milliways_bar | Lake Party Water Post Day Two

"Rust?"

Yeah, he feels rusted, like there's something wearing dull the sharp blade of his spirit. That is something he can certainly empathize with.

He looks skyward at the sun -- blazing bright, the light that's part of his heritage, and then away.

There is no good answer for her.

She wasn't looking for one.

"Yeah, rust."

And she is silent, watching the dogs, but not him - never him.

"So when you tell me that I hate you, when you don't believe that I don't... just realize that... I can't see the iron. Just the rust. And... yeah, I hate that."

"You won't like the iron. It's too complex," he says. "You're like Makita-- you're going to want things simple. Her people good, the other people bad. Freedom good, fighting to reclaim what you think is yours, bad." He shrugs, and then says, "I -- don't blame her. But it's a simple, unthoughtful view. There's always more to a conflict then simple good and evil, or your side and their side."

He does not like philosophizing. Living with Iroh, however, has made him terribly good at it in his own way.

She makes a noise - frustration, exasperation, irritation, something - and only crosses her arms a little tighter around herself.

"Unthoughtful... you know what, Zuko? No matter how brilliant and learned you think you are, you're too complex. I might not have as much rust as you do but you can't see nearly as much of the iron as you've always thought you could."

To think, by this point, he thought she still saw in black and white, not shades of grey.

Zuko snorts softly. "It's not that I can't. It's that I won't." He admits to willful ignorance. "Seeing a person for a person-- has only gotten me disgrace and shame. EVerytime you say you see only peasants or people are numbers and pieces on a board -- you think I'm my father," he says.

And he's not.

He's not at all. He doesn't even want to be. He just wants to return home and be loved. Is that so wrong?

"Because you never argue it in a way that convinces me," she replies, voice soft but strong, and now she's starting to get irritated. How many times have they gone over these questions, these thoughts? When has it gotten them anywhere but louder fights?

"You can say the words as much as you want, but the fact is, you treat people like they're beneath you, like they're pieces on a board. And every time I see you start to turn around, start to treat someone like an equal, like someone who's worthy, I watch you break it into a thousand pieces, too - all on your own."

There is one convincing arguement. It's all over his face-- but those words are locked in his throat. He will not explain his dishonor to her. He did it for Wells, because Wells was a good man, a soldier, someone of honor.

She can't begin to understand! Katara'd find a way to devalue that, or put it in the hands of her precious Avatar.

The dogs paddle over to Zuko, because they know the smell of his grief and his hurt, and they know when he stands straight like that he is not happy. But at the same time, they are uncertain; they duck heads, approach low; pups to an alpha, and he sighs, turns and squats down. Belly rubs are in order, through soggy, matted fur, as they roll.

"You can't understand my reasons," he says, " And I won't tell you my secrets and make myself vulnerable to you. I have done it too much here -- doing it to someone who can walk into my world, and-- make it worse? The Earth Kingdom already spits on me. Why should I give you more reason?"

"I've never asked you to."

That's the clincher - no matter how close he came to her here, through her friends, through people she considered family, she never asked him to explain himself to her. She took those she trusted at their word - that he was good, that she didn't see the good in him like they did.

She watched him make them eat those words, felt hollow and empty when friends hurt by him apologized for not believing her.

"I never asked what your reasons were, I never sked you to be vulnerable, I never asked for your secrets - if you don't want to tell me, fine, that's your business! You're the one who brings it up, like I'm some evil jerk that's trying to get you to tell me everything so I can ruin you at home!"

The dogs come up and she lowers her voice, calms and softens it-- but there is still anger there, still frustration.

"I never asked you about Steph - you dragged me to that fire world and made me talk to you. So I figure if there's ever anything you want to tell me, you'll find a way to do it. Whether I want to listen or not."

"I asked you about her. That wasn't about me. I just--"

Couldn't get the answer from Steph and -- and -- yes, that blew up in his face. For precisely that reason. He was vulnerable to her.

He loved her.

"You don't have to try and ruin me," he points out. "I'm already there."

There's-- less spark there, less fight, the more he talks. More a dull burn, embers that sometimes pop, but ultimately, have no thing but the noise. The fight isn't gone, but...

The rust is eating through the iron.

"It was about you! You knew I wouldn't want to talk to you and you dragged me off, knowing that I was going to scream and yell at you because that's what we do to each other!"

But-- he's getting quiet and somber and dull, yes.

"You're only ruined because you won't let anyone help you."

Of course, the iron can't turn away the person that offers to clean the rust. But that's why it's a metaphor.

This is real.

"You can't help me," he retorts without energy. "To do that you'd have to give up your own mission, and you won't."

And honestly? At this point, he'd never ask. It'd be as insulting as asking him to lay down and give up... like his uncle often does.

"Zuko, that you think I'm talking about me helping you, while we're in Milliways, with all these people," she waves her arm out over the expanse of the lake - Wells was here once, and Steph, Rachel had passed through, and perhaps even Hephaestus had enjoyed the sun at one point...

This is home to his friends, his allies, the greatest collection of people who love him. And he thinks she is offering her help.

He flinches, and looks away.

"My problems-- my world is not theirs. I can't -- ask anymore then I already have," he says lowly. He's already too weak. He can't ask anymore.

Idiot, isn't he?

Yes.

Scowling, Katara isn't thinking of Zuko - she's thinking of all those people who have passed under the sun, who have taken a chance and cared about him.

Wasted their cares.

"Then you're putting the rust there all on your own," she snaps, turning from him finally to walk away.

Maybe there had been someone to blame in the past, but now? It's all on him.

"I've already taken too much," he says. "I-- can't take everything that's offer without something to give back."

He honestly doesn't understand unconditional love.

But he doesn't stop her. He just lets the dogs paddle up, and flop beside him. They make for good, soggy cuddles. Not that he needs one. Never.

Right. What he needs is tough love, hard blows and sharper tongues.

Isn't that lucky? Since Katara's coming back to yell at him.

"You're just-- you're so--" She struggles for words, turned back toward him, hands up and fisted, brain not working and she's so angry at him and so-- tired of being angry at the same time.

"Sometimes people just love you and the worst thing you can do, the most ungrateful, cruel, thoughtless, selfish think you can do is ignore that love and treat it like something to be paid back with something other than loving them back!"

Zuko flinches, blinking up at her with a -- bewildered look.

He-- seriously doesn't get it. Everything demands a payment, doesn't it? He's never gotten anything for free. Not in a long, long time.

"That's not enough," he says quietly. "If it was, I'd be home."

If it was just enough to love his father, to try hard in his name, to love his people... he wouldn't be here. He'd be home, they'd be happy, and... and that'd be perfect and good, wouldn't it?

But it doesn't work that way.

Not for Zuko.

"It is enough, so long as--"

Someone loves you back.

But even Katara really just can't-- quite-- say that. Not to Zuko, not to anyone.

"...You're too obsessed with home as a place," Katara says quietly after a very long moment, her gaze down on the grass rather than him, the dogs, the people around them-- everything. "You're ignoring all the other things that make a home a home."

"That's where my family is," Zuko says sharply, an edge of desperation there. "THey're waiting for me." Waiting for him to fail, so they can forget him.

"That's why it's home."

They're not a real family. They can't be.

Look at his sister, look at how she hit his uncle, without a moment's thought. Automatic.

Katara just looks at the grond-- but her gaze rises a moment later, without pity.

Just intense sadness.

"...they're not your only family."

The tribe was her family, but so were Sokka and Aang and Toph-- and Steph and Jet. She had several homes.

Why couldn't he?

"Wells has his own children. So did uncle," Zuko says, his jaw set. "I'm not their son; Phillipia isn't my sister -- Azula is. Susan is not my niece. They-- it-- Uncle was never home when I was small. I didn't meet Wells till last year. It is not the same."

He doesn't like that look on her face. He can't stand the sticky feeling of pity.

"You think blood means everything? --No, don't answer that," she sighs and crosses her arms over her belly, looking away from him and back toward the water. "Of course you do. A family isn't a family without blood to tie them to it - born a family, born a prince...

"All that bullbearshit."

"The alternative--"

The alternate is too horrible to contemplate.

"The alternative means I'm nothing. Lower then trash. We burn our trash, you stupid-- miserable--"

He'll turn his rage on her, if she lets him.

"Right. The alternative that someone who isn't related to you by blood, that someone who has no obligation to feel anything for you would fall in love with you... that would never happen.

"Except that it did, over and over again in this place, and because you're stupid you had to make everyone miserable!"

"I have to go ack to where I belong! To my obligations! I will not be a bad son!" Even to a worthless father. "If they can't understand that--"

Then do they really love him?

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