I stare around me at the barren landscape, wishing for some water. It's not that it's ugly or that there's nothing here. It's just... so uniform. It never changes. The little hillocks, the tiny, scrubby bushes and pointy brown trees, and the total lack of water, everywhere.

In the air. In the ground. In the plants.

In me.

My mouth feels like it's swelled to twice its size; we haven't come upon a stream or anything in hours, and our canteens are empty. Zuko walks beside me, head down. His straw hat shades my face from the sun, and he's tied the wedding robe around his head like a turban.

His shoulders are hunched, his amber gaze fixed on the rocky brown horizon. I put a hand on his arm, say his name softly. Then, again, louder, even though it's hard to talk and my voice is barely recognizable.

"Zuko."

He stops, turns to me.

"Here." I pull his hat off me and push it into his hands. "You need this more than I do. You're starting to get a tan!"

He smiles at me, just barely lifting one side of his mouth. "That's a bad thing?" His voice is as thick as mine, but it feels good to hear another person speak. Especially him- he's been so quiet these last few days.

I eye him, pretending a light mood that I don't feel. "I said tan... I meant that you're getting cooked but you're not actually turning brown. You're glowing. And not in the good way!"

I scrub at my arm, frowning in concentration, then push my arm onto his skin and rub. He looks at me like I'm crazy.

"Uh.. Kara? Are you okay?" I look up at him, dead serious.

"I was trying to give you some of my brownness, but it isn't working. You're just not meant to be brown! Or red, for that matter. Seriously, take the hat. I don't need it."

"Just because you're brown doesn't mean you won't burn. Trust me, you need it." I roll my eyes.

"Come on, hotshot, just take it! Please, for my peace of mind?" I smile at him and bat my eyes. He eyes me.

"You know that doesn't work on me, right?"

I just smile wider, because as he says this he's taking off his robe/turban and handing it to me. And he puts on the straw hat.

He helps me tie the turban over my sun-baked hair, muttering slightly. I elbow him in the ribs and he half grunts, half laughs.

He tugs on a lock of chocolate brown hair that has come undone from my careful braid, and then wipes at my face. I frown at him.

"What?"

He smiles. "There was dirt on your face."

I glare at him. "Well why don't you tell me when you see a river, and I'll be sure to take a bath so I don't offend Your High and Mightiness." Zuko just laughs and slides his hand into mine. My heart beats faster and I can feel my palms start to sweat. I close my eyes for a moment, hoping he won't notice.

Ever since the cave, Zuko and I have put our differences behind us. I'm still a little uncertain around him- it's always in the back of my mind that he is a firebender, so he's unpredictable and volatile. And I know I've hurt him with some of the things I've said- I can't just forget that. Or the fact that we're married. That is a glaring reminder every day.

I like Zuko, I do. But he is my husband, and that is too much. Too much to process, to much to understand.

So I just try to be his friend, and it works. We get along a lot better, and it's- again- as if I've known him forever.

But as for a relationship... I've avoided it the couple of times he's tried to bring it up. Thankfully he's stopped pushing it. I just don't know if I'm ready for that.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I like it- a lot- when he kisses me. But it all comes back to the fact that I have no idea who I am.

So how can I be with him, no matter how much I like him, when I'm not sure that I don't have someone out there waiting for me?

Of course, if I did, wouldn't they have come looking for me? How can I pretend that I have someone when it's obvious that no one cared enough about me to try and find me, to try and discover why I disappeared?

Or maybe there just wasn't anyone there to care. Maybe I've always been alone. Zuko nudges me.

"Hey."

I smile up at him. "Hey."

"You okay?"

I nod. "Yeah. It's just..." I'm not sure what to say; I don't want him to know what I'm thinking, not yet. Maybe not ever. So I change the subject.

"Are we ever going to get out of all this brown? Where even are we?"

He eyes me for a moment, and I know that he's seen through me. But I ignore that. He shakes his head, but he pulls out the map.

He puts a finger on Omashu, then moves it north, to the place marked Cave of Two Lovers. Then he moves his finger east, the direction we've been traveling for the past week. Behind us, Zuko's ostrich horse- whom I've named Beak because I'm tired of thinking of him as 'the ostrich horse'- pushes against my shoulder.

I rub his beak and push him back, peering over Zuko's arm to see the map better. Zuko glances at the sun, then back down at the map. He puts his finger about a half an inch from a little black dot marked 'Si Wong Desert'.

"Here... I think."

I sigh, studying the map. We still want to go to Ba Sing Se, but neither of us wants to go all the way around, over the Great Rivers, and through all that blank territory on the map. We don't know if there's anything there, or if the map maker just didn't travel that far north, or what. But neither of us wants to risk it, so we decided to try the ferry regardless of the passport problem. We'll see if we can't convince them to let us on, or just stow away.

But the ferry isn't on the map, and the only thing I know for sure is that it's in a cave near- or maybe even in- Chameleon Bay.

Which doesn't help us. At all.

So we're traveling roughly in that direction, hoping to come across an unmarked town along the way.

We're out of food and water, and I'm almost out of patience. If I didn't have Zuko to keep me sane, I don't know what I'd do. Zuko sighs and rolls the map up.

"Maybe there'll be a town or something in this desert. Obviously someone's been fairly far into it, so there should be some sort of trading post. And I think I remember hearing something about a tribe that travels the desert- sandbenders, I think they're called. Maybe they'll help us."

I just nod. I can't talk anymore- my throat feels like there are thousand fire-bees swarming through it. And I know that Zuko can't be faring much better.

He returns the map to his bag, and takes my hand. Like it's nothing.

Like it's normal for him to hold my hand as we walk, leading Beak along behind us. Like- like my hand belongs in his.

My palms start sweating again as I follow him, walking close because of our linked hands.

But even though my heart is beating hard in my chest and I'm almost unbearably aware of his warm hand in mine, of him walking so close to me, I don't let go.

I honestly don't think I could, even if I wanted to.

__________

Soooo. Can anyone see where this is going yet? :P Lol, enjoy, COMMENT, and love it, y'all.

-Eon