It hurt. Hearing him talk. Making her remember her life before.

It hurt.

She hugged her knees to her chest, her head falling against them, his words stabbing into her mind like serrated knives, her chest aching painfully as memories of a loving family long gone flashed through her.

"You're a terrible person!" That much she already knew, and the tears fell before she had time to push them away. She was terrible because she was pathetic, because she was weak, because she was worthless. The words kept coming, reopening the half-healed wounds she had so desperately tried to lose.

"I lost my mother to the Fire Nation. And here you are trying to take my friend away." She was standing now, facing him, hands aflame. The tears made her vision blurry distorting how his bright blue eyes widened in shock.

"Do you think you're the only one who's lost someone important to you!?" She yelled, and he took a step back, too baffled to speak. It finally stopped the horrible words, but it was the painful silence that broke her. She crumpled to the ground, wiping away the endless streams of tears, trying to hide away from those years of the agonizing endurance trial she called childhood. Awful sobs racked her body, tearing through her chest only to leave behind a searing bout of pain she hadn't felt since her mother disappeared, since her dear cousin died, since she felt the rejections from the people she had once tried to protect.

Then he was there, all around her, holding her as she dissolved into his comforting embrace. His presence calmed her shatter nerves, pulling the pieces of her being back together, taking away the ugly emotions that plagued her mind. Gentle fingers wiped away the water droplets clinging to her face, and the tears finally stopped flowing.

Blissful numbness followed after as she lay slumped against him, her head warm and muddled while his cool hands lightly delved through her thick black tresses, electrifying tingles shuddering down her spine as they wandered lower to rest at the small of her back.

"I'm sorry." Came her soft whisper, brushing against the skin of his neck like the wingbeat of a butterfly-moth. It was the simple truth. She sighed quietly and he did too as the moment faded into a sweeter sort of silence. She smiled, pressing her face into the soft fabric of his blue tunic, her hands splayed across his shoulders as he gently lay his head upon her own.

"I'm sorry too."

I don't know where this came from...but I think it's...weird.