It had been three days since they'd formed their tentative truce. During the day she no longer made cruel comments, and he tried harder to control his temper. It was a work in progress, there was no instant success in their attempts to understand each other.

And trying to understand her nearly drove him mad.

Since they'd reached their unspoken agreement she'd appeared regularly at his moonlit meditations. He'd been ready to get angry, to yell at her and tell her that she was distracting to him, but he found that she could be just as silent as he could. She could concentrate and sit quietly and think alongside him and never break his own concentration. It had surprised him that she could be so calming. And it confused him.

He started watching her during the day, trying to figure out how she worked, why she did the things she did. No matter how hard he tried to figure it out he couldn't understand what drove her, what made her care so much. Because she didn't care about things he easily understood. She cared about everyone, even if she sometimes showed it in…interesting ways. He was sure that smacking her brother with a spoon was some kind of sign of affection.

With his sister it probably would have been a blade. Sokka was a lucky man to have such a loving sister.

Her purpose though…he couldn't figure it out. It grew to almost an obsession for him, and one night he couldn't stand it any longer. "I don't understand."

"What?" He'd spoken out of nowhere. She looked up from her silent thoughts next to him and stared at him quizzically.

"I don't understand why you…do all the…things you do." He cursed himself. That certainly hadn't come out the way he meant it to. "That is…I…uh…," he trailed off and stared at his hands in his lap.

Her light laughter made him look up. It was the first time she'd laughed at him without a hint of cruelty in her tone and he found himself liking the sound more than he thought he ought to. Sparkling blue eyes met his as he glanced up at her, then back down quickly.

"You know, for a prince you're surprisingly bad at making speeches." Her tone still bubbled with laughter and he flushed a brighter red. In a gentler voice she said, "But I can't say I understand you either. You're so...frustrating sometimes."

"Frustrating?" He frowned quizzically. That hadn't been what he was expecting. Annoying, persistant, maybe even mean or cruel (although he hoped not), but not frustrating.

She hesitated. When she finally spoke her words came out slowly as she tried to find the best way to phrase her thoughts. "Traveling with Aang it's hard not to see the good in everyone, but for a long time I don't think any of us but him saw it in you. Then you...shared your story with me and I understood for a moment. But you turned around and went straight back to them." She didn't look at him as she spoke.

He resisted the urge to reach out to her, to reassure her that he had changed now and all he wanted was to be part of their group and be accepted. He stared at her and tried to find the words to convey what he wanted her to know. "I...the only thing that was driving me was the need to regain my honor. For three years that's all I knew." He looked away from her as the shame came back to him. "But it wasn't my honor that I'd lost. It was my home and the acceptance of my family – my family who never wanted me back anyway. Azula...she offered that to me in Ba Sing Se. And I thought I had all I wanted again."

A soft hand on his arm made him start and look at her again. Blue eyes full of what he wanted most. Understanding, acceptance, all the things his father never gave to him. "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"No." He shook his head. "I don't deserve it. You had every right to not accept me. I understand."

She smiled and he felt strange, like his stomach was full of butterflies. "I guess you do understand me after all." Her hand ghosted up to gently touch his scar and he stared at her in shock. "I won't let anyone hurt my family. And you're part of that now."

Her cheeks flushed and her hand dropped from his face. She turned back to the night sky and didn't turn to look at him again. He took a shaky breath and tried to concentrate on his meditation, but found that he couldn't stop thinking about the girl next to him.

A/N

So...not a one-shot? Ok, sounds good?