his lips and he tried to drink it. He had to get his strength back. The effort took all he had and he closed his eyes. Sleep threatened to overcome him again, but he fought it. He had to stay awake.

He could hear their voices, coming to him as if from a distance.

"Dei Zi, what's going on here?" Katara asked. Yes, Dei Zi—that was the old healer's name. She was a strange one, he thought to himself.

"I don't rightly know," Dei Zi replied. "They usually bounce back faster than this. I'd say give him a little more time. Keep working on him with your healing. The water will be good for him."

There was the sound of a chair creaking, then the door opened and shut. He could hear Toph sigh next to him. "I'm worried, Katara," she said softly. "It just doesn't seem right."

"Hey," Katara's comforting voice replied, "you know how strong Zuko is. He won't be down for long. He's a fighter."

He could hear Toph sniff. Was she crying? He tried to reach for her, but could barely move his fingertips.

What was wrong with him? He'd never been this sick. Toph had been sick, he remembered. It had scared him to see her like that--so still, so pale. So much like his mother had looked before the end.

He opened his eyes to see his wife standing beside his bed talking quietly to Katara. One hand was on her stomach. She was pregnant. Wasn't she? Did he know this? He remembered.

A baby. She was having his baby.

He was terrified.

What if something happened to her? What would he do without her?

Memories of his own childhood surged in his mind like a dirty tide on the beach. Memories of trying to please his father, of clinging to his mother's love and acceptance. When she'd disappeared, his father had acted like she'd never been there at all. Zuko had missed her so terribly.

At first.

Then the years of pretending she'd never existed had worked their spell on him. So much so that when he too was banished, he never bothered to even look for her. If he had, she might still be alive. But he'd chosen to seek his father's approval rather than his mother's love.

And deep down he still hated himself for that.

But despite everything, his mother had loved him to the very end.

"Don't be bitter, Zuko," she'd said to him when he and Uncle had finally found her after the war's end. She lay there so still, so sick, coughs shaking her fragile frame. As sick as she was, her last thoughts had been for him and his well-being. "Don't be angry, my sweet boy," she'd said, reaching up to touch his scarred cheek. "I got to see you again. So strong, so good. Don't be bitter. For my sake."

And he'd tried. He'd tried to let go of the anger at his father for banishing her, at himself for forgetting her, and just be glad he got to see her once again.

But her death had left a hole in him that nothing could fill. He missed her so terribly.

Now Toph was having his baby. She was going to be his baby's mother. He looked again at his wife where she stood with her hand still protectively covering her stomach and watched as Katara walked out the door.

That little baby was the luckiest baby in the world to have Toph for his mother--to love him, to accept him, to teach him how to be good and strong.

But what kind of father could he possibly know how to be?

All Zuko had ever learned from his father was anger, frustration, and loss.

How could he ever be the kind of father Toph's baby deserved?

Toph sat down next to him.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered.

"No, baby," she replied gently. "You've got nothing to be sorry for. You'll start feeling better soon."

But that wasn't what he meant. He tried to tell her he was sorry he wasn't strong enough, wasn't whole enough. But he couldn't find the strength to form the words.

Outside in the rain, Jet watched the treegecko wander around the pen aimlessly. Water ran down his face and down the back of his shirt, plastering his hair and clothing to his body as his thoughts ran in endless circles.

He'd woken up that morning when he felt Mai stir against him. For a second, it felt so good to simply hold her--then he realized what he'd done.

The night before when they'd finally reached the village, he'd felt numb with hopelessness. They were trapped. He truly hadn't been thinking straight when he lay down with her in his arms.

But it had felt so good to hold her, to cling to her in his sleep, to use her soft presence as a shield against the nightmares.

He should never have done it. She'd been tired and emotionally exhausted and wasn't in any shape to resist. He'd taken advantage of her in a vulnerable moment simply because he couldn't face another night in that place alone.

Once awake, somehow he'd managed to extricate himself from the narrow cot, aware that he needed to speak to her, to apologize, but unable to bring himself to face her. He was furious with himself for being so weak.

But he was even angrier at the swamp, this terrible land of dreams and shifting terrain. It was like the place had spent the entire past week trying to drive him insane by giving him either terrible nightmares or enigmatic dreams about Mai.

But when she actually showed up, it got even worse. He couldn't spend every day thinking about how it felt to kiss her in his dreams every night. He couldn't talk to her in real life while she laughed at him in his sleep.

So, he tried to escape, but the swamp rearranged itself to keep him there. With Mai in his arms.

"Just what do you want?" he heard himself ask out loud, but there was no reply but the sound of raindrops dripping off the leaves.

Mai had assumed they'd be able to find their way out because the swamp didn't have any interest in them, and that had made sense to him. He could understand why the swamp would want to keep her and the rest of them around—they were important people.

But he was a nobody, just a mercenary with a head full of bad memories. So, why hadn't the swamp let him go?

He pushed the wet hair out of his face as the rain continued to drip down and watched as the gecko circled and sniffed the air in the pen, occasionally lifting its head as if looking for something.

The swamp must have been interested in Mai, he thought. He was just dragged back too because he was with her. There was nothing about him for the swamp to bother with. Just like there was nothing about him for Mai to bother with.

But all the same, Jet couldn't quit thinking about her, how it had felt to kiss the soft skin of her throat, how she'd murmured into his ear, sending shivers down his spine. That whole ploy with the ambush had been an excuse to get close to her and he knew it. He could have easily played it another way—a way that respected her.

But he'd wanted to push that dream, to see what the reality might be like. That experience had taught him one thing--he was losing all self-control where Lady Mai of the Fire Nation was concerned.

Just yesterday he'd come within a hairsbreadth of killing an unarmed man just for the crime of knowing her name.

"I'll see Lady Mai again," the one-eyed little man had hissed beneath his breath and something had snapped inside Jet's head. He'd found himself kneeling on top of the man, whispering savage threats in his ear as his dagger pierced the man's neck.

It had taken all his strength of will not to kill him on the spot—an unarmed man, helpless and wounded. And part of him still wished he had.

Jet leaned back against the fence of the paddock. A roll of thunder echoed across the valley, sending the gecko scampering into its shelter. Jet shivered a little in the chilly rain, but couldn't bring himself to return to the hut.

Sooner or later he would have to face her.

He tried to get a grip on himself, but his thoughts continued to race. Mai was not only his employer, but a very important person--in Omashu and in the Fire Nation. Her family was among the highest in social rank in the world. She made policy, she represented her government, she was a lady. She was welcome in the royal courts of each of the four nations.

He was a nobody. A refugee orphan whose parents had been poor dirt farmers. His family had meant so little in the great scheme of things that when they died, he'd been the only one to notice.

She outclassed him in every way. He had no business in her life.

Then he wondered about hanging about the residential complex as a bodyguard in case that one-eyed bandit decided to make an appearance. But when he remembered how well she'd taken care of the guys trying to kill him, he knew he wasn't really needed.

He'd been very impressed that perfect Lady Mai was also a trained warrior with the deadliness of an assassin. She was more than capable of taking care of herself in a fight. The memory of her swift action, the sureness of her attack, and her mercy stirred his feelings again.

He leaned his forehead into the paddock fence and let the cold rain wash it out of him. How could he spend another moment in her presence? What could he possibly have to say to her?

Then he realized that he probably owed her his life. And his thanks. Surely he could say thank you.

With tremendous effort, he pushed himself away from the fence and began to walk.

Then he remembered the ride home. Not even her martial skills were proof against this place.

He remembered how tightly she'd held onto him as they rode, as the warrior turned into the woman. She'd been just as disheartened as he had by their failure to escape. He remembered how she'd cried herself to sleep in his arms. Maybe she'd needed him a little too.

But that didn't change the fact that he needed to put a stop to this. There was no future for it. He reminded himself that he had nothing to offer her. He didn't even have a real place to live. He just kept his stuff in a back room at the leather shop between jobs.

She was an important dignitary and he was her employee. He would apologize for his conduct, and thank her for saving his life. Then he would remember himself and treat her with the utmost of respect and professional distance. Maybe then he would stop dreaming about her.

He walked up the steps of the hut and placed one hand on the door handle. It opened of its own accord to reveal Mai standing there, her expression unreadable, as enigmatic as his dreams.

She'd spent the last hour or so at the window watching him, wondering what was going on in his head.

The previous day had been long and rough and the evening had been disturbing. She'd been deeply exhausted when they got to the village, and it had felt so good to let Jet take the lead.

All her life she'd made her own way—for good or for ill. As a Fire Nation representative, she was used to making decisions, staying friendly yet impartial, and generally leading an independent life.

But this place seemed to sap the independence out of a person, to sap the will. She'd been a passenger for the entire trip, going where the others had gone, waiting around uselessly while the others had helped Zuko. She didn't like being useless.

When Jet offered a way out of the swamp, she'd jumped at the chance to leave. It wasn't that she wanted to abandon the rest of the group. It wasn't that she'd wanted to spend time with Jet. She primarily just wanted to be back calling her own shots in Omashu.

The first part of the ride had been very enjoyable—she was actually doing something. And as disturbing as it had been to be ambushed by bandits, that bit of action had actually been the bright spot in her day.

It had felt so good to take those guys down, to finally make something happen on her own terms. And Jet's con job on the bandits had been extremely amusing to watch—not to mention the unexpected thrill she'd gotten from playing his girlfriend.

But Jet's mood had grown very dark after he'd confronted the bandit leader. Any attempt she made at recovering their previous camaraderie just seemed to fall flat. Her spirits also sank as they traveled in what felt like an endless circle, the realization finally setting in that they were not going to get out of the swamp any time soon.

As the sky had grown dark around her, she found herself losing the will to fight. She'd begun to have trouble controlling her mount, primarily due to her own lack of resolve. When it had run away only to be killed, she'd felt personally responsible, as if she'd let it down by her own unaccountable weakness.

She'd felt powerless against the swamp, against the night, against the strange creatures that surrounded them.

Her mood had been so dark upon arriving at the village that as Jet had silently taken everything in hand, including her, it had been frighteningly easy to let him.

She'd cried on him.

She'd actually cried.

There was something about that place that robbed her of her spirit, that made her feel empty and hollow inside. It was like it knew something about her she didn't know herself. And it took great pleasure in showing her these things in the dark of the night, when she was the most vulnerable.

But in the light of day, as she awoke in his arms, her first thoughts had been peaceful, contented. She lay there and felt the warmth of his body through the fabric of his shirt beneath her cheek. Then he'd taken a deep breath and she knew he was waking. She didn't move as he first lightly ran his fingers over her hair.

In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to stay in that place forever. To feel safe, cared for.

But did he care?

Or had she just been a convenient distraction from the darkness?

In the morning light she'd looked up at him and he'd frozen. Self-conscious and embarrassed, they'd extricated themselves from each other. He hadn't spoken to her or looked at her all morning and she didn't know why.

A time or two she'd tried to catch his eye, but he'd managed to avoid her, then had actually gone to stand in the rain rather than speak to her.

Now he stood in the doorway, still in the rain, still unwilling to meet her gaze. "Well," she finally began, "what now?"