Southern Star

Chapter Thirteen: And the Walls in the Bedroom Now are Pounding Out

Zuko woke up early the next morning, earlier than anyone. He'd had another nightmare. In his confusion and distress, he had no idea where he was.

And then he remembered.

He was the Avatar's new firebending teacher, and at that moment he was in the Western Air Temple. Song was okay, and she was there, and she had... she had already forgiven him. He didn't understand why, but he wasn't going to push it.

Katara, on the other hand, hadn't. In his new position, he knew he was going to face a lot of threats and challenges. Katara's ill opinion of him would be a difficult one to overcome, if not impossibly so.

He pushed his worries aside, got up, and got dressed. He wanted to see Song again.

"Song," said Zuko as he entered her room without knocking. "I have a question."

Except she wasn't awake to answer it. No, her eyes were closed, her expression troubled, her skin perspiring despite the brisk chill of the spring morning.

He sat down on a chair next to her bed again and, as gently as he could, he laid a hand on her uninjured arm. Her expression vanished and returned to a state of neutrality. "Song," he said again, pushing against her slightly. "Wake up."

Her eyes unsqueezed and opened. She didn't seem to realize he was there for a minute; her glassy eyes stared right through him. But then they focused, and she blinked.

"Hello," she said.

"Hi."

"Why are you awake?"

"Nightmares."

"Oh. Me, too. I think."

Zuko nodded, that similarity highlighting the divide between them from their months apart. Neither of them had really suffered from nightmares before they'd been separated. "I have a question."

She didn't say anything in reply to that. She just kept looking at him.

"Who's Aang?"

"The Avatar."

"The Avatar... Oh." Of course. Of course it was the Avatar. How could he have been so dumb? Katara's threat made much more sense. "Oh. Okay. I didn't know he had a name."

"Me neither, for a while."

"Do you want me to go see if Katara is awake to help treat you?"

"No. I want to go back to sleep."

Zuko smiled at that. The sunlight didn't stream through the window above her bed, but the light of the morning still illuminated the room. Song's skin was damp with sweat, and she still had such dark circles under her eyes, but the light seemed to soften her in the best possible way, and her skin glowed in the reflected light. It caught her eyes, too. Her irises had faded back to grey, but despite the fatigue so easily seen in them, they were wide and glimmered gloriously.

He had a thought he'd wanted to vocalize, but as he lost himself in Song's morning loveliness, he found that he forgot everything he had ever wanted to say.

Until her eyelids kept flickering closed before she opened them again with a jerk from her body that made her clench her teeth. He couldn't imagine that she wasn't in a great deal of pain. He let go of her arm, just in case he was hurting her in the slightest way.

"It would probably be a good idea to sleep some more," he told her. "Until someone brings you breakfast, or Katara comes to heal you."

Song yawned and nodded. "Okay," she said. "Are you going to stay with me?"