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Chapter Text

ZW 2008 Day 1: Denim

Duh, By Nim, Branch of Sokka Designs, Inc.

"Sokka, how long do I have to stand here?"

Sokka declines to dignify the question with a response, though if Katara focuses long enough, he believes she might get the impression that she'll be standing there as long as it suits him. Although, he muses to himself, given her naturally lower intellect, she might not pick up on it right away. Poor baby sister.

Even his greatest detractors cannot deny that Sokka has a certain eye for style, not even Toph, who readily admits that his bag did very nicely match his belt back in her Earth Rumble days. Sokka isn't sure why making that statement sent her into uproarious laughter, but he can't help but feel that she's making some joke at his expense. No matter. The bag did match the belt, and everybody knows it.

And so it happens that he and Katara are standing in a seamstress's shop in the Fire Nation. Katara is his lovely assistant-slash-model, and Aang, out of the goodness of his heart, is out front distracting the seamstress while Sokka works. Contrary to Katara's suggestion, Sokka most certainly is not stealing anything. Not her fabric, not her needles, not her space. It's just borrowing, and there's no reason the girl couldn't be there except that Aang's arrow is just so darn fascinating, isn't it, Katara?

Katara makes a face that reminds Sokka that his baby sister's boyfriend hasn't exactly fascinated her lately (if you ask Sokka, that's just swell) and she hasn't been much on the boy's brain either (that also suits Sokka just fine). With that happy thought, it doesn't take him long to finish the last touches on these pants he's made, just in time for the seamstress to walk in and start screeching at the mess Sokka's made of her shop.

"Run!" Aang, all-powerful Avatar, bender of four elements, bolts. Sokka and Katara exchange a glance. Even Uncle Iroh on cactus juice would be more frightening than whatever awful noise this woman is making. Katara does her thing and Sokka does his (which, roughly translated, means that Katara offers compensation and hugs while Sokka plans several methods of escape should there be any booby traps on the way out). They make it out relatively unscathed, though Katara has given up the silk skirt she was borrowing from the palace in exchange for Sokka's project. Aang, hiding in the bushes outside the shop, grabs both of them and hauls them toward the palace.

"Aang, it's okay," Katara begins.

"Katara did her magic people thing. We're all good!" With that, Aang stops running and turns to face them just as they reach the palace gates.

"You mean she's not going to send pirates or archers after us? Great!"

It's clear to the Water Tribe siblings then that Aang has spent far too much time running from his enemies and not enough time making friends (go figure, since he spent too much time making friends and goofing around during the war, didn't he?).

They enter the palace far more sedately than they arrived. "I need a name." Sokka strokes his imaginary beard and narrows his eyes at nothing.

"For what, Sokka?" Aang is bouncing around him like Momo around a peach.

"Hey, back off, buddy."

"Sorry. Just excited I guess." Sokka briefly wonders whether Aang has gotten into the cactus juice.

Sokka pats Aang's shoulder and turns to Katara, crossing his arms and looking her up and down. "Hmmmm…"

"Sokka, we shouldn't be just standing here in the middle of the hallway."

"We're not going anywhere until I have a name, Katara."

"Whatever you say, oh great heong-nim." Katara makes an exaggerated bow as she smiles through the ancient honorific.

"Wow Sokka. You must be pretty great." There's not a trace of sarcasm in Aang's words, and now Sokka is suspicious. Still, far be it from him to deny himself praise just because the source seems a bit off.

"Duh, Aang. I'm the esteemed older brother. Katara just never remembers." He flashes his sister a toothy grin. Said sister rolls her eyes. "Wait! That's it! I'll call them duh-nims. Then when people ask Katara what she's wearing she'll think of me. Get it? Like, duh, my brother made them?"

"Way to go, Sokka." Sokka does hear sarcasm from his sister, so he figures he should go ahead with the name.

"Has anybody seen Aang?" Zuko's voice echoes into the area, and Zuko himself immediately follows. "I was tired of him bugging me so I let him drink wine with his lunch-- oh, there you are."

"Hey Zuko." Sokka scurries to his friend's side and slings an arm around his shoulders. "Check out my latest invention." He gestures at Katara, who scoffs and turns in a circle. "I'm calling them duh-nims. Get it? Because nim is that old word for brother and duh, I made them."

"That's great, Sokka." Sokka notices that Zuko seems dismissive. He'd be wounded, but Zuko's eyes are glued to the tight pants, which, in retrospect, maybe are too tight. Then it occurs to Sokka that maybe Zuko isn't really admiring the pants at all (suspicion confirmed when Katara turns a light shade of red).

Sokka's only venture into the fashion world after this is his foray into Katara's closet to burn the pants. Much to his dismay, that doesn't stop Zuko from staring at his sister, and it doesn't stop Aang and Katara from breaking up (sweet, harmless Aang, no, why why why would you let the wine talk about how you disapprove of Water Tribe meat eating culture). His brotherly instincts tell Sokka he's created a monster. He knows it when he walks in on Zuko kissing his baby sister in the garden. Naturally, he sneak attacks.

He tells himself the incident would have happened with or without his help. It's probably true, but even if it isn't, saying so helps Sokka sleep at night, and sometimes that's all a big brother can ask for from the universe.

Chapter Text

It was just one of those things, a fleeting moment. You wouldn't remember. I walked into Bumi's ballroom with Aang, close enough to him that everybody would know I was with him; far enough that nobody would think we were together. That was before we all met at your uncle's tea shop, at the party Bumi threw for the end of the war.

You were with Mai. I remember she was dressed in black and red, and you were too. She was beautiful that night, with her shining hair down around her face, and you were looking pretty good yourself. I told you that much, though you likely don't remember any of that either. I remember the man standing next to you, though I haven't seen him since, because he complimented my hair, and I remember how you were fidgeting with the heavy robes that you weren't quite used to. I remember everything.

You had been sitting at a table near the entrance, and you stood when we came in. A rare smile spread across your face. It was one of those smiles you're always trying to hide, like you don't want anyone to think you less than perfectly stoic, fully controlled. Mai spared you a glance as you stood, but quickly returned her attention to Ty Lee, and you walked over to us, and you greeted Aang and then turned to me. You told me I looked nice, and that was the part when I said that you looked pretty good yourself, of course, and then you extended your arm, as if you were going to clasp mine in the traditional Water Tribe greeting. I was surprised since you so much prefer to bow, but I took your arm.

Time stopped.

One breath, and we were the only people in the room. Your hand was warm and you gripped my arm like you never wanted to let go, and for that breath I thought I saw your eyes sparkle. I couldn't move, and had you spoken I couldn't have replied. You felt like lightning. The next breath came and the moment was gone. We were two friends in a room full of acquaintances again, and I remember realizing we'd held on just a second too long with smiles just a bit too wide. I pulled my arm out of your grasp, and you seemed to come back to yourself. Moving to the side, you made a bad joke (or made a joke badly, I suppose) and I laughed, like always. Like always, you returned to Mai and I to Aang, and everything fell into place. Sometimes I'm tempted to dismiss this entirely, to ignore it, to think I'm reading too much into it. But that's not possible.

We haven't touched since. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I like to think you must have felt it too or we wouldn't dance around each other like butterflies in the wind. You just look so awkward, waving goodbye to me when we're standing less than three feet from each other, so sometimes I wonder what would happen if I hugged you instead. It would be like lightning striking the lightning rod, I think, and that's why we'll never touch again. I might fall for you, and the only thing that comes from a falling lightning rod is a house fire.

Maybe, on second thought, you do remember. I wish you'd forget, that you'd let me keep this moment a secret close to my heart and nobody would ever have to know. But then I see you smile and I can't help wishing that a little less.

Chapter Text

The trap is set. They've stuffed grass and Appa's fur into their bedrolls, put what food won't be missed too badly in bags, and disappeared into the trees. Zuko has been slipping away for days to find a place Toph can't see, and Katara has made enough meals to get the group through three days without her there to cook. They're leaving tonight, Zuko tells her. This is the last chance they'll have before the comet comes, and they take it. It's almost too easy.

**

"Has anyone seen Zuko?" Aang rubs his eyes as he comes around the corner of the beach house. "He's not in the courtyard."

Sokka shifts in his sleeping bag on the beach, grumbling. "What do you need him so early for?"

"Usually he makes me do breathing exercises at dawn."

Snuggling deeper into his sleeping bag, Sokka waves a hand at his friend. "Ask Katara." The top of his head pokes back above the white fur. "Also, ask her if there's any meat for breakfast."

As Sokka disappears again, Aang squints into the rising sun and tries to decide whether it's really worth trekking all the way back to the beach house, finding out where Zuko is, finding Zuko, and then having to do his breathing exercises. Aang decides today is a good day for a day off. After all, what better way to end a night of camping under the stars?

"Hey, Airhead! Meat!"

On the other hand, he has to go to the kitchen for Katara anyway.

By the time Aang makes it back to the beach, white-faced and nearly trembling, Toph is awake and screaming bloody murder at the Sokka-shaped lump in the sand. Suki is watching the whole thing with a look that walks a thin line between horror and amusement.

"Snoozles! Did you put these shoes on my feet?" That much Aang could hear from the beach house. He knows whatever follows can't be good, but he's fairly certain she thinks Sokka has played some prank. Aang knows better, though, because then Sokka also would have had to leave this note, and even Sokka isn't that cruel.

"Guys," Aang begins, approaching Toph and the cowering lump. "Katara and Zuko are gone."

Toph snorts. "Yeah, we know Twinkle Toes. Suki found Katara's sleeping bag full of weeds."

"What about Zuko's?" Aang is doubly worried now. If they'd bothered to cover their tracks (and Toph's feet), they must have been serious. This concerns him in a way he's not used to.

Suki lifts a pile of red blankets and white fur tumbles out. "He and Katara must have gone together."

Aang holds out the note he found in the kitchen. Sokka springs from the ground and snatches it. " 'Dear Toph, Suki, and Aang' hey what about me?"

"Just keep reading, Sokka." Suki steps behind her boyfriend and looks over his shoulder.

"Fine. 'Dear Toph, Suki, and Aang' and Sokka, 'Zuko and I went to do some reconnaissance. We'll be back in three days. Love, Katara.'" Sokka collapses onto his knees and grabs his hair. "I knew it was only a matter of time! Zuko's kidnapped my sister!"

Aang turns away from the group and mutters, "They probably ran away to be together."

"Okay Twinkletoes," Toph snaps. "We get that you're still a little sensitive after the play the other night. Get over it."

"Besides, Aang," Suki puts in, "Zuko's been scouting the island for days. If he wanted to go further, it makes sense to bring someone else along."

This doesn't seem to help Aang much, but Sokka embraces Suki's theory like it's his lost sister come back to him. Or meat. The two are fairly interchangeable (at least at breakfast time). Toph blows her hair out of her eyes. "You knew he was running off too? Sparky's not as good as he thinks he is."

Sokka barks a laugh and returns to the letter. " 'Aang, do one hundred hot squats every time you hear a badger frog. Zuko.' Aang, you better get on that." Sokka grins. "Oooh! Finally! Somebody cares about me. 'Sokka, it's not what you think. Katara.'"

Sokka narrows his eyes at the paper. Suki beats him to the question. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Sokka's eyes narrow so much he's squinting at nothing. "If I thought Zuko kidnapped Katara, he must not have. Unless Zuko didn't expect me to think he kidnapped Katara because he's good now. Except Katara said it wasn't what I thought--"

"Shut up, Sokka." Toph snatches the paper from him and crumples it. "I think it's pretty obvious." Her smile turns devious. "Twinkletoes is on to something."

"Thanks Toph." Aang doesn't look especially thrilled to be right.

"No sweat, Twinkles."

Sokka, while slow to take the bait, eventually becomes so convicted that Zuko and Katara have run off on some last-minute romantic escapade that he bets Toph his entire secret stash of emergency copper coins and dried seal jerky that they've done just that. Suki tries to dissuade him for fear that Toph is in on some prank, and Aang tries to dissuade him for fear that it's true. Neither is successful.

By the time Katara and Zuko make it back, Aang has worked himself into a frenzy of firebending, hoping, by some strange logic unknown to everyone but the Very Innocent Party who gave him the idea (Toph), that if Katara realized he was a better firebender than Zuko, she'd leave Zuko for him.

It doesn't quite get him the results he was hoping for.

Zuko nods his approval as Aang finishes the most complicated and difficult form he'd been taught thus far, and Aang bows and collapses. Katara looks at them. "Zuko was right, Aang. Us disappearing for a few days was really good for your firebending. I owe you an apology, Zuko."

"And cash," Toph interjects.

Katara glares at her but produces the agreed upon sum. Zuko is all too happy to take it, and if his self-satisfaction gets any more irritating to Katara, he may find himself dying a mysterious death. "Don't be so smug, you firebending jerk!"

"You too, Sokka. Pay up!" Toph is nearly bubbling from ill-contained glee.

Sokka, grumbling, stomps to his room to find his coins. They're hidden under his mattress where no one can find them (or they would be, except Toph detected them weeks ago and they're quite safely hidden under her mattress now).

Toph and Zuko have themselves a congratulatory fist bump the next time Katara turns around.

Chapter Text

The former Fire Lord was an expert strategist, in his way. He didn't quite understand that ruling by fear only works until it doesn't, but there were few things he couldn't get an army to accomplish. Zuko respects this. Perhaps a bit begrudgingly, but he respects his father's skill nonetheless. What he has more difficulty respecting is the manipulation necessary to convince people to give their lives for a purpose that's dubious at best and evil at worst. Is it possible to respect something he disagrees with? Uncle would say yes. Katara might spout off on how horrible Ozai was, but he thinks she would have agreed with Uncle at the end of the day. He'll never know for sure, but it's a nice thought.

Zuko thinks he has too many thoughts these days. He shivers as a cold wind blows through his robes and clutches at his skin, but neither his eyes nor his thoughts leave the tiny dot on the horizon.

It was a year ago, 104 ASC, he remembers. Zuko swept into the throne room and faced his standing advisors, all of whom looked distinctly uncomfortable.

"Be seated." The men sat, and the Fire Lord's flames rose before him as he lowered himself onto his throne.

"Fire Lord Zuko," one began. "The council has heard rumors that your relationship with Lady Mai has ended."

"What Councilman Risu means to say," interrupted another, "is that the Fire Nation throne must have an heir, and we are aware that you are being rather slow about it."

Councilman Risu gasped loudly (Zuko briefly entertained the idea that the two rehearsed this before the meeting) and sputtered most indignantly about Councilman Shinobi's disrespect.

"Enough." Zuko stood and let the flames flicker higher. His voice didn't boom like his father's did, and while he's never sure whether or not to be grateful for one fewer similarity, he did feel less intimidating. It bothered him, and he thought Shinobi knew it. The man obviously had some old loyalties left. Probably one of Ozai's spies (how his father thought Zuko didn't know there were spies was a puzzle Zuko never had the energy to work out). "What do you suggest?"

The council nearly tripped over itself to present a plan that had obviously been carefully plotted earlier. Shinobi vehemently opposed it, along with most of the traditionalists, so Zuko felt it was safe to consider. It frustrated him that someone leaked it and incited the torching of the Water Tribe trading district in the city, but the idea and its supporters were sound.

~8~

Dear Zuko,

How nice of you to reassure me that you want to marry me, but you don't love me. I will, but only because if I don't, my father wants me to marry some stuck-up jerk from the Northern Tribe. At least you're just a jerk.

Your friend,

Katara.

Zuko wasn't sure whether to be gratified or offended by her response, but he met her at the docks anyway. He didn't love her; not the way she deserved, he thought at the time, but he thought a well-aimed fireball at the ranks of protesters wasn't entirely out of line. Katara disagreed, but he was only defending the honor of his intended. She had her flaws (a great many, at that), but she didn't deserve the vitriol from the people.

They walked around the caldera the next day, through angry civilians throwing rotten vegetables and glowering soldiers fingering their weapons.

He leaned against the wall that night as she scrubbed the scarlet tomato-squash stains from her blue dress. "Why did you agree to marry me?"

Katara gave him an odd look. "I never turn my back on people who need me. The Fire Nation needs me, even if they don't know it yet."

Zuko deflated a bit, though he couldn't have said why. The statement sounded rehearsed, but maybe it was just Katara's mantra getting old.

The palace was attacked the night they announced their engagement, and much of the city was burned. Zuko informed the council that Katara would be returning to the South Pole until things quiet down, and he was unsurprised when Shinobi weakly encouraged the plan while nearly bouncing in his seat. A poor actor, Shinobi.

"My Lord," Risu protested. "We need this alliance. We have to show the world that the Fire Nation can accept other nations."

"We will." Zuko glared at the councilman. "As soon as things cool down."

Somehow, thanks to Shinobi's long conversation with Katara about how beneficial it would be to the Fire Nation for her to leave, Katara refused to go. "Zuko, I'm not leaving. Not when we're so close."

"People are dying, Katara. My people. The traditionalists need time."

"How much time, Zuko? How long are you going to let them win?"

They were in his office, on opposite sides of the desk, and Zuko leaned over and stared into her eyes. "As long as it takes. The Fire Nation is proud and strong; people aren't going to change because we tell them to." Katara turned on her heel and walked out, as if to say that she could be just as proud as any stuck-up Fire Nation native and she refused to give up the alliance. The Southern Water Tribe was a minor nation, if you asked for Zuko's honest opinion (not that he'd ever tell Katara that), so he wasn't sure exactly why she was being so stubborn about it. He pushed those thoughts aside for the moment and turned to the white faced servant waiting next to the door. "What do you want?!"

The slums and servant's quarters burned that night. If Zuko hadn't felt so awful that the servant at his door had lost his family in the blaze, he'd have fired the man on the spot for spreading the news that Katara would stay. He should have, but they say everything's clearer in hindsight.

~8~

The longer Katara stayed, the worse things got. Zuko's nation was crumbling from the inside out as citizens created the civil war Zuko had avoided for four years. Brothers killed brothers, neighbors pillaged and looted, and Zuko found himself feeling more like a figurehead than a Fire Lord. Aang came and went, arguing and pleading for the Fire Nation to govern itself as a member of the Four Nations, but the people refused. Fire Nation flags flew on every home, the Avatar and his waterbending master were burned in effigy, and the Fire Lord was ignored. It was in these moments that Zuko was most tempted to seek the advice of his father, and it was in one of these moments when he realized Katara couldn't stay. Fire Lord Zuko had to be the leader of the Fire Nation first, and a leader of the global community second.

His speech to that effect was greeted with confused applause. Shinobi and Risu were beside themselves trying to pick up the pieces of what they thought they knew about Fire Lord Zuko, and somehow neither of them was particularly pleased with what they put together (which Zuko was curious about, given how happy they seemed to be during all of the rioting).

They were in his office again. Katara's things were packed on the ship, and she was dressed in the Water Tribe clothes she'd given up wearing months before. "Why did you agree to marry me?"

Her answer was what he expected, even if he might have secretly hoped for something else. "I thought you needed me." She looked at him in that strange way she had, and reached for his hand where it rested on the desk. "I thought the Fire Nation needed me too. But they don't, and they knew it before I did."

"I'll, um, miss you," he offered.

Katara smiled. "You're such a dork, Zuko."

He wasn't sure whether to be offended by the words or gratified by the smile, but he walked her to the docks anyway. At some point, it registered that his servant, the one he usually had by his office door to go for tea and ink, had left the room some time during the conversation, but he didn't think nearly enough of it until soldiers caught up to them.

"Fire Lord Zuko, the prisons are burning."

"My father?"

The soldiers visibly cringed, and Zuko braced himself. "Unaccounted for, sir."

Something moved and the soldiers moved and there were muffled shouts and screams but the only thing Zuko remembers now is the red spreading over blue, like an army conquering a foreign land. He put his hand around the dagger and pressed against the wound and looked into two shimmering blue eyes. "Katara! Katara!"

"Zuko, get me water." Her voice was weaker than he remembered it, but he wasn't really sure if it was her voice or his hearing that had a problem. He shouted something and it only took a few seconds for a soldier to bring water that Katara couldn't bend. She struggled to breathe as the red grew larger, and he thought he heard his name but he couldn't really be sure and her eyes weren't sparkling like they were supposed to and where was the healer? Hadn't he sent for one? He couldn't remember.

He felt her hand squeeze his. He didn't know how she'd found it, what with him holding her wound and giving her water and waving at swarms of people to get back, but she found it and looked at him, almost through him. "I'm sorry." Her voice was barely more than a whisper, and Zuko would have given anything in that moment to hear her screaming at him.

"Don't be sorry, Katara. It's not your fault. Katara?"

She wasn't listening.

~8~

He was guarding her body and scribbling messages to people he couldn't name when he heard the boom. His father's voice echoed over the scorched earth like a cannon, and Zuko knew it was lost.

"People of the Fire Nation."

And then there was nothing Zuko could do but watch as his father, defeated, former Fire Lord Ozai, stood high above the fray, calling the people to him. Risu and Shinobi bowed to him, as did the servant whose name Zuko knew he should have remembered. They stood at his side as Ozai ascended the steps to the palace, and they accepted their praise for infiltrating the government of the weak Prince. Zuko watched with detached horror as Risu and Shinobi bowed to each other, acknowledging the other's part, as if it were all a construct, as if Zuko was some puppet they'd manipulated for their own purpose. Zuko knew he had lost. He boarded Katara's ship, now her funeral barge, and slipped into the night.

And that, he remembers, is how he came to be standing on the frozen edge of the ocean in the Southern Water Tribe, shivering as he waits for the canoe on the horizon to disappear. Her father and her brother stand on either side of him, and he thinks he'd give just about anything for them to scream at him. Anything but the deafening silence. It's not his fault, they said, but their eyes tell a different story, a story of wounded men looking for an enemy to condemn or fight or anything but a friend who did his best.

Their voices forgive him and their silence damns him.

He'd like to blame his father, Ozai's skill, Ozai's manipulation, Ozai's evil, but he can't because he allowed it, ignored it, disrespected it. He trusted, tolerated, looked the other way, and it cost him. The woman he could have loved is dead. Innocent people are dead.

And the Fire Nation burns.

Chapter Text

"Tell me a story, Gran Gran."
 
Korra brushes her wrinkled hand across her granddaughter's forehead. "Promise you'll go to sleep after?"
 
Mako snorts in his armchair across the room, and Korra can't decide whether he's laughing at her or his snoring is getting worse. Aujaq giggles. "Promise."
 
"This is a story Master Katara told me a long time ago."
 
"Your waterbending teacher?"
 
Korra nods and makes a point to slouch and hobble into bed next to Aujaq. "It's even older than me."
 
Aujaq makes a face. "I'm pretty sure Gramp Gramp is the only thing older than you."
 
The Gramp Gramp in question lifts one bushy, white eyebrow at Korra, but the gold eye beneath shimmers with amusement. Korra chuckles. "This story is even older than Gramp Gramp. It tells us how the Poles were created." She closes her eyes, reaching into her memory for every detail, the way Katara told it. "A long time ago, the world was at war, and a waterbender hated a firebender."
 
"This doesn't sound like a very good story, Gran Gran." Aujaq has never had any qualms about speaking her mind before, and she's not about to start now. Korra suddenly has a great appreciation for Katara's patience. She's told Aujaq is very much her granddaughter. She rolls her eyes and shushes the girl.
 
"A long time ago, a waterbender hated a firebender."
 
.
.
.
 
She was strong and graceful, a mover of oceans and a bringer of rain. She was the storm.
 
He was fierce and lithe, dancing through the night with flames licking his steel blades. He was the fire.
 
She was rough, then smooth in an instant, violent one moment and peacemaker the next. She was the ocean.
 
He was noble, turned to raging warrior in a moment, silent, still, and suddenly bright and consuming. He was the sun.
 
She was blue. He was red. She hated him.
 
He stood for everything she fought, in everything from his haughty bearing to his hungry ambition, and he would betray her trust to feed himself. The firebender sought glory and honor at whatever cost, even if it meant the destruction of the world. His fire would spread and he would let it race across a desert dried of hope and dead from despair.
 
Except suddenly he comes to her, humbled. His eyes, once sharp and gleaming as steel have dulled to the glow of the hearth. He carries his weight with straight shoulders and a bowed head, as if to say that he still has some pride, or dignity, but he will no longer be proud. At the time, she maintains there's no difference. Her voice, once warm like the ocean caressing the beach, breaks like ice as she condemns him.
 
All ice must either melt or shatter, and the waterbender does some of both (mostly shatters). The Avatar comes, as is his duty, to make peace between the waterbender and the firebender, to no avail. He loves the waterbender, and he can't bear to break her because pieces glued together aren't the same as a whole. The trouble, of course, is that water constantly changes, and the water he had adored was already frozen away whether he saw it or not. The healer in her knows broken bones heal stronger, but the mediator in him knows sometimes it's better not to break the bone in the first place. In this case, the bone is rotting from the inside, and she turns away from the Avatar. She turns to the firebender and he lets her break (her bones, her being, whatever is necessary).
 
They go to the man who infected her, who taught her hatred in the first place. Her ice shatters around the villain and melts into the firebender, and somehow she becomes mostly water again, healed but no longer perfect. As the Avatar predicted.
 
She returns changed, water again instead of ice. But she's not the same water as before, more the ocean than the koi pond the Avatar knew. No longer the cool stream but now a boiling lake, heated by too much contact with the firebender she used to hate. It breaks the Avatar's heart, though it takes him many years to realize it. His cool water scalds him and he won't let go but so help him, he can't let go.
 
He came to make peace, and peace there will be. The waterbender boils in the presence of fire and the firebender fizzles near water, and the only way to stop it is to separate them, so the Avatar fights his battles and keeps the waterbender at his side. It works. Water cools and fire warms again, and there is no spitting or sputtering or noise for a time.
 
It doesn't take them long to find each other. They fit together like yin and yang, circling like Tui and La. Together, they become something entirely different from what they were apart, but they change as the Avatar feared, and the world can't have that. There must be peace, and if peace can only come from steadiness, so be it. There is no sacrifice too great. (Is there?)
 
The Avatar tears them apart, separating their persons and their elements, and now between them there's a gulf too large for floods to fill and a forest too great for fire to burn. Eventually, the two pass on, but their elements can never embrace again. The storms rage and howl, the fires crack and scorch, always burning and breaking and screaming. Sometimes one breaks through, but the fire is too great and the water spread too thin or the rain falls too strong and the flickering flames are too small, and the one puts out the other. And thus fire and water can never touch and come away the same as before.
 
The fire that warms the ocean can no longer touch it, and ice crystallizes where waves used to roll. Waterbenders congregate there first to practice their art and then to settle, but still the place is cold. Ice. Sun shines on it, sometimes, but it's a harsh light that cuts through the air and reflects off the mountains of frozen, glittering water. This chill begins at the ends of the world, the poles, and grows until it reaches land, never to be warm again.
 
That is why the ocean is cold.
.
.
.
"Gran Gran? I'm pretty sure the ocean is cold because of currents and the depth of the water."
 
Korra sighs. The young have no appreciation for mythology.

Chapter Text

Sokka groans at the squickiness of it all. Stupid Katara. Stupid Zuko. Stupid revenge.
 
Toph perches on the edge of the fountain. Her bangs fall over her face and she wiggles farther off the edge. "This sucks."
 
Sokka makes a face. "No kidding. I'm the one trying to scrub blood out of your clothes!" His voice cracks on the last word, and Toph snorts.
 
"At least you weren't walking around ALL DAY before some pebbles-for-brains told you that you had blood on your clothes the whole time!"
 
As the resident pebbles-for-brains, Sokka can only scrub harder in protest. It's true he ignored it all day, but Aang could have said something.
 
Toph interrupts his thoughts. "When's Suki getting back?"
 
"Fruit gathering is a delicate process, okay Toph?"
 
She blows her hair out of her face. "Delicate?" There's an edge of mockery to her voice that Sokka is none too pleased to hear.
 
He pouts. With everything he's doing for her she doesn't have to pick on him. "Look Toph, Suki will be back soon to deal with your--" he lifts one hand out of the water and gestures wildly. "--lady problems."
 
Toph crosses her arms over her chest violently. She's silent for a moment, brooding as hard as Zuko. "Don't you know anything about this?" she demands, glaring at him more intensely than a blind girl had any right to, in Sokka's humble opinion. "You have a sister."
 
"Hey, I stay faaaaar away from Katara when this happens, okay. It's not pretty."
 
"Snoozles, you know your voice cracks way too much for anybody to take you seriously, right?"
 
"I can be taken seriously!"
 
She snorts sharply. "Sure."
 
Satisfied that he's carried the day, Sokka returns to the bloody cloth. "Listen Toph. You know how Katara treats Zuko? Well that's how she treats everybody when it's…her time of the month. You've seen it."
 
Toph grumbles that she has.
 
"So I run for the hills. You're lucky I'm washing this." Sokka straightens his shoulders slightly with just a tinge of self-righteous pride. "You might not appreciate it right now, but I'm really being cool here." She does secretly appreciate it, he's certain.
 
"Whatever."
 
Or not.
 
"Anyway," Sokka resumes. "I learned to stay away a long time ago. Zuko hasn't been so lucky."
 
Toph perks up, and Sokka launches into the Vignette of Zuko's Humiliation (or so it's called in his diary. Not that he has one. It's a journal, thank you very much). Because Zuko is a stupid jerkbender who doesn't get how to treat a Water Tribe woman.
 
~
 
Zuko hasn't been in the group long, Sokka realizes one morning when he hears the yelling.
 
"I'm sorry! I thought you were hurt!"
 
"What, did you think I'd been stabbed?!"
 
"Well…" Zuko hesitates. "Yeah?"
 
"Ugh, Zuko, you're such an idiot!" Katara's screeching is getting closer, and Sokka burrows deeper into his sleeping bag. The sun isn't anywhere near the center of the sky, and he doesn't intend to see it until then.
 
"Look, there was blood everywhere and I just wanted to make sure you were okay!"
 
Katara scoffs and storms into camp. Aang lifts his head from Appa's back and rubs his eyes. "Katara, what happened?"
 
She's fuming, and Sokka, once he dares peek out from the safety of his sleeping bag, thinks he might be able to see smoke rolling from her ears. "He pulled me out of the water while I was bathing!"
 
Zuko objects that Katara was bleeding, and what was he supposed to do, anyway? Katara screeches that there wasn't that much blood, and he could have asked whether she was okay before he started getting grabby. Zuko sputters that he panicked, okay, to which Katara replies that maybe he shouldn't panic if he values his life.
 
Meanwhile, the gears are turning in Sokka's head. "YOU SAW MY SISTER NAKED?!"
 
Zuko's face flushes as scarlet as his robe. "I didn't see anything!"
 
Sokka explodes out of his sleeping bag and hurls his boomerang in the same fluid motion. That's how history will remember it, anyway (in truth, he caught one foot on the sleeping bag, flailed his arms, fell on his face, nearly cut his nose off with the edge of the boomerang, and stood up with blood trickling into one eye from a cut on his forehead. But nobody needs to find out about that. Ever).
 
The boomerang strikes Zuko solidly in the back of the head (never leaves Sokka's hand) and Zuko tumbles to the ground in a heap of agony (steps back ever so slightly). Sokka shouts that he'd better not come anywhere near his sister again (squawks incoherently), and Zuko runs for the hills (crosses his arms and glances at Katara warily).
 
Mission accomplished, Sokka returns to his sleeping bag and commences a long morning nap. Zuko very conscientiously avoids Katara for several weeks, and Katara avoids Zuko with a similar dedication (on top of her usual frostiness, it's tense for everyone).
 
And if nothing else, Zuko is beginning to understand that touching Katara for any reason, particularly to rescue her, will not do him any favors. No good deed goes unpunished, after all.

Chapter Text

It's a fairly well-known fact around the palace that Master Katara always waits in the Fire Lord's office in the morning. Fire Lord Zuko has come to expect her presence (mostly so he can mutter about the council), and so a few of the servants take it upon themselves to straighten up his office and set out tea before she arrives. Naturally, one of them is always stationed at the door after Fire Lord Zuko arrives in case of any bending emergency (usually involving Katara bending tea over the Fire Lord's head, but occasionally he sets his curtains ablaze). Or to eavesdrop. Probably more to eavesdrop.

Katara is fairly well aware by now that Zuko's custom, when he arrives for their morning tea, is to turn immediately to his reports and petitions. The first thing he mutters to her is usually some objection to some nonsense some idiot thought was a good idea. It requires self control she didn't know she had, but Katara manages, most of the time, to silently agree with him (or, rarely, raise her eyebrow in that motherly way Sokka despises). Servants have big mouths, and as the Water Tribe Ambassador she can't go running her mouth about sensitive subjects. Or that's how Toph put it when agreeing with Zuko about Katara's public image in the Fire Nation, anyway.

At any rate, Katara has learned to tolerate the stifling environment of politics, if only because Zuko fretted that if she didn't control herself, Toph certainly couldn't be expected to, and Toph was doing damage to his reputation as it was. So, these days they reserve their arguments for notes passed in meetings (always under the table, naturally).

Thus, as is her custom, Katara drags herself out of bed shortly before dawn and sleeps through some servant or other trying to contain her hair, which is a vain effort at best and a disaster at worst. The servant gives up just after the glow of sunrise grows into the bright morning light (conveniently, just after Zuko has finished his morning firebending in the courtyard, which is just as conveniently placed under her window. That servant has a particular fondness for doing Katara's hair in front of said window). Still drowsy, Katara heaves herself out of the chair and shuffles to her closet, pulling out the first robe she touches (the servants started noticing she'd wear the same thing every day, so now they have an official schedule for rotating Master Katara's closet. She always goes for the middle).

By the time she's dressed and ready to wander down to Zuko's office, Katara has largely come to grips with the morning. It occurs to her on the way past her mirror and out the door that this particular robe seems a bit tight, but she can't imagine Zuko will notice. And even if he did he wouldn't have the nerve to tell her she's wearing clothes that don't fit. Speaking of Zuko, she muses as she perches on his desk with her cup of tea, he's stomping loudly this morning. The Fire Lord bursts through the door with steam billowing out of his nose.

"Ambassador Ben Dan wants the Fire Nation to hand over some of its land to the Earth Kingdom as reparations. Like an island country can afford to give them land!" This is an opportunity Katara uses to laugh (politics, Katara, politics. No discussion allowed). The servants report that Master Katara finds the Fire Lord's consternation amusing (and they report it in precisely those terms, because servants in the palace pride themselves on their education).

Her laughter brings Zuko out of his rage long enough to glance at her, which is nothing out of the ordinary. Less ordinary is the way his eyes slowly sweep up once and down once, but his face is blank, as if he's entirely unaware of the way he's looking at her. Briefly self-conscious, Katara's eyes flicker down, and it occurs to her that this robe really is rather tight, and probably not in a bad way. She forces her gaze back up to his face and waits for him to finish his perusal. A perusal that's actually rather dishonorable, if Zuko had given it any thought. She's almost positive this is a good time to be offended, but she has a strange feeling that she doesn't mind. If she's honest, she almost likes it (and that has to stop immediately. Before things get awkward).

Zuko recovers himself just before the silence becomes uncomfortable and continues mumbling as if he'd never stopped, and the day goes on as usual.

An elderly servant grins later, when Katara is overthinking things down in the kitchen, and she winks. "Powder blue is a good color on you, Master Katara. It brings out your eyes."

Toph snorts loudly from her seat in front of the fire flake jar. "He wasn't looking at your eyes, Sugar Queen. Not that I'd know." She waves a hand in front of her own eyes and cracks a smile. Katara sighs loudly and glares (not that Toph can see it).

Meanwhile, Zuko spends the next week wondering why all of his servants seem to be laughing at him.

Chapter Text

Katara has never liked her nose. It's upturned, childishly so (or like a cowpig's, if you asked Sokka). It doesn't have the fierce bridge like her father's or the sloping of her mother's; no, her nose is a monstrous little thing (though she thinks she ought to be grateful it's not large). Gran Gran always reassures her it's a perfect Water Tribe nose, but Gran Gran's nose is like Hakoda's so Katara can't say she's convinced. Of course, she's also eight years old and not given to listen to her elders, but that's a minor detail.

"Your nose is fine, Katara." Her mother smooths her hair and smiles.

"But Mom," Katara groans with all the exaggerated misery an eight year-old can muster as she slouches against the mast of the Water Tribe ship. "What if Prince Zuko and Princess Arugula make fun of me?"

"Princess Azula," her mother corrects.

Katara wrinkles her nose, but suddenly seems to realize something and smooths her face. Kya looks at her daughter quizzically. "Sokka says if I make faces I could stick that way."

Kya sighs and adjusts Katara's hair again. "Your face won't stick that way, my love."

"Well Gran Gran says I could get wrinkles like hers."

Her mother can't help but think she has a very impressionable daughter.

***

They arrive at the palace just after sunrise the next morning. Prince Zuko, as it turns out, is a shy boy of ten who spends much of the introductions caught in indecision over whether to hide behind his mother's skirt or to stand up straight next to his father. Princess Azula, though younger, stands taller and prouder, though Kya thinks it's more performance than confidence and Hakoda, if anyone were to ask, would say she reminds him of Sokka when he wants something. Quite a kiss-up to her father, that girl.

Sokka thinks she's stuck up, but that's neither here nor there since it's only reasonable for him to associate with his fellow man doing manly things. He and Zuko, upon being released into the palace gardens with the girls, immediately tackle each other over whose nation is better.

"So Katara," Azula begins, perching herself on the edge of a fountain. "I heard you came here because the weak Water Tribes think they can't defeat the Fire Nation in battle."

Katara is deeply offended by the smirk curling Azula's lips. "No we're not!"

"Then why are you here?"

Katara frowns. "I don't know."

"You shouldn't make faces like that. It makes your nose look dumb." Azula's smirk lifts a bit higher, and she turns on one heel and stalks toward the palace, leaving Katara at the fountain and the boys in the courtyard. The smirk relaxes into a placid smile as she passes her mother, who sits with Kya on a bench beneath an old tree. Ursa eyes her daughter, as if she's suspicious but not entirely certain what she ought to be suspecting. "Hi Mom."

"Aren't you and Katara getting along?" Ursa reaches toward Azula, but the child edges just out of reach.

"Of course," Azula replies, in that sickeningly sweet tone she knows her mother won't argue with. "I was just going to the kitchens for some lychee nuts."

Ursa looks back to the fountain where Katara is still sitting, dragging one finger through the water. "Why don't the two of you go together?"

Azula shrugs, as if she'd not considered the idea. "It won't take long, Mom." And with that, she's gone like a shadow into darkness, and Ursa sighs heavily.

A shout echoes across the garden. "Katara! Come help me pin this Fire Nation jerk!"

Katara leaps from the fountain and runs to her brother. Ursa relaxes and Kya rolls her eyes. No one sees Azula until dinner.

***

"The roast duck is excellent, Fire Lord Ozai," Hakoda announces, digging into his meal not unlike General Iroh, who sits across from him at the long table shoveling the meat into his mouth with all his usual gusto.

Ozai raises his head deliberately and nods slightly. Iroh swallows and pats his rotund belly. "Roast duck is the pride of the Fire Nation, Chief Hakoda. I only wish we had better tea!"

Hakoda chuckles. "The Water Tribes have excellent arctic wine, but we've never had much tea."

"That's so sad," Iroh sniffles.

Ozai looks at his brother with contempt, and if Hakoda hadn't believed the rumors that the Fire Lord killed his father and usurped his brother's throne, he certainly does now. Azula puts her chopsticks down next to her plate. "Father?"

"Yes, Princess Azula."

"When will the other leaders arrive?"

"Tomorrow." Ozai sips his tea and looks at his daughter impassively before turning his attention back to his brother.

Azula smiles and looks at Katara. "The Avatar is coming," she whispers. "He's over a hundred years old."

"Silence, Princess Azula."

The girl snaps back into a perfect posture in her seat and picks up her chopsticks. "Yes, Father."

Katara looks between the princess and the Fire Lord. Her father has never spoken to her that way. But then, Azula doesn't seem to be upset and she did tease Katara about her nose earlier, so it isn't as though she didn't deserve it.

***

Avatar Aang is nothing like Katara expected. He is, he says, one hundred and six years young, and as far as Katara can tell he's an old bald man who likes to play tricks on dignitaries and hide in the garden with the children. She likes him right away. Azula is rather standoffish, and Zuko is nowhere to be found, but she and Sokka play hide and seek (hide and explode in the Fire Nation, but so long as Azula isn't going to play there's not much sense following her rules. Not that she's pleased by Sokka's declaration to that effect).

"Avatar Aang, will you tell me a story?" Sokka has tired of the game and gone to find Zuko (a futile effort, which partly explains why her brother is later found stealing komodo jerky from the kitchens). Azula scoffs and lights a flame in her palm which she stares at with an odd intensity. Katara ignores her friend, or whatever this strange girl is, and looks up at the Avatar.

"You can call me Aang," he says, and plops to the ground with a grace Katara has never seen in anyone this old. "What kind of story?"

"Hmmmmmm." Katara stares at the Avatar.

"Yes?"

"Tell me about how you defeated the Fire Nation attacks."

A dark look passes over the Avatar's face. He shouldn't tell her, not here, not when there are probably servants who will report his every word to the Fire Lord. "Another time, Katara. Want to hear about when I rode the elephant koi at Kyoshi Island?"

She beams at him, and he tells her about being eleven. Never mind what happened when he was twelve. The Fire Nation attacked and killed his people, and he's the only one left, and beyond that he has no interest in thinking about what happened so many years ago. Better to leave the past in the past. Isn't it?

Kya watches her daughter, enraptured by whatever the Avatar is saying to her. Ursa stands beside her, looking contemplative. "I wish things were different."�
"Your highness?" Kya looks at the other woman quickly, then turns back to the scene before her.

"I wish my husband's family were not responsible for so much destruction. I wish the world weren't so political, or that we could have a better peace." Ursa sighs heavily. "I almost married a peasant, a long time ago. We would have been happy."

It's the tone of an unhappy woman, a tone Kya knows all too well from her visits to the Northern Water Tribe, so full of tradition and loveless marriages and miserable families whose children hate each other and whose elders create a society so devoid of happiness it hurts to watch. And suddenly Kya hopes, more powerfully than she ever has, that her children will be permitted a simple life, even as she knows her eight year-old daughter is being bartered inside the palace. It is the first time that Kya wonders whether war would be better than this peace held together by long arguments or anxious arms races or ill-considered political marriages.

***

Zuko finds her hiding in the back of the palace, sitting under a clothesline that the maids have filled with wet laundry that blows in the wind and almost keeps her from view. It would have worked better if she were wearing red, but after a lifetime of Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee, Zuko knows better than to say so.

"I don't want to marry you."

Zuko stands perfectly straight next to her, looking down his nose at his betrothed (the word nauseates him a little, now that she mentions it). "Well I don't want to marry you either."

Katara's head jerks up. "Why not? Is there something wrong with me?"

Zuko jumps back, wide eyed and just a bit startled. "No! Of course not!"

"It's my nose, isn't it?" She sniffles and puts her chin in her hands.

Zuko cautiously steps closer. "Your nose is fine."

"No it's not. It's ugly."

Zuko frowns. Girls are crazy, and noses are by no means his area of expertise. "Girls are crazy."

Katara takes a halfhearted swing at him, and Zuko jumps back again. "Sokka says it's a cowpig nose and Azula thinks it looks funny!" Zuko stares down at her. As far as he can tell, it's a perfectly normal nose. She looks up at him again. "I wish I had a nose like yours."

"Like mine?" Zuko is stymied. He's never given his nose any thought.

"If I pinch my nose like this--" Katara pinches her nose as if she's about to jump into a river or the ocean, and her voice goes flat. Zuko can barely keep a straight face at the nasally tone. "Thenb by bnose looks finbe."

Zuko considers his betrothed (and he still hates that word) for a moment. He reaches up to the clothesline and pulls a pin off. "Here." Katara's eyes light up as she takes the clothespin from his hand, and she bounces up from the ground with an energy Zuko is not prepared for.

"Thanks Zuko!" She wraps her arms around him and puts the pin on her nose. "Thbis kinda hurts."

"Prince Zuko."

Katara gives him a look, and Zuko has a bad feeling he's going to be seeing a lot of that look in the future. "We can be friends if you want," she offers.''

Zuko supposes he doesn't have much to lose; he's never really had a friend before, unless you count Sokka, which he doesn't because Sokka gets a kick out of trying to beat him up (Zuko likes to think he's being noble by going easy on him). "Okay."

"You have to promise we'll be friends forever." Katara holds out the clothespin she's removed from her nose to make talking easier. "Swear on this clothespin. Put your hand on it."

Zuko reaches out to clasp her hand, the clothespin between them. "I swear."

***

As it turns out, Zuko's bad feeling is unfounded. The peace and the betrothal dissolve the following year when Avatar Aang dies, and the Fire Nation begins a campaign against the Water Tribes. The Southern Raiders attack Katara and Sokka's village when Katara is ten, looking for any last waterbenders, and Kya is killed because they aren't taking prisoners today. Katara and Sokka hide in an underground bunker with the village children, and Katara holds little Korra close to her as the villagers scream for mercy high above them. No Avatar is found, and the Fire Nation turns its attention to besieging the Northern Water Tribe.

But now the Southern Tribe is decimated, hungry, and angry. Katara has lost her mother. Her father abandons her to attack the people who took his wife. Sokka plays soldier. And Katara is tired, hungry, and angry.

Ozai sends the raiders to the south again, but they come up empty. Sozin's Comet comes and goes, and the Northern Water Tribe is melted into the sea. Princess Azula loses her mind and her long vanished mother appears to her in mirrors and windows. Prince Zuko follows the example of his mother and vanishes into the night, though there are rumors he's taken some of his father's best men with him and promised to stop this war, but those are just rumors. Rebels and pirates, Sokka and the warriors he trained among them, roam everywhere; the world descends into chaos. Katara masters waterbending by years of trial and error. It's worth it in the end.

"Captain!" A sailor runs up to her, boots thumping on the wooden deck. "A small Fire Navy ship is approaching."

Katara bends herself to the crow's nest and looks out. The ship is flying a white flag, but she's seen this before. They know a waterbender is on this boat, and they'll come in peace and open fire. "Ready the torpedoes!" Her men are yelling on deck, pulling up the anchor and opening the sails. A stiff wind rocks the two ships and rain pelts their faces, but they're determined, and the torpedoes are ready to fire just as a messenger hawk screeches. "Hold your fire!" She shouts, and reaches for the bird. "It could be Sokka!"

Her men pause their work. Some watch the daughter of their chief and some the navy ship, and a few others keep an eye on Avatar Korra, just a child playing in the puddles on deck. Hiding in plain sight.

Katara opens the tube the messenger hawk carries and calls to the crew. "It's a friend!"

There's nothing in the tube, not really.

Just a clothespin.

Chapter Text

Zuko knows the honorable thing. She's standing in front of him with a nervous hope glistening in her eyes. He knows the honorable thing.

But Zuko also knows the cost. "We can't give it a good life, Katara."

She recoils as if struck. "Don't ask me to do that, Zuko."

"Katara--"

"No. You can't make me."

"Katara, it's your body; I'm not going to force you to."

She looks at him like he's betrayed her all over again. "You know I'd never do it, Zuko. Don't ask me to." Her posture is dangerously rigid and her jaw is clenched unnaturally.

He reaches for her, and she jerks away from his hand. "I love you."

She shakes her head slowly. "You don't love me enough."

"That’s not fair, Katara." And it's not, really, but Zuko is treading dangerously close to a line he shouldn't cross over. Not with her.

"I'm not ready for this either," she begins, and her body shivers with every breath. "But this is our baby. Our baby, Zuko. We can do this, we just have to work hard and--"

"We're refugees, Katara!" Azula is hunting us down and we don't know if we'll be alive tomorrow. We can't have a baby now!" He's shouting, though he doesn't seem to realize it, and his voice is strained.

Katara chuckles bitterly. "How am I going to tell my baby his father wanted to kill him?"

That's a low blow, and she knows it. "Katara, that's not what I'm saying--"

They descend into intense argument, as they do, and it's bitter, as these arguments are. And when they're out of breath and the light has faded in the sky, they tumble into their tent and curl up in opposite corners, hoping for another morning. The night is not kind to Katara. She pulls the blanket over her shoulders with one hand as the other presses her abdomen, and all she can see is her child being ripped from her. But what bothers her most is that she can't decide whether it's worse for it to be by her hand or by Azula's. Her mind jerks between dreams, from one gruesome image to another. At some point in the night Zuko crosses over the invisible gulf between them and curls around her, but he's gone when she wakes.

The sun rises again, dark orange over purple clouds, and she shuffles out of the tent. Zuko has been meditating by the fire since the first rays, and he turns his head toward her. "Well?"

"I'm going to give him a chance, Zuko."

He nods, and pushes himself off the ground. "Pack your things. Azula's just docked near Makapu. We need to move."

Katara knows him well enough to understand he's not pleased. There will be arguments, and heated ones. Ultimately, though, they both want the same thing for this baby; that is, that he not suffer needlessly. But Katara is inclined to think that life is worth something, that beauty can come from pain. Zuko has taught her that.

It will be hard. It may not be worth it. But spirits help her, the die is cast, and she's going to try.

Chapter Text

Stone cold, stone cold

There's tension in the Fire Nation tonight; the sconces flicker in time with the noblemen's breathing and the servants' chattering is unsettlingly muted. Katara walks into the room surrounded by her friends, and their jubilance strikes a sharp contrast against the stiflingly dark room. Zuko has converted the throne room into a makeshift ballroom, but nobody's dancing. The Fire Nation does not dance, as any one of the local attendees would remind anyone who asks. Everyone else isn't sure whether that means they're permitted. Aang makes short work of the awkwardness and pulls an Earth Kingdom noble's daughter in for a dance.

You see me standing but I'm crying on the floor

Her eyes scan the room. Sokka has the unenviable task of trying to sweep Suki off her feet without dropping his crutches. She can't see Zuko, but there, in the corner, standing as straight as a sword, is Mai. Katara narrows her eyes. Mai is a threat (to Aang, she tells herself). The other girl stands apart, observing everything with her cold eyes and holding just enough of a smile to seem polite but leagues away from friendly. She's probably bored, naturally, and Katara can't help but think there wasn't much point in her coming at all.

Stone cold, stone cold

It doesn't matter. Katara returns her attention to finding Zuko, and to her surprise he's talking to people. His hair is just a little too long and she thinks he needs to shave his chin.

God knows I tried to feel happy for you

He makes his way across the room, and Katara wonders (hopes) if he's looking for her. He's not. There's a soft smile on his face he's never given her, and Mai seems to be regarding him with an almost fondness as he slips through the restless crowd to find her. When he reaches her, he stands there with all the awkwardness of a young man not quite sure where he stands. Katara can't hear what Mai says to him, but Zuko fights a smile and extends a hand. Mai rolls her eyes, and they melt into the shadows.

Know that I am, even if I can't understand

She follows them, because somebody has to make sure Mai doesn't kill him. They almost disappear into a dark corner, and they certainly don't dance but they aren't exactly standing still either. He's holding her loosely, and she seems to be tolerating it (nobody dances in the Fire Nation. Certainly not Mai). Katara can't understand a relationship with so little affection; it baffles her, but Zuko seems lighter somehow. And for that she can be happy.

I'll take the pain

But it still slaps her harder than she thought it would, seeing him with someone. Seeing him with Mai.

Give me the truth

She approaches him late that night, after the palace is asleep and the party, if she can call it that, has dissolved into a low buzz in the streets. He's in his office bent over the latest version of the treaty with the Earth Kingdom, and he jumps when her shadow falls across his desk.

"I thought we had something, Zuko."

"What do you mean?" His brow furrows and he looks at her as though she's started firebending.

It takes her aback a bit. Why else would he save her life? "You took lightning for me." She squares her shoulders and lifts her chin, as if bracing for some invisible impact.

Zuko's forehead smooths and he looks almost relieved. "We're friends." His face softens. "And I didn't want anyone else to get hurt."

"What about after?" She's louder than she meant to be, but when he answers his voice is almost a whisper.

"Katara, I'm sorry."

She turns on her heel abruptly, slams his office door behind her and runs to her room. He shouts her name, and she can hear him pursuing, but she ignores him.

Me and my heart, we'll make it through

Katara cries herself to sleep, but it's more for the humiliation than for a broken heart. Just the same, it burns. Zuko has slowly become one of the best friends she's ever had, and she loves him with everything in her heart. Like a fool, she ruined it. She gave him something she can never get back, and it brought her closer to him than she's ever been to anyone. Somehow it's also driven them apart.

If happy is her, I'm happy for you

It doesn't ruin their friendship, in the end, but that's almost worse because he doesn't care. So she kisses Aang on the balcony of the tea shop and drinks him in to fill the hole in her heart. He tries to fill it for her (oh how he tries), but it's not enough. Katara wants what she can't have, and though she wishes she could break the chain between her heart and Zuko's, there's nothing she can do.

Stone cold, stone cold

Fire Nation weddings are beautiful. Mai's hair is pinned up elaborately and the red silk she wears cascades around her like a river of flame. Mai is beautiful, though it pains Katara to admit it. Zuko looks regal in his robe and crown, but Katara can't see them. When she looks at him, she sees a smoking lightning scar and a scorched robe that blows away in the wind. In her memory he looks at her with a wild relief in his eyes, as though he never expected to come out of the fight alive.

You're dancing with her while I'm staring at my phone

Zuko is saying his vows, but Katara doesn't hear them. She hears his breath in her ear and the sharp gasp in her hair when he strains the new skin. She hears him ask her if she wants this and he isn't saying he loves her but she swears she hears it anyway and suddenly it's over and he's lying next to her whispering that he's alive. But he looks feverish, and his wound is angry, his heart stutters in his chest. It's a relief when she's healed him again and he's asleep. His breathing is deep, slow, rhythmic. He's peaceful. And Katara is awake to pick up the shattered pieces of everything she knows and everything she thinks she wants.

I was your amber

When he wakes, he remembers very little, and they don't talk about it. He doesn't tell her he loves her and she wonders if she heard it at all.

But now she's your shade of gold

"I love you."

She's jolted out of her own mind and dragged back to reality. Mai smiles, a true smile, and everyone claps around her, warm and happy and wonderful. But she is cold.

Stone cold.

Chapter Text

Toph just knows this is going to be bad. She lands on shifting earth when she jumps down from Appa, and everything is blurry. There's a hole in the ground somewhere--no, not a hole, that must be the stupid ice fountain Katara wants to see--and it must not be that great because everybody sounds disappointed. Whatever. A hunk of ice is just as lame as any other hunk of ice. She feels familiar footsteps somewhere, but with all the flying around Twinkle Toes does and this stupid sand, she's not sure who it is (or where they're coming from, for that matter).

Things happen in the background, though Toph can't see any of it and therefore doesn't feel obligated to pay it much attention. She hears someone spit and Sokka squawk, coins hitting surfaces and swords slicing the air. And maybe some coconuts. Pretty boring stuff. And so is this stuffy professor guy yammering about historical relics and sky bison and Aang's fruit pies. But since she can't see anything anyway, Toph takes the drink someone puts in her hand and swings her feet up on what she's hoping is a table, and she listens.

An ostrich horse clucks outside, and Appa growls at something but she doesn't think it's the ostrich horse. The rest of the group takes the snobby professor outside, but Toph is going to stay right here, thank you very much, and stay she does. She can hear Aang and Sokka shouting, but whatever they're shouting at moves away pretty fast. Toph cocks her head--they almost seem to be gliding, but who knows what she's actually seeing, anyway. Those familiar footsteps are back, and that's the more important thing because they're accompanied by a voice that doesn't belong to the group.

"Hello, Toph."

"Well if it isn't General Fatso."

She's met with a rumbling laugh. "Not so fat anymore, I'm afraid. All this traveling has been hard on an old man."

A new set of footsteps is approaching. "I get it Uncle, your back hurts, your feet hurt, and you want tea. Well they don't have any tea in this place."

Toph feels it's safe to assume this grouchy sounding jerkface is the nephew that the old man wouldn't quit droning on about. "So this must be Lee." She can feel the heat rolling off the nephew. Weird.

"Who are you?" This guy is awfully demanding, but Toph's kicked the collective butts of people grouchier and tougher than he is.

She thrusts one hand in the direction of the voice. "Toph Bei Fong, best earthbender in the world."

Apparently, Grouchy Nephew Lee isn't in the mood for introductions. "Sure you are. Uncle, can we leave now? There's nothing here."

General Fatso moves a little, probably looking around the room, but Toph can't tell what with this floor being wood on top of sand and all. "Ah. I think I've found our friend."

Color Toph confused. "Me?"

General Fatso pats her shoulder, which nearly throws her off balance. Apparently this posture in the chair isn't as solid as she thought. "No," he chuckles. "Not unless you know a way to get us to Ba Sing Se."

Now that, Toph thinks, is an interesting proposition. "I just might."

…

"No. No way Toph. Nuh uh nope." Sokka clearly has no interest in bringing an old man and his nephew into their group, but Toph is not so easily deterred.

"Oh come on, Sokka. He's a nice old man who gave me tea and told me stories back when I ran away from the group. And if he tries anything I can earthbend his butt."

"What about his nephew, Toph?" Katara's voice holds that simpering, self-righteous worry that always frustrates the ever living mud out of Toph. "What does he look like?"

Toph rolls her sightless eyes. "Oh you know, the usual. Tall, dark, handsome. Just your type, Katara."

Katara seems impressed. "Really? How tall is he?"

Toph snorts. "Sure, ask the blind girl more stupid questions." She ignores Katara's screeching. "What do you think, Twinkles?"

Aang, if anything, seems excited. "Sure! The more the merrier! And I don't usually say things like merry…"

"Pristine, merry, wow Aang, really expanding the vocabulary there." Sokka's voice is dry and sarcastic, and it speaks to Toph on some deep level she wasn't quite sure existed. "Anyway, we don't even know these guys. We can't just let them waltz in here and come with us while we go look for maps of the Fire Nation."

Toph has to admit he has a point. But it's too bad, because General Fatso makes very good tea. She trudges back to the tavern, or smoothie shop, or whatever it is, stubbing her toes several times along the way. Stupid sand.

She bumps into Grouchy Nephew on her way in. "Hey! Watch where you're going!"

"Calm your tits." It's something she heard Sokka say once, and she's ashamed to feel herself blushing as the words leave her mouth, but she likes the way it rolls off her tongue. And it leaves Grouchy Nephew speechless. "Where's your uncle?"

Grouchy Nephew pulls himself together. "He went to play Pai Sho with some old guy. He said to wait here."

As the words leave his mouth, Toph feels General Fatso waddling closer. "I believe I've found our friend, Nephew."

"Good," Toph mutters, "because my loser friends don't want to bring you with us."

She thinks General Fatso might be bowing. "Do not trouble yourself, Miss Bei Fong. Lee and I shouldn't have any trouble at all."

"Cool." She punches him in the arm.

"You see, Nephew, I always told you Pai Sho was more than just a game."

…

They finally find the library, after hours of searching, and Toph is pretty sure she'd rather get lost in the sand than have to ride around on Appa one more minute. "You guys go ahead. Books don't exactly do it for me."

Sokka stops, probably to look at her. "Why?" There is silence for a few moments. "Oh. Right."

Toph snorts. "Appa and I will stay right here." The rest of the group hasn't been gone long when Appa begins growling and Toph notices something is changing in the sand, almost like it's being spun around in tornadoes around her and the library. "Who's there?"

Appa growls louder, and she feels the sand whipping more slowly. A ring of people surrounds her, and there are two or three large blobs that she thinks might be some kind of sand sleds. One of them has another two people on it, but they're tied up and don't seem conscious. "Give us the bison."

"Who are you?" Toph sinks into an earthbending stance, for all the good that'll do her.

"Stand aside, girl."

Toph doesn't like the man's voice, and she doesn't stand aside, but flinging sand at him doesn't do much. "What do you want?"

"We're taking the bison." She swears she can hear some kind of evil, greedy smile in his voice.

"No." She focuses on the sand, on each grain, each particle of dirt, and she solidifies it under her feet. It helps, a little. She can see eight people around her, plus the two on the weird sand sled, and they're all in their own stances.

Before she can strike, sand whips her face. "Take the bison! The girl's no threat to us. And leave the prisoners. The bison is worth six of them."

Well, that's just humiliating. Toph gathers as much sand as she can and throws it at the sandbenders. She misses them, but the blow tears the sails off two of the sleds (gliders?) and blows the hats off two of the benders. Which isn't much, but Toph thinks at least her aim isn't horrible. They throw ropes past her that wind around Appa, and she's about to break them when the ground begins to shake. Everything stops for a moment. Appa roars. "The library is sinking!" She tightens the sand around her feet and grabs the library on its way down. She can slow it down with earthbending, but it's heavy and it's sitting in all that awful sand and she just can't stop it and then the sandbenders have Appa and there's nothing she can do about it. They speed away from her, dragging the growling sky bison, and tears slide down her face as she struggles to hold up the library. "I'm sorry Appa."

Just as she thinks she can't hold it up any longer, Aang, Sokka, and Katara fall out of the sky, and she lets the library fall.

"Where's Appa?" Aang's voice has a sharp edge that she's not used to, and all she can do is hang her head and shake it a little.

"The sandbenders took him."

"How could you let them take him? Why didn't you stop them?"

"I couldn't! The library was sinking! You guys were still inside and--"

"You could have come got us. I could have saved him."

There wasn't time! I can hardly feel vibrations out here and they snuck up on me!"

"You just didn't care! You never liked Appa; you wanted him gone!"

"Aang, stop it. You know Toph did all she could. She saved our lives." Good ol' Katara, to her rescue.

Sokka has more important things to think about. "Who's going to save our lives now? We'll never make it out of here."

Aang stiffens (or maybe it's a breeze, who knows). "That's all any of you guys care about, yourselves! You don't care whether Appa is okay or not!"

Katara's voice softens. "We're all concerned, but we can't afford to be fighting now."

Aang's voice is cold. "I'm going after Appa."

Toph feels wind rushing through her hair, and Katara's footsteps are faint in the sand. "Aang, wait!" Katara's shouts don't bring Aang back, and when she stops, everything is quiet.

Suddenly, Toph hears a grunt. "This has been a hard week for an old man."

Toph's head snaps up. "General Fatso?"

Sokka spins around and grips his boomerang. Katara reaches for her waterskin. Sokka's voice is too shrill for a warrior, but he postures like one anyway (stupid Sokka). "What are you doing here?"

General Fatso groans and pushes himself up off the glider. "My nephew and I are fugitives. Unfortunately, the sandbenders took quite an interest in the bounty on our heads."

Sokka points his boomerang at the still-unconscious Grouchy Nephew. "Give me one good reason not to kill him." Toph hasn't heard Sokka's voice this hard in a long time, and it sends chills up and down her spine.

General Fatso's laugh rumbles across the sand, and Toph is, for once, confused. "The Fire Lord would have us killed." Katara gasps. Toph is further confused by how happy about that he sounds, but General Fatso has always been an odd one. "My nephew has suffered a strong blow to the head; he is no threat to you."

"Great. Just great." Sokka seems to have relaxed, but not a lot. "So now we're stuck in a desert with no Appa, no Avatar, and two firebenders who used to spend all day trying to kill us!"

"We never meant to kill you!" General Fatso seems to be waving his arms, but Toph is really getting tired of trying to see in this sand. "We were only intending to capture you!"

Sokka scoffs. "Oh yeah. And then what, take us back to the Fire Nation so somebody else could kill us?"

The old man chuckles. "You have such a dry sense of humor."

Sokka tries to bicker for a while longer, until he realizes (to his consternation) that Katara has started using water to heal Grouchy Nephew's head). "Katara! We're in the middle of a desert! Don't use water on him!"

"He's hurt, Sokka."

"So?!"

Katara apparently doesn't really care about using the last of their water and Sokka doesn't care if Grouchy Nephew, whose name is actually Zuko (at least that's what Toph gathers from the conversation) never wakes up. Toph is very quickly bored with the two of them and turns to General Fatso (Iroh?), who is standing next to her placidly. "Can we just leave them here?"

Toph can't see much, but she's pretty sure she can see his belly rumbling.

…

By the time night falls, Zuko is still unconscious, but they’ve rescued the sand sled glider whatever it is and dragged it and Zuko behind them. Katara hopes that when Aang comes back, he'll be able to airbend into the sails to get them out of the desert. In the meantime, they're heading north to Ba Sing Se, Katara says, because they have to get this information to the Earth King. To Sokka's surprise, General Fatso has no problem with that. Zuko might, but he's not going to wake up any time soon in Katara's estimation.

By the middle of the afternoon, they've drunk most of Katara's bending water. She apologizes for it tasting swampy, but it's all they have.

"Not anymore! Look!" Sokka, obviously, has found something.

"Shut up, peasant," Zuko growls.

"Prince Zuko!" General Fatso waddles to his nephew's side with Katara close behind. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, Uncle. Where are we?"

Sokka seems to take issue with being interrupted. "Guys! There's water in these!"

"Just a minute Sokka." Katara seems to have moved closer to Zuko. "You hit your head pretty bad."

She must have put her hand on his shoulder or something Katara-like because Zuko suddenly jumps off the sand sailer (sand sailer. That has a good ring to it) and shouts, "Don't touch me!"

"Patience, Prince Zuko. Katara saved you from a horrible headache." He pushes Zuko closer to Katara. "You can thank her properly while I look at Sokka's plants.

Toph ignores the two of them. She's far more interested in Sokka and Iroh, who seem awfully unsteady on their feet. Sokka mumbles something about a friendly mushroom while Iroh starts dancing with Momo. "Uncle! What are you doing?"

"Dancing with the Avatar, Prince Zuko. He's quite light on his feet."

"Uncle!!"

Toph snorts. Whatever was in that cactus juice needed to be bottled up and sent to her parents for their after-dinner drink.

"Why is Toph on fire?"

"Sokka, you shouldn't be eating strange plants." Katara's her usual bossy self, Toph notes. That might be a good thing. "And Iroh, you should know better."

"No kidding," Zuko grumbles. "Last time he ate a strange plant he ended up with his throat swollen shut."

Iroh sputters. "Prince Zuko, I was trying to make tea. Do you think this cactus water would make good oolong?"

Sokka inhales and exhales dramatically. "I suppose, your flamey firebendy-ness dragon sir."

A sinister smile grows across Toph's face. She's going to get her some of that. And she does.

…

Toph wonders if this is what seeing is like. The vibrating lines around her are different than usual. The white lines aren't white at all, and the black is shades of light she doesn't understand. "Maybe you're seeing coloooorrsssss," Sokka slurs, and it occurs to her that he might be right.

It's almost dark, and Katara and Zuko have been herding them north for hours. "We better stop for the night," Katara murmurs, and Zuko must agree because she feels hands on her shoulders forcing her to sit down. She hears the wind, suddenly, and it's very loud but she doesn't really care until a large blob lands next to her. Feels like Twinkle Toes.

Toph swings her fist but misses. "Heyyyy Twinkles. Where've you been?"

"Looking for Appa, Toph, what's wrong with you?"

"The three of them drank cactus juice, Aang. They're a little out of it."

Toph plops down in the sand and begins to pick her toes. "My feet have boogers."

"EW!" Sokka screeches and scoots away from her. "Momo, save me from her grubby little toes."

Something thuds and starts roaring. "General Fatso stop snoring it's hurting my ears." Her voice sounds strange and monotone in her ears.

Katara apparently said something to Aang, because he steps back from her and shouts some nonsense about never getting out of here without Appa. Iroh is still snoring and she's about ready to bend him back to Earth Rumble 6. Everything is so loud and this weird thing going on in her vision is starting to make her dizzy. Toph stops picking her toes and puts her head between her legs.

"Sokka, do you have any ideas to get us out of here?"

Sokka giggles. "Why don't you ask the circle birds?"

Katara sighs. "Zuko?"

Toph doesn't hear what he says. They're just so cute. Blurry, but cute. She wonders what would happen if she tried to bend sand. She can bend metal, what's sand? So she jerks a big pile of sand under Zuko's feet and chortles at his girly little shriek. Next thing she knows, he's lying on top of Katara on the desert floor and apologizing because Toph must have done something and he's sorry and then Toph's laughter is bright and shrieking and she's breathing in sand.

"Toph!"

"Kiss him, Sugarqueen."

"Keep your Fire Nation hands off my sister!"

Toph wishes she could see because she's pretty sure there's drool coming out of Sokka's mouth and she hopes Zuko and Katara look stupid. Iroh keeps snoring, and Toph wonders about the sand glider thingy. "Hey Katara, what about the sail thing."

They better be grateful she remembered. Wait. Who was supposed to be dragging the sailer thing? Was it her? Oops.

That's okay. Katara and Zuko can go get it. Or Aang could. Why hasn't Aang asked about Zuko and Iroh yet, anyway? Toph decides she no longer cares. She's going to take a nap.

When she wakes, Aang is gone. Her head is pounding, but she feels far better than she did. From the sounds of the snoring, Iroh and Sokka are still asleep, but she thinks Katara and Zuko might be sitting together. She thinks she hears Katara offer to heal his scar (what scar?) with the spirit water, and she hears something about mothers, and she hears something about loyalty and the Fire Nation and family. Eh. Sappy stuff. Toph rolls over and goes back to sleep.

And the next time she wakes up they're on the sand sailer, and Katara isn't yelling at Zuko. Zuko isn't growling angsty things back.

"I think Momo likes you," Katara says, and Zuko grumbles as he tries to detach the lemur from his arm.

"I think he's coming down from cactus juice and he's dizzy." Well. Maybe not super angsty. Grouchy Nephew still lives into his name though.

General Fatso has a smile in his voice. "I'm glad we ran into you, Toph. I believe this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship for my nephew."

Toph takes a moment to wonder what would have happened if Iroh and Zuko had been a day behind them, but she decides she'd rather not think about it.

"The sandbenders said they sold Appa to merchants in Ba Sing Se," Aang announces. "So that's where we're going."

She's slightly offended no one woke her up for a confrontation with the sandbenders, but oh well. There will be things to destroy in Ba Sing Se. And she doesn't have to fly anymore. All in all, life is good.

Chapter Text

The fires are bright and the drums are loud at the beginning of the Winter Festival, but by the time all the village children had gathered around Gran Gran, it's mostly dim and quiet.

"1000 years ago," Gran Gran begins, "the Fire Nation won the war and destroyed the world." The children watch with rapt attention, Katara especially. This is the first time she's been old enough to hear the story. "Fire Lord Sozin waited fifty years, plotting, scheming, waiting for Avatar Roku to die, for the Avatar was an old man. When the Avatar died, he struck. The Fire Lord's forces killed the next Avatar, a boy from the Southern Air Temple, and wiped out all the other Air Nomads."

Katara pulls her knees up to her chin. Maybe she doesn't like this story so much after all.

"He could not have done this but for the power of the Great Comet, which gave firebenders incredible power. Once the Air Nomads, a peaceful people, had been killed, the Fire Lord turned his attention to the rest of the world. He began attacking the coast of the Earth Kingdom, colonizing nearly the entire western coast before he died."

One of the children begins to cry, and his mother shushes him.

"It is important for you children to understand our history," Gran Gran says. The children are quiet. "100 years passed, and the Avatar did not return. The Fire Lord died, and by the time of the next Great Comet, then known as Sozin's Comet, his grandson had come to power. The new Fire Lord finished conquering the Earth Kingdom with the help of the comet, and this Fire Lord's great-grandson used the next one to destroy the Water Tribes, and the world burned."

The children fidget, some cry. Katara wants to leave. "This destroyed the environment. Ash covered the sun and darkened the skies, and even the Fire Nation began to have black snow."

Everybody knows there's no snow in the Fire Nation.

"The Avatar never returned. People began to starve when their crops failed and their livestock died. Our world suffered for nearly 100 years after the destruction of the Water Tribes, and the Fire Nation became just as weak as the nations it destroyed. Benders were slowly eradicated as an anti-bending movement blamed them for the destruction. As time went on without the sun, even the earth grew cold, and the wells were ice."

Sokka elbows Katara. "See Katara, they had it coming." Hakoda shushes him. Gran Gran glares at them but does not stop her story.

"Then, the people left in the three nations combined their resources and technology to create environmental domes, so that we can live in peace even though the world was in ruins. It is because we worked together that all people did not perish. And so you must remember, children, that it is dangerous to go outside, where the winds are faster and colder than the arctic breeze here. The sun is blacked out, and it is not safe."

"How does the dome work?" Sokka is looking up at their father, scientific curiosity bright in his blue eyes.

Katara glares at him. "Quiet, Sokka!"

Sokka rolls his eyes. Gran Gran looks in their direction. "Now we live in the safety of the domes, in the ways of our ancestors. The Water Tribes continue to live in an environment of ice and snow, as we've always done. And finally, children," Gran Gran says, her voice deepening into a warning. "It is important that you never go too far from the village. The dome protects us from the outside world, and the destruction brought by the Fire Nation. Always remember that."

…
 
Katara is fourteen and Sokka fifteen when they see the outside world, though they don't realize it at the time. Sokka has gotten them lost on one of his stupid hunting trips when Katara spots some ice that seems to be glowing.

"Katara, stay away from there!" Sokka shouts.

"Sokka, look! There's a person inside! He's alive!"

"How could he be alive inside an iceberg?" Sokka squints, and sure enough, some idiot in a lotus pose is hanging out inside an iceberg. Whatever. Things get weirder every day.

"Maybe he's a bender!"

"Katara, benders died out centuries ago." Katara yanks his club off his shoulder and sprints to the base of the glowing iceberg. "Wait! You don't know what that thing is!"

"Sokka, we have to help!"

So they do. The boy in the iceberg turns out to be 1012 years old, and he doesn't understand why they can't leave the Southern Water Tribe. He was destined to be the Avatar, he confesses (the Avatar is a myth Gran Gran told them when they were children, Sokka interrupts), and says his name is Aang. The fluffy snot monster's name turns out to be Appa, and if you make a weird chirpy noise, he swims (super impressive). Despite Aang's insistence that he's an airbender, Sokka never does see him bend any air (though not for lack of Aang trying).

"At least I don't have to be the Avatar anymore," Aang muses after the thousandth time he tries to leave, only to be stopped by Gran Gran.

"Hey, Aang, ol' buddy." Sokka throws an arm around Aang's shoulders. "You know leaving the village is a stupid idea, right?"

Aang looks disturbed? "What do you mean?"

"Why do you think Gran doesn't want you going out there?"

Aang shrugs. "Polar bear dogs?"

Sokka rolls his eyes. "No. The world outside this fancy habitat dome thing--" Sokka gestures wildly "--was destroyed centuries ago. We have to stay in here to survive."

Aang shrugs again. "It can't be that bad. Besides, I have a flying bison. We'll find somewhere safe. I want to see the Air Temples again."

It dawns on Sokka that probably no one bothered to tell Aang that the Air Temples were the first things to go. Oops. Someone should do that before he escapes. Not that he will. Nobody escapes Gran. But still.

Unfortunately, it doesn't take long for Katara to get in on Aang's escapades, and then Gran Gran really has her hands full.

…

Katara thinks they might really do it this time. Aang thinks maybe there would be a hole in the wall where his iceberg used to be, and he's right (Katara wonders why neither of them thought of it before).

"Katara! There are people out here, and they're not Water Tribe."

She pulls herself up into the iceberg. The ocean stretches out in front of her, but she can see a little patch of green in the distance. She's never seen green grass, and she's at once excited and terrified. The people look like ants. "How do you know they're not Water Tribe?"

Aang grins. "Look at them reeeeeeeeeeally closely. See? They're wearing red. Nobody in your village wears red."

Katara gasps. "Fire Nation?"

"Probably," Aang chirps. He scampers up on to Appa's head, pulling Katara behind him. "Appa, yip yip!"

For the first time, Appa flies. "Aang, this is amazing!"

Aang sends her a cheesy grin. Katara breathes in deeply. The air has an odd crispness to it, and the sun is a bright white disk in the sky, defined, radiant, completely unlike the fuzzy, soft glow of home. The wind whips her hair in a way she's never felt, and the green earth that's growing larger is almost unreal. Katara has never been outside the dome before, and suddenly, she's not sure she wants to go back. Gran Gran said the world was dead and dangerous, but Gran Gran is wrong. Katara has never seen anything so alive.

They land on the green shores, just east of the docks, and the island people flock to them.

…

"Prince Zuko," a soldier shouts, bursting through the door and bowling hastily. An airbender and a Water Tribe girl have landed near the docks--on a sky bison!"

"What?!" Zuko spins around and storms out. This is bad. This is very bad. And just his luck that this would happen six months after his father made him governor of Kyoshi. "How is an airbender alive? And how did a Water Tribe girl get out of a dome?"

The soldier has followed him outside and begins jogging to keep up. "Nobody knows, sir. There have been no reports of structural damage. And this is the first airbender we've seen snice the Great Comet."

Zuko marches down to the docks where the strangers have been detained. The airbender looks no older than thirteen and the girl doesn't even look like she's marrying age. Too bad, his inner-Uncle Iroh whispers. Zuko dismisses the thought. He is the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation and Governor of Kyoshi Island, and he will not be distracted by a pretty girl. So there, Uncle.

Zuko knows his ponytail is swaying in the wind, but he hopes the rest of his hair hasn't been messed up. It's been hard keeping it tied back ever since Mai…cut it for him. "How did you get here?" He demands.

"My flying bison," chirps the boy.

Zuko rolls his eyes and glares at the girl.

"I won't tell you anything," she spits. "Not unless you let us go."

He silently fumes for a moment. "Take them to the interrogation chamber," he growls.

"Sir?" The soldier that had followed him looks at him oddly. "That hasn't been used in centuries."

"Just do it!"

The man does not have to be told twice. Thank the Spirits for small miracles. Zuko stomps back to the governor's mansion, trying not to think too much about what he's going to tell his father. None of the domes he monitors had registered a breach. Zhao's territories in the North Pole have dome breaches every week, but those are always reported long before any of the inhabitants find a way out. Although, Zuko muses, they wouldn't have tried to leave anyway. The domes keep people well-fed and healthy. Everyone is happy.

So why does he have two foreigners on his doorstep?

…

Several hours later, Zuko has given up on the airbender. They boy, apparently thrilled to be able to bend again, seems to have airbended his brain somewhere else. Instead, Zuko focuses his attention on the girl (though the only thing he's learned so far is that the airbender's name is Aang, which the boy told him anyway. So on the whole, this exercise is entirely pointless.

"Why did you leave your dome?"

"Aren't you going to ask me what my name is?"

Zuko is silent for a moment. On the one hand, it would be polite to ask. On the other, he's irritated, and when Zuko is irritated he prefers to do away with niceties, so that all the people around him are aware that he's irritated. And now is one of those times. "No. Answer the question."

"I'll answer yours if you answer mine."

Zuko stews just long enough to make both of them uncomfortable. "Fine."

"I wanted to see if the world was still destroyed, like my grandmother told me. Why don't you live in a dome?"

"No Fire Nation citizen lives in a dome. We knew everything had returned to normal 400 years ago. Fire Lord Zurui predicted it when he burned the world. Where did you find the airbender?"

"Fire Lord who?"

"Sozin's great-great-great-great grandson," Zuko snaps. "Answer the question."

"Aang's not an airbender. Bending doesn't exist anymore."

Zuko lights a flame in his palm and the girl's eyes widen. "Yes, it does. You just can't bend in the domes. It would be dangerous to structural integrity. Now where did you find him?"

The girl doesn't speak at first, but when she does, all of Zuko's questions are answered. "I found him trapped in an iceberg. He didn't know about the war, the Comet, or the domes or anything."

Everything falls into place. Well, not everything, but the important things. "The Southern Water Tribe dome must have been built into that iceberg…that's why the alert never showed up!"

The girl looks at him quizzically. "Why do you get alerts?"

Zuko runs out of the room. "Take her back to the Water Tribe! Have her show you where the breach is and fix it!" Suddenly, he feels water turning to ice around his body."

He turns his head and glares at the girl. Her face is white. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I just wanted you to stop."

It takes about an hour to free him, as Katara has no idea how she moved the water, where it came from, or how to move it again. Zuko blows smoke out of his nose. He'll be glad when she's gone.

…

Taking her home proves more difficult than Prince Zuko expected, Katara muses. From what she and Aang can gather from passing guards, Fire Lord Ozai wants to see them himself. Katara is not afraid, and neither is Aang, but the guards seem to be. They're even more on edge around Zuko, who seems to want nothing more than to send her back where she came from and close up Aang's iceberg. She won't let them do that, though. Her village could be so much happier, seeing the real sun and feeling the real wind. Katara wants to see Sokka's face when she bends, too.

"Katara, do you think we should try to escape?" Aang has been more attuned to the gossip than she. "Your grandmother must be worried."

"Not yet. We need to figure out what they're planning in case we have to warn the village. We don't know what the Fire Lord wants with us."

Aang sighs. This cell probably isn't his idea of fun. Sometimes he spins marbles to pass the time, but Katara can tell he misses Appa, and freedom. Mostly Appa.

Zuko comes to visit them after dinner, an old, rather rotund man trailing behind him. He introduces himself with a smile and an offer of a cup of tea.

"I'm Katara," she says, glaring at Zuko. "This is Aang, and we'd love some tea."

The old man beams and produces a teapot (hard to say from where). "It's so nice to meet my nephew's friends."

"They're not my friends, Uncle!"

Iroh laughs heartily. "Very well, Prince Zuko." He smiles slowly. "Why don't we take our tea and walk around Kyoshi? Even prisoners need exercise."

"All right!" Aang jumps up and sprints out the door (why Iroh left it open behind him, Katara will never know). The old man waddles behind Aang, chuckling.

Zuko eyes Katara warily, but steps aside. "After you, peasant."

Katara stomps on his foot on the way out.

Aang is bouncing around the island as Iroh begs him to slow down, just for a moment, because he's not as young as he used to be. The sun starts to fade into the horizon and their shadows grow longer. To Zuko's clear dismay, he and Katara are walking far behind them, together. "So, Zuko--"

"Prince Zuko."

Katara rolls her eyes. "So, Prince Zuko. You owe me a question."

"Fine." A firefly lands on Zuko's nose, and she giggles. "Shut up."

"I want to know how the Fire Nation knew the world was habitable again. And I want to know why nobody bothered to tell the rest of us."

Zuko scoffs. "It was all in the old Fire Lords' plans. They had scientists working for generations to figure out how long it would take for the world to recover after being destroyed."

Katara puts her hands on her hips and stops walking. "That's horrible! You can't just destroy the world because you calculated that everything would be all right!" She throws her arms up. "And what about keeping the rest of us locked in the domes?"

Zuko makes a face. "The only reason the Fire Nation had to destroy the world in the first place was to restore balance. The Water Tribes were overfishing and the Earth Kingdom was cutting down all their trees. Someone had to do something."

"That's not true!" Except that Katara doesn't actually know. Maybe she should have spent more time listening to Gran Gran and less time shushing Sokka. The flickering light from the fireflies becomes more noticeable as the sky grows darker. They're little blinking lights buzzing around Zuko's face, and they cast strange shadows around his scar, and she wonders how he got it but doesn't ask. Zuko doesn't bother responding, but he watches her quietly. "And even if it is true, that's no reason not to tell us things were better." A firefly lands on her forehead, and he brushes it off. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

"What, let you all out so you can mess it up again?"

Katara fumes. "Didn't you just get a report on an oil spill two days ago?"

"Shut up!" The fireflies scatter at the outburst. Katara notices that he says that every time she's right, and she decides they're going to have a long, long discussion about this. Something isn't right.

And she's a waterbender. Bending is real.

The fireflies have gone back to fluttering around Zuko's face. "I want access to all of your history scrolls."

"Kind of demanding for a peasant."

"And I want to learn how to bend."

"No."

"Then I'll teach myself!"

"Fine."

"Fine."

"I hate you."

A firefly flutters into her eye. Zuko laughs, a short, sharp bark. Katara hates him.

Chapter Text

"Katara!" He can hear her footsteps thudding against the stone floor, but only for a moment, and then they fade. "Katara!" Zuko spends the rest of the night outside her door, banging on it periodically, and the guards who pass by look at him oddly. "Katara, let's talk about this!" And although he's tempted to burn the door down, he knows from experience that Katara won't talk to him if she doesn't want to, and how would he explain torching the door? So when the sun peeks over the horizon and he can feel the energy coursing through him, he gathers himself up and walks away. It's possible he hears her open the door just after he turns the corner, but Zuko is fairly certain that was just his imagination, so he does not turn back.

He walks back to his office mechanically, forgetting to greet the dignitaries he passes (which causes him many diplomatic problems he doesn't need) and ignoring the servants. Everything during his healing is fuzzy. Zuko remembers Azula in chains, he remembers barricading himself and Katara in his old bedroom, and he remembers that they did things they shouldn't have. He doesn't remember if they talked about anything, he doesn't remember how much time they spent hiding from the world, and he doesn't remember how long it took him to breathe normally. And now Zuko is kicking himself, because those things they shouldn't have done have come back and blown up in his face, like everything always does. Zuko kicks a door. "Ow!"

…

It all comes back to him in pieces, those things they shouldn't have done. He thinks he should apologize to her better, but she seems happy with Aang, and there's no sense reopening the wound, is there? Uncle seems to know something, and he says making amends is always the honorable thing (except he says those things in context of the Earth Kingdom, so maybe it's just Zuko's guilty conscience making trouble where it ought to keep quiet). Zuko knows the honorable thing. What he's having trouble with is whether the right thing and the honorable thing are the same thing.

His heart pounds in an unsteady rhythm. Bumbumbum bum-bum, bum-bum, bubum--and Zuko stops paying attention. The skittering beat is only making him more nervous, which obviously isn't helping. He needs something to focus on, anything but the sound of his heartbeat. Katara looks at him with those bright blue eyes, shining with tears and the light of a torch. Her face is cast in a yellow-gold light, and she's at once beautiful and ghostly.

Zuko throws a small piece of bread into the turtleduck pond. He hadn't expected Mai to come to him before his coronation. She had been in prison, he had left her there. Yet there she was, helping him put on his robe--the one Katara had taken off--and she tells him to never break up with her again, which is fine, Zuko has no intention of ever breaking up with anyone again. The only personal decisions he makes wind up being stupid, anyway.

He surprises both of them when he kisses her. She surprises both of them when she kisses him back. Zuko's heart pounds loudly in his ears, but the rhythm is steady and he wonders if it's her, if she's bending the blood in it or healing him or something, but when he looks down, she's doing nothing, and the rhythm is still steady.

The turtleducks fight over the piece of bread, and Zuko intends to give them another. Except that there is only one, and there are two turtleducks. Both of them seem oddly attached to the bread (Zuko has a brief inspiration that maybe this is a good metaphor and he is the bread, but then it occurs to him that he loves Mai, and the bread doesn't seem to have an opinion either way).

For a while, the kisses are innocent. Zuko's heart pounds in the steady rhythm he's accustomed to until she brushes her hand against his chest, and then he feels the pounding rhythm, but it's not in his chest anymore. He almost laughs. At least the damage to his heart didn't hurt his circulation. Suddenly a rush of euphoria takes over him; he kisses her harder as if to say "I'm alive, Katara, I'm alive and I can move and let's see what happens now."

Zuko knows now what went wrong. She mistook his excitement for passion, euphoria for love, and he let her. He pushes himself up off the ground, determined to make amends.

"Fire Lord Zuko, please, sit." At least he was determined, until the entire Order of the White Lotus is standing in front of him, dressed in full uniform and holding pai sho tiles. Uncle carries a board.

What's another hour? He'll apologize to Katara after the game.

…

Zuko never does apologize to Katara. The pai sho game leads to a meeting with King Bumi which leads to discussions of Omashu's restoration and reparations which leads to apologizing to Master Pakku for Zhao's invasion which leads to finding Chief Hakoda and offering to facilitate relations between the Water Tribes and rebuilding the Southern Tribe. At some point, he sleeps, and at some point after that, Katara has gone with Aang to Ba Sing Se. And then Katara is kissing Aang on the balcony when he joins the group at the tea shop weeks later, and Zuko thinks it's best to leave well enough alone. Besides, Mai has come with him, and he's certain she's armed. It's better this way.

But then he's getting married, and Mai is promising to love and honor him, and he promises to love and honor her (because he does, and always will). He sneaks a look over at Katara, sitting next to Aang in the front row, and he sees the clench in her jaw and the straightness of her back, and her eyes are miles and years away, in his old bedroom in the old palace. For just a second, just before he puts the ring on Mai's finger, Zuko goes there too. Just to remember, one more time.

When it's all over, and he collapses into the mattress, feverish and struggling to breathe and his heart is stuttering, she leans down. Katara kisses his forehead and smiles at him, and then all he sees is glowing blue. She's healing him, because that's what Katara does, and everything is all right. The euphoric high is gone, and Zuko slips into sleep. He wakes periodically throughout the night, and she's there, because that's what Katara does.

And Zuko kisses his bride, and crushes any hope Katara had for them, because that's what Zuko does.
…

Chapter Text

Zuko hates everything. He's not sure what happened, but the last thing he remembers was stomping toward a weird glow in the middle of the Earth Kingdom. Come to think of it, he must have been stomping toward it because the Avatar was headed that way. Zuko lifts a paw to smooth back his ponytail when he realizes something crucial: He has a paw.

"Uncle!" Uncle is nowhere to be found. Zuko cranes his neck and tries to look back at the light. To his dismay, all he sees is a flash and a doddering old tortoise turkey. "Uncle?"

"Ah, Prince Zuko, I was wondering where you went." The tortoise turkey cocks its head, and its gray beard (gobbler?) quivers with repressed laughter. "You do make a handsome platypus bear."

Zuko growls. "We need to get out of here."

Uncle the tortoise turkey chortles. "One does not simply leave the Spirit World, Platypus-Bear Zuko."

Zuko fumes. He thinks if he were in the real world, smoke would be coming out of his bill. Except that smoke is coming out of his bill, and he's suddenly feeling rather warm (clearly, platypus bears are not born firebenders). But if he's in the Spirit World…

Zuko gives up trying to figure out the rules of this place. It's exactly how he imagined the Spirit World would be; there are dark clouds swirling around him, but somehow the space directly above Uncle's head is bright and sunny. It's humid, and Zuko thinks that with his luck it's likely to start raining any moment. Dust clouds puff up in the distance, followed by loud booms. A blue platypus bear thunders down a hill toward him, roaring loudly.

"Uncle?"

The tortoise turkey's eyes are as large as saucers. "I think she's running at you, Prince Zuko."

Uncle proves to be correct. The giant blue platypus bear slams into Zuko and both of them tumble to the ground. "Hey! Watch it!"

The blue platypus bear throws ice at his head (where did she get ice??) and glares at him. Zuko glares back. Uncle drags himself over to them as best a tortoise turkey can. "Who'd like some hot, jasmine tea?"

"Uncle! There's no tea here!"

Uncle lifts one eyebrow (it's strange to see a turkey head with large, bushy eyebrows). "Look under your tail, Nephew."

Zuko bends down and looks between his legs. To his astonishment, there's a large, red egg under his tail that randomly splits open. The top seems to jump out, the sides fall off, and suddenly there's a full tea set with tea and strange looking cookies. He looks at the tortoise turkey for help. Said tortoise turkey crawls toward him and motions him out of the way. Zuko narrowly misses tipping everything over as he steps out of the way. Being a platypus bear is hard, and Zuko hates everything.

He hears a giggle from the blue platypus bear. "What's your problem?"

The giggling stops. "What's your problem?"

Zuko stomps his foot. Uncle shrieks at the nearly spilled tea. "What do you want?"

The other platypus bear spins around, narrowly missing him with her tail. "I don't know. You're the enemy."

"I am?"

She shrugs. "I think so."

"Oh. Sorry." He scratches the back of his neck nervously.

Apparently it's enough of an apology for her because she flip flops her large, webbed feet over to him and opens her mouth. Zuko looks at her. She licks him.

Zuko jumps back, hollering profanities and narrowly missing the tea set (again). "Why would you lick me?!"

She looks at him, dumbfounded. "My saliva has special properties. I didn't know if it would work, but I thought it might heal your scar."

Briefly, Zuko wonders what platypus bear with a scar looks like. Is he missing hair over one eye? He looks down, hoping a mirror will show up because now he's curious (and apparently this weird Not-Spirit World can read his mind because a pond forms under his feet and Zuko can see that he has a very handsome bear head. Naturally, he then falls into the pond and is summarily soaked.

…

Zuko jerks awake, flailing in his sheets. It was all a dream. He doesn't have a bill. And he's not horribly indebted to a polar platypus bear whose eyes look suspiciously like that Water Tribe girl's. Thank everything good and lucky in this world. He hates everything, but if he were actually turned into a platypus bear and beholden to a peasant, he would hate everything tenfold. Just the same, she was attractive, for a platypus bear.

Chapter Text

Sokka comes up behind him and slaps his shoulder just as Zuko has taken an inadvisably large gulp of arctic wine. They just had to have a second ceremony in the South Pole, didn't they? "Just so you know, Katara's a pain to live with. And super picky about stupid stuff. Good luck."

Zuko coughs and hacks for a moment, alternating between letting himself suffocate on the alcohol and trying to cough through the burn that's twice as intense on the way back up. "You're--" Zuko stifles a particularly forceful cough "--just telling me this now?"

Sokka grins far more widely than Zuko feels is proper at a formal event and slaps his back (it's slightly harder than the last slap, and Zuko wonders if there's a reason Sokka keeps hitting him. Or at least he does until his attention is slightly diverted by the sudden need to find the nearest iceberg and throw up everything in his stomach). "Eh. Must have slipped my mind."

Zuko narrowly misses the next slap to his back. "Thanks."

Sokka saunters away, leaving Zuko to wonder what he's gone and gotten himself into this time. Katara can't be that bad, can she? Sokka's probably just tired of having to put his dirty socks in a neat pile or something. On the other hand, she always ran a tight campsite…Maybe he needs more arctic wine after all.

…

He sees Hakoda approaching him out of the corner of his eye. For a moment Zuko debates running and hiding. As it turns out, he should have.

"Fire Lord Zuko."

"Uh, just Zuko is fine, sir."

Hakoda grins, and Zuko wonders if it's his imagination or if his new father-in-law has suddenly grown tiger shark teeth. "I think it's time Sokka and I took you ice dodging."

Suddenly, Zuko is unconcerned. Can't he just melt the ice?

(It's really too bad no one was kind enough to mention that Hakoda had planned for that. They went to the coast of the Earth Kingdom and dodged rocks. As Sokka so helpfully pointed out, if he could do it, there was no reason Zuko couldn't, and there wasn’t really any good argument against that.)

…

Zuko has escaped Hakoda, only to be cornered by Gran Gran (whom he's been carefully avoiding, what with how snarkily she'd accepted his apology for the manhandling.

"Young man!"

Zuko stops in his tracks. "Uh, good evening, Great and Mighty Chief's Mother--"

"Did Sokka tell you to say that?"

Zuko looks as though he's sucked on a lemon. "He said that was the proper--"

Gran Gran barks a laugh. "We don't have titles here. Now come, it's time for the ceremonial sea prune stew tasting."

"Sea prune stew tasting?"

Gran Gran nods sagely. "Of course. Katara is waiting for you."

Zuko can tell, upon Gran Gran telling Katara that it's time for the traditional sea prune stew ceremony, that his new wife has never heard of this in her life. Unfortunately for him, she is more than happy to play along. Zuko suddenly realizes that Sokka learned the great majority of his sense of humor from his father and grandmother. Thank the spirits Katara just tells stupid jokes.

Regrettably, he says that part out loud and quickly finds himself soaked in sea prunes.

When he returns to the Fire Nation, he is informed his South-Pole-friendly clothes cannot be cleaned and will have to be burned. Aside from the fact that the palace smells like burnt sea prunes for three days afterward, Zuko thinks that's the best thing to come out of the South Pole trip (because now he never has to go again, right? Wrong, but Zuko doesn't know that yet). Except being officially married to Katara, of course.

Chapter Text

Katara glares frostily at the Earth King, and her tone is sickly sweet. "With all due respect, Your Majesty, I refuse to marry the Fire Lord."

Zuko glares at her. "Thanks, Katara."

Kuei looks back and forth between them and wrings his hands. "Please, just consider it. The Dai Li will have me deposed if I don't get this concession from the Fire Lord."

Katara jerks her hands up to her hips. "So I have to marry him just so you can sit on your throne and have parties with your bear?"

Zuko has had enough. "Shut up, Katara. You think I want to marry you?"

She ignores him. "And what if I don't want to leave the South Pole? What if I already have a fiancé waiting for me, huh?"

Zuko's eyes pop out of his head. "Do you?"

"Of course not!" She snaps, and she turns back to the Earth King. "But what if I did?!"

Kuei shrinks into himself and mutters meekly, "But you don't…"

"Ugh!" Katara spins on her heel and stomps out of the room, and the two men notice that the air is significantly colder.

"You think she'll do it?" Kuei whispers.

Zuko shrugs. "Maybe Uncle can talk her into it."

…

Uncle Iroh, fearsome general and Dragon of the West, proprietor of the greatest tea shop in Ba Sing Se and counsel to the Fire Lord himself, sips his tea quietly. Katara clutches her cup across the table, fuming.

"I know what you're going to say, but I'm not going to marry him."

Uncle takes another sip and raises his eyebrows.

"I'm not!"

"And why not?"

Katara huffs. "Because my Gran-Gran always taught me that I should marry for love, like she did."

"And she had the pleasure of doing it twice!" Uncle strokes his beard. "Perhaps I should make some lady friends of my own."

Katara sighs heavily. "Can't you just tell me what to do about Zuko?"

Uncle raises a single eyebrow and a smirk curls his lips. "I thought you had decided not to marry a man you didn't love."

Katara's cheeks flame, and Uncle laughs. "I don't love Zuko!"

"Of course not, my dear. More tea?"

Katara takes the tea.

…

Dear Zuko,

I'm not saying I love you, because I don't, and I'm not saying I'll marry you because I don't want to. But Dad and Sokka think I have to consider all my options, and Sokka wants to know if he'll get cool swords if he's the brother-in-law of the Fire Lord. I told him he'd have to fix his own pants because Fire Lords' wives are above that.

Your Friend,

Katara.

…

Dear Katara,

You don't have to marry me! I just really want you to. But not because I love you or anything just because the Earth King hates me and my people hate me, but they really like you (at least the Earth King does). So it would just be really nice if we could do that. Yeah.

His Excellency, Fire Lord Zuko

…

You're too pretentious for your own good, Fire Lord Frownyface (Sokka's idea, just for the record).

Katara

…

Shut up.

…

Hawky doesn't take very many letters back and forth before he perches on Sokka's arm one morning and vehemently shakes his head when Katara tries to send him back to the Fire Nation with a response to Zuko's scrap of paper. Which is a shame, considering she spent nearly three hours on a long-winded letter. However, the Earth King doesn't have the patience for a long courtship (Katara scoffs and informs him and his bear that her brief correspondence with the Fire Lord can hardly be considered a courtship). He shifts his weight on the ice uneasily, and his shivering bodyguards glare at her as if it's her fault they've been dragged down here. Too bad for them.

She doesn't speak to Zuko or the Earth King again for nearly eight months, but Sokka drags her to a summit in late summer. Aang has decided that a multicultural exchange of dances and food is the best way to maintain the peace. So, she makes a dress that's entirely blue, with enough Water Tribe emblems that if anybody doubts her heritage he must be as blind as Toph.

Aang walks up to her with a grin stretching across his face. "Hi Katara!"

She smiles. Even at sixteen, the Avatar still has the carefree chirp in his voice he had when he was twelve. Even if his voice has deepened a bit. "Hi, Aang."

"So I hear you and Zuko are getting married." He shoots her a sly smile and pulls her into a dance.

"Zuko and I are not getting married."

"Why, you miss me?" He's teasing her, and she's grateful. He had been so heartbroken at thirteen, and he swore he'd never get over her.

She sees an Air Acolyte watching them from across the floor, and she chuckles at him. "Just a little."

"I think Zuko has a crush on you," he whispers, loudly.

"Zuko doesn't have a crush on me, Aang."

"Okay Katara!" He spins her around and dips her as the music ends. "Whatever you say."

Katara thinks his smile has turned entirely too devious for her taste. Especially considering Zuko seems to be walking toward them.

"You never answered my letter."

"Hi Zuko, nice to see you too," Katara chirps. He scowls. "Besides, you call that a letter? It was a scrap of paper telling me to shut up."

He rubs the back of his neck. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Hmph!" She turns on her heel and stalks away, struggling to hide the smile fighting its way across her face.

…

They begin sending letters again, but by regular post after the messenger hawks begin boycotting the Fire Lord.

Dear Katara,

There are riots in the capitol again. I've tried bringing the colonists back, but they say the Earth Kingdom is their home. The Earth King would be willing to make them citizens, but the people don't want anything left of the colonies. The New Dai Li are pushing the Earth King to require me to marry--they want a minder--and he's trying to be firm about it, but it's the Earth King. I'm worried that if I don't do what he says there will be a coup, and then everything is worse. Please marry me, Katara. I know I'm not what you want, and I know you could do better. Just please think about it.

Your Friend,

Zuko.

Katara smiles. Time and experience have made him more determined, more serious. Still awkward, but that's Zuko.

Dear Zuko,

I'll think about marrying you. But I want a place to practice bending when I come to the Fire Nation.

Love,

Katara.

She sends the letter with a mixture of nerves and a strange, wild glee. It doesn't make sense to leave home, not when she was getting so comfortable there. But Zuko needs her, and maybe marrying him wouldn't be so bad.

Sokka says of course it will be so bad. Hakoda shakes his head. Gran Gran asks if that wasn't the boy who stormed into the village and started making demands. Katara waits for the third ship out of the Southern Water Tribe, to give Zuko enough time to reconfigure his turtle duck pond, and she goes.

Maybe it will be enough. And maybe she does kind of love him, in a friendly kind of way.

…

The people receive her tentatively, as if they know she's technically here to be a minder but they also hope she'll be impartial. Some of the riots die down after the wedding, but fringe groups begin protesting. The heir to the throne will be half-foreign, they shout, unacceptable for the purity of the royal line.

They're feeding the turtleducks when they receive the latest reports on the city. Zuko rolls his eyes. "They'll get over it, 'Tara."

"What if they don't?"

Zuko shrugs. "Your presence is mitigating the threat of massacres on the Earth Kingdom coast."

"Don't use your Fire Lord voice with me."

He blushes. "Sorry."

She smiles at her husband (husband is such a weird word to use with Zuko). "The Earth Kingdom people aren't going to kick the colonists out of their homes?"

Zuko sighs. "Aang wants to make the oldest colonies an international center. Most of the native people seem to feel better knowing that there's no chance of the Fire Nation owning their land. The colonists just want to stay. And everyone is more confident I won't do anything stupid with you keeping an eye on me."

"It can't be that simple."

He shrugs. "It's not, but it's better than it was. If Aang's plan works, maybe there will be peace."

"Baby steps," she muses.

"Yeah."

It's a start, and Katara thinks maybe marrying Zuko wasn't such a horrible idea. She's not sure she loves him, but she loves the world without war, and this seems to be keeping it together. She leans closer to him and kisses his cheek. "I'm going to get more bread."

Zuko nods. "Hurry back."

…

It takes nearly a year for things to come together, but Aang's plan works. Zuko walks her to bed after the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Republic City.

"I'm proud of you, Zuko," she whispers.

He rests his hands on her hips where they stand outside her bedroom. "Thank you, Katara. For everything."

She pulls him into a hug and holds him tightly. "Of course."

Zuko runs a hand through her hair, loosening her hairpiece and pulling curls loose. He trails one finger along her jaw and tilts her head up, looking at her for a beat before bending down and pressing his lips against hers. It's a little awkward, and they're both out of practice, but his lips are soft, and she kisses him back. Pulling away, he smiles a little, and steps back. "Goodnight, Katara." He tucks a curl behind her ear and kisses her forehead.

As he moves to turn away from her, she reaches out and grasps his arm. "Zuko," she breathes. "Don't go."

He stays.

…

Chapter Text

The third assassination attempt in two weeks is moderately more successful than the last. Zuko cradles a broken arm and blood drips from the deep cut across his forehead. "You didn't have to come." Gingerly, he sinks into bed and leans back against the headboard.

Katara rolls her eyes and pulls water from her pouch. "It's not like I came from the South Pole, Zuko. I was at the market."

"The palace doctors could have handled it." He hisses as she stretches the broken arm out. "Ow!"

"I'm sorry but I have to set it."

"Just go back to your shopping."

"No. Zuko, what's wrong? Just let me heal you."

He glowers at her for several moments, until the silence becomes uncomfortable. "I can handle this myself," he mutters.

Katara huffs as she swirls the water around his arm. It glows bright blue, and he grits his teeth. "You don't have to handle things yourself. That's why you have friends. We want to help you."

He narrows his eyes at her. "Why?"

She buries the urge to throw her hands in the air or put them on her hips. "Haven't you ever had friends? That's just what people do for other people they care about."

"No."

Katara pulls back and eyes him, shifting between surprise and sadness. "You've never had a friend before?"

He shrugs the shoulder not attached to his slowly healing arm. "Azula scared most of them off. And I'm the Fire Lord. I don't have friends, I have people trying to kill me and people who tolerate me living."

"Oh, Zuko." She gently lays his arm down on some pillows and cautiously reaches to hug him. He pulls away.

"I don't want your pity."

"I don't pity you."

He looks at her blankly. "Sure."

"I don't! I have sympathy for you, Zuko." She takes a deep breath. "I feel horrible that you didn't have this kind of support, but that's not pity. Feeling for you isn't the same as feeling sorry for you."

"What's the difference." His gold eyes challenge her, and the scarred side looks angry.

She reaches for the cut on his forehead, hand gloved in water. "Sympathy doesn't look down on people." He has nothing else to say, but she's not sure he's convinced. "One thing you're going to have to remember, Zuko: Sympathy and pity aren't the same thing. Friends can share your feelings. That's sympathy."

He flexes the fingers of the freshly healed limb and averts his eyes. Katara wonders if she's reached him, or if he's still convinced she pities him. She knows the pain of feeling pitied. She felt it after her mother died, for the poor little girl, the little victim of the Fire Nation, the latest of many. She felt it from the Northern Tribe when Pakku embarrassed her during their fight. What she feels for Zuko is nothing like that.

But he still won't look her in the eyes. Maybe sympathy is given, and pity is felt.

Chapter Text

His cheeks puff out and his fingers curve around the cold metal of the tsungi horn. Uncle watches the young people carefully, though he pretends to be consumed by his instrument. Fire Lord Zuko is stiff, but not as rigid as he used to be, and Uncle smiles a little to himself. Zuko has done well.

The Avatar is every bit an airbender, buzzing around the room with the lightness of a cloud and the speed of a small bird riding the wind currents. But he is also calm, which Uncle suspects is a new development, a layer of maturity to go with the unusual responsibility upon his shoulders. Toph is sturdy like the element she bends, and today the scowl engraved on her face has been replaced by a smile (now if only the same thing would happen to his nephew!). Katara is flexible, motherly one moment and a friend the next. Zuko's inner flame has been tempered and controlled by time and experience, but he still lacks patience.

Uncle is unsurprised when Katara joins Aang on the balcony, if only because he's seen this story before. The Avatar has brought peace, he has given her hope and restored balance. And Katara is water; she must push and pull, give and take. She has taken, and now she must give, even if she hasn't realized it yet. Just the same, he reflects, puffing on the mouthpiece of the horn, the Avatar is happy, and Katara is happy, which is a good balance. He sneaks a glance at Zuko, standing rigidly next to Mai and looking at the painting over Sokka's shoulder. A good balance, but imperfect.

Or perhaps it's not imperfect, perhaps he's biased in favor of his nephew, who is just off balance enough around Katara that she's either threatened to kill him or Fire Lord Zuko has a crush. The two emotions are markedly similar (at least in Zuko, whose restlessness can indicate any one of several possible moods.

Katara attaches herself to the Avatar, and Zuko follows Mai around the teashop with equal devotion. Their melodies are soft, soothing, as each instrument moves through the notes. Just the same, Uncle thinks it might get monotonous after a while. They'll need variety; they'll want to play both harmonies and melodies. They must be just different and just similar enough to complement each other. But these things take time. He won't meddle.

There is no discord, thank the Spirits, Uncle muses, but there's not harmony yet either.

Chapter Text

"Stop moving! I can't see!" Toph hisses.

Sokka strokes his beard and sinks lower in his seat. "Sorry, geez."

She shoots him a nasty glare. "It's harder since somebody insisted I wear shoes."

It's not like his sister and the jerkbender would recognize her immediately without her shoes or anything. No, they're just as blind as Toph. "Just tell me what you can see!"

Toph rolls her eyes and goes very still. "They're just pushing the food around on their plates," she mutters. "This is boring. Can we go trash a bar now?

"No!" Sokka snaps, just a little too loudly. The people at the tables around them stare at him, and Sokka finds himself nearly underneath his own table, sliding off his chair. "We have to keep an eye on my sister and that jerkbender."

Toph sticks her lower lip out and slumps, resting her chin on her hand. "Nothing's going to happen, you dolt. Zuko's as dangerous as a baby turtleduck."

"Exactly!" Sokka says, jerking up in the seat. "That's just what Katara's going to think, and then she's gonna get all baby sabertooth moose-lion eyed over him, and that's when he'll strike!"

Toph scoffs. "Zuko's going to strike?"

"Toph, I know you can't see and all, but for your information guys like Zuko are always looking at Katara, and I don't like it."

"Guys like Zuko?" Sokka thinks Toph is doing a poor job of suppressing her laughter. "Harmless dorks?"

Sokka is about to respond when he notices a shadow falling across the table. Two shadows, actually.

"Does your brother think we're on a date or something?" Zuko asks, obliviously.

Katara shrugs, obliviously. They walk away, and Sokka suddenly notice the servants trailing behind them, carrying scrolls that look like legalese.

Sokka deflates. Toph cackles at him. "You thought they were on a date."

"I'm just trying to look out for my sister, Toph!" he squawks.

"Can we go get thrown out of a bar now?"

Sokka doesn't see why not, so long as Zuko and Katara are chaperoned.

…

"This is stupid," Toph mutters, bending small figures in the dirt where she's sitting. Sokka glances down at her from his perch in a tree and gestures with his binoculars.

"Shhh!"

"Don't shush me, Meat Head," she snaps.

Sokka presses his binoculars to his face again and strains to see over the tree branch. They're sitting at the edge of a park in Republic City, three days after the founding, and Sokka has decided it's high time Zuko was getting back to the Fire Nation. Or high time Katara got back to the Water Tribe; he's not really picky. His sister and the jerkbender are standing in front of a dilapidated fountain, and Katara is describing Sokka's mechanical plans for it and how they're supposed to interact with waterbending and blah blah blah. Sokka squints through his lenses. It looks like Zuko is less than twelve inches from Katara when he KNOWS an arm's length is the bare minimum. "Toph, can you feel how close Zuko is to Katara?"

Toph snorts. "Far away."

Sokka pulls himself away from the binoculars again and glares down at her. "Helpful."

"They're not on a date you idiot. You can hear them talking about that stupid fountain!"

"Just because they're not on a date now doesn't mean this won't turn into a date while I'm not looking."

"You’re turning into a creep."

Sokka gestures wildly with his arms before settling on a face palm with one hand, binoculars in the other. "I am just a brother doing his moral duty of protecting his baby sister!" Toph sees an opportunity. She slams her foot down into the ground, shaking the tree. Sokka loses his balance and hits the ground with an unmanly screech and a loud thud. "TOPH!"

Katara and Zuko come running. "Sokka, what happened?" Katara rushes to her brother and helps him up off the ground.

Sokka rubs his head and grumbles incoherently.

"I think he has a concussion."

Zuko looks at Toph. Toph looks in Zuko's direction. They come to the mutual conclusion that now is the perfect time to slip away and let Katara fuss over Sokka. Zuko does, after all, have a boat to catch, and Toph has an Earth Rumble VII to organize.

Behind them, they can hear Sokka grumbling about how hard it is to be an older brother (no kidding, Zuko mutters).

…

The next time the group gets together, they return to the Fire Lord's house on Ember Island. Suki occasionally thinks her relationship would be healthier if Sokka gave it as much attention as he gives Zuko and Katara. "I think you actually want them to be together," she says, sipping her tea and leaning back in her beach chair.

Sokka looks up from his sand sculpting (he's just finished punching the one that used to be Zuko's head). "No way! Look Suki--" he points dramatically at the pile of sand that was ever so briefly Zuko's head. "--There's no way that jerk is getting anywhere near my sister."

"I thought you liked Zuko."

"I do!"

Suki eyes him skeptically. "Then what's your problem?"

Sokka, for once, has nothing to say.

Suki sits up and takes another sip of her tea. The birds chirp around them and the breeze blows gently, but her warrior instincts are telling her this peace is short lived. Sokka pushes some sand around and avoids looking at her. "Is it hard to see Katara growing up?"

Sokka's expression softens as he looks up at her. "She's my little sister. It was always my job to protect her. I promised our dad when he left that I'd never let anything happen to her."

"And you can't protect her anymore?"

Sokka doesn't answer, but Toph barrels into the vicinity like a komodo rhino. "Hey Snoozles! Katara just told Zuko she'd meet him for dinner at the Grumpy Platypus Bear tonight!"

"WHAT!" Sokka leaps to his feet, whipping his tunic over his head. "They can't go to the Grumpy Platypus Bear without me!" He sprints to the house, and the beach is quiet again. Suki sighs and looks at Toph.

"What?"

"Thanks." Her tone is dry, perhaps caustic.

Toph looks at her quizzically, shrugs, and wanders into the beach house. Suki collapses against the back of the chair and glares at her tea.

…

Sokka returns to the house from the Grumpy Platypus Bear with several boxes of leftovers, looking half contented and half angry. "Toph!" He barks, stomping into the kitchen. She and Suki are sitting at the table talking to Katara and Zuko who, despite Toph's announcement, were not at the Grumpy Platypus Bear.

"Where have you been?!" Sokka squeaks, pointing his finger between his sister's eyes.

Katara gives him an odd look. "Zuko and I were on a date. It was nice." She walks toward the door, smiling.

Toph laughs at him. "Guess there was something going on."

Sokka has never felt more vindicated. But also he thinks he should have put money on this. And he's still going to have words with Toph about sending him to the wrong restaurant.

…

Chapter Text

Zuko kicks his feet up on the desk and yawns.

"Hey!" Katara swats him with one of the scrolls she's pulled off the shelves. "Put your big, smelly feet under someone else's nose."

Zuko huffs. "My feet aren't smelly!"

"All boys have smelly feet."

Zuko narrows his eyes. "I'm not a boy."

A nasty smirk curls across Katara's mouth. "Oh, so you're a girl?" Really, he sounds just like Sokka insisting he's a man and a warrior. Boys.

"No!"

Katara turns back to the scroll she's bent over and adjusts the candle. "All these scrolls say the same things. The three nations were devastating the climate, so the Fire Nation put a stop to it. But these are also Fire Nation scrolls!"

Zuko lifts his good eyebrow. "So?"

"So the winners write history. This probably isn't how it happened at all."

Zuko protests indignantly. General Iroh chooses that moment to peek into the room with an all too composed face. "Would anyone care for tea? It's jasmine, my favorite."

Katara throws the scroll down. Zuko jerks down to pick it up. "These are ancient works of history, you can't just slam them around like that!"

She sticks her tongue out at him before turning away. "I'd love some."

Zuko gives both of them a sour look. "Uncle can babysit you. I'm leaving."

…

Sokka sits on the ground in the tent, head bowed. Gran Gran stands over him, rigid, cold, menacing (but that's not the worst part). He knows he's messed up, knows Katara was his responsibility; he promised Dad he'd take care of her and he failed and now his sister is missing. "I'll find her Gran, I swear."

"I'm not going to lose two grandchildren in one day. You'll stay here." She puts her hands on her hips (the way Katara does) and sighs. "Stand up, Sokka. Do your chores. Your sister won't stay outside for long."

Sokka's not sure he believes that. But, he muses as he dumps his dirty socks into the washtub, she'd better come back soon. Washing isn't manly work. If she doesn't come back, he'll just have to go get her before the next time he runs out of socks.

…

"I have to stay with her. If I don't, she'll probably do something stupid like accidentally waterbend all over those scrolls."

Uncle lifts his eyebrows over the teacup at his lips. "You've never shown so much interest in preserving our world's history before, Prince Zuko."

"It was never in danger before!" He snaps, glaring at Uncle menacingly.

Uncle shakes his head and moves a pai sho piece. "She's a very pretty girl, Prince Zuko. Finding yourself attracted to her is nothing to be ashamed o--"

"I am not attracted to her, Uncle! She's not my type!"

Uncle's belly rolls when he laughs. "Not your type?"

Zuko flushes. "Not my type."

"So," Uncle chokes out between stifling his giggles. "What exactly is your type, Prince Zuko?"

"This conversation is over." Zuko stomps out of the room. The guards at the door look back in, confused. Uncle chuckles to himself.

As quickly as he'd gone, Zuko walks back into the room, decidedly less angry and looking more like a frightened puppy. "My father is here." His face is whiter than usual, putting the angry red scar around his eye in sharp contrast. He runs a hand along his head, smoothing a few loose hairs, and adjusts his phoenix plume, shifting from one foot to the other.

"Well, I suppose we must greet him," Uncle says, hauling himself up from his cushion on the ground. He tucks his hands into his sleeves and strolls into the hallway, a fidgety Zuko on his heels.

Fire Lord Ozai has always had a tendency toward the dramatic, and his arrival on the island is no exception. He's dropped the gangplank on a rather gilded ship, and a red and gold carpet has been rolled out on the ground. The carpet is lined on either side by Imperial Firebenders holding phoenix flags in one hand and flames in the other. As Uncle approaches the end of the carpet, fire flashes and the Fire Lord appears at the opening in his ship. Zuko pulls himself into a painfully straight posture and clenches his hands at his sides.

The Fire Lord marches down the gangplank, glaring at his brother and son as he walks. As he approaches, his brother bows low, as one does to the leader of a mighty nation, and his son trips over himself to do the same. "Prince Zuko."

"Father."

"You will show me the Avatar."

"Of course," Zuko jerks down in another bow and begins walking toward the holding cell, his father and uncle behind him.

"So, little brother," Iroh chimes in after a near eternity of silence, "can I interest you in some tea? I've been working on a new blend."

The Fire Lord looks down his nose at his brother. "No, thank you."

"What a shame--"

"This is the Avatar," Zuko interjects. They've arrived at the holding cell. Aang is sitting on the floor, meditating in the lotus position.

"Hi! I'm Aang!" He springs from the ground and bows to the Fire Lord quickly, smile on his face. "Can I walk around for a while? It's getting super hot in here." Perhaps for effect, he pulls his collar away from his neck.

Ozai doesn't respond. Uncle shakes his head so subtly he's not sure the Avatar can tell, and Zuko is frozen. The Fire Lord, after contemplating the Avatar for a moment, turns to his son. "Where is the waterbender that was with him."

Zuko pales, looking at Uncle briefly, frantically. "She's locked up elsewhere, Father. I thought it best to keep them separated."

"Bring her to me."

Zuko walks away with as much princely dignity (and haste) as he can muster. Aang looks up at the Fire Lord. "Soooo, I'm going to take that as a no."

Silence, dark and heavy.

…

The third day after they disappear, Sokka has officially gotten restless. The fourth day he spends plotting, the fifth looking at old maps. There's an island not far from the South Pole, named for the last Earth Kingdom Avatar (a myth, obviously). Sokka rubs his chin. A note on the map reads "female warriors" (as if there could be such a thing), and Sokka would bet a month's worth of seal jerky that it's just the place Katara would want to go. Although he's not entirely sure how she'd know to go there. Katara never looks at maps.

And the second order of business is to figure out how she got out of the dome. Sokka finds himself suddenly desiring a monocle and a pipe. And maybe some sea prunes.

…

Katara's head jerks up as the door slams open.

"Let's go, peasant."

"Where are we going?" Katara doesn't get up, but she rolls the scroll she's holding and ties the string around it.

"The Fire Lord wants to see you."

He looks jittery, like lightning hit him and he's still coming to grips with the fact that he lived. "Well maybe I don't want to see him."

"This isn't a joke, Katara."

It's the first time he's used her real name. Katara pushes herself up from her seat and looks at him grimly. "Okay."

He turns sharply toward the door with Katara directly on his heels. "When you meet him, you should bow, and don't say anything stupid. Oh--"

Zuko turns back toward her, nearly knocking her over. "What are you doing?" She stutters, trying to keep her balance.

"Tying you up," he huffs as he loops rope around her wrists. "You're supposed to be a prisoner."

"Oh come on, Zuko. What am I going to do, waterbend at the Fire Lord? I don't know what I'm doing."

"Didn't stop you from waterbending at me!" He finishes a series of complicated knots and grabs the tail end of the rope. "Come on."

"That was an accident," she grumbles. Zuko spares her a glance over his shoulder.

The rest of the walk passes in silence, aside from the light scuffing of their footsteps. Katara tugs on the rope from time to time, testing Zuko's hold, but he doesn't let go. She hears Uncle Iroh making bad jokes (and suddenly she misses Sokka so much it hurts), and in a moment she's standing before a tall man, taller than Zuko and Iroh, taller than her father. His eyes are gold, like Zuko's, but there's something cruel in the way they're set in his face, something about the steely glint surrounded by deep lines etched into his skin. Odd, since the Fire Lord can't be older than forty. His marble skin has a frown carved into it, as though if he tried to smile the face would crack.

"The waterbender, Father."

Katara looks at him with a glare she'd like to think is proud and defiant, like a Southern warrior. The Fire Lord walks up to her slowly, looking her up and down as if appraising a wolfhound. "Don't take her back to her dome."

"Father?" Zuko wears his confusion on his face. Katara sneaks a glance at Uncle, who seems paler than usual, and tense.

A smirk curls his lips almost imperceptibly. "She'll tell everyone she knows that the world is habitable again. They'll exit the domes and begin polluting the world again. We can't have that, can we, Prince Zuko?"

Zuko stands up a little straighter. "No, of course not."

"What do you propose we do with her?"

Katara stiffens. She doesn't like his tone, and she doesn't like how tense Uncle Iroh looks, and she doesn't miss the tightening of Zuko's jaw or the slight narrowing of his eyes. "In some cultures, it's rude to talk about people like they're not here."

Zuko ignores her, but Uncle stifles a chuckle. "I'm not sure yet," Zuko replies.

"Perhaps there is a simple solution."

Zuko looks as though he's developed a bad case of cotton mouth. "She's been cooperative."

"Hmm."

"She can be useful to me."

"You know what must be done."

"Father please, she hasn't done anything wrong."

"My nephew is right, Brother," Uncle cuts in. There is no reason to treat her harshly.

Katara eyes the three men deciding her fate. "Don't I get a say in this?"

The Fire Lord closes the distance between them and stands there for a beat before running one finger down the side of her face. Katara's skin crawls, but she stands perfectly still.

He turns to his older brother. "See that the Avatar is kept secure. I will take him back to the Fire Nation." Looking back at Katara, the Fire Lord's smirk slides off his face. "We have no need for either a waterbender or a liability. She will be executed at dawn tomorrow."

Katara gasps. Zuko steps between her and the Fire Lord. "You can't!"

"Would you like a mark on the other side as well, Prince Zuko?" The Fire Lord's voice carries a cold anger, displeasure at being contradicted mixed with some deeper loathing.

Zuko's golden eyes shimmer in the muted light filtering through the windows, fixed on his father. Shadows play across his face from the torches in the room around him, but he has carefully schooled his expression. When he answers, he doesn't look at her.

Chapter Text

Zuko wraps a dark brown curl around one finger, watching her sleep. His wife is beautiful, in a nontraditional, non-Fire Nation way, all blue beads and bone sewing needles and wild hair mixed up in a world of sleek metal and smoke. It's the rainy season now, what Katara calls winter, and the cold water patters against the window panes. Like the rest of the Fire Nation, they've barricaded themselves in their home, hiding from the chill.

Zuko misses the sun, and even Katara, master waterbender, has no interest in venturing out. The servants have gone home for the duration of the storm, and everything is so, so quiet inside that for a while the rain sounded like millions of Yu Yan arrows pelting the roof. Katara has the blankets pulled up to her chin, and she's curled around her pillow with tendrils of hair streaming over the mattress. Her husband curls himself around her, lightly stroking her face, brushing his hand along the curves of her body and nuzzling her neck. She stirs, looking at him with bleary eyes, and smiles.

"Love you," he whispers.

"Mhm." She pulls his arm around her and turns into his chest. He can feel the light fluttering of her eyelashes against his bare skin and the warmth of her body as her legs tangle with his. "You too."

He presses a kiss to her forehead and watches the lightning break open the sky.

Chapter Text

"That's something we have in common," he says, his raspy voice echoing loudly through the crystals. She wipes the tears from her face and meets his eyes.

They have a long time to talk; it's not as though they're going anywhere and it doesn't seem likely anyone's going to rescue them. "I wonder if Aang is learning anything new about the Avatar State," Katara wonders, long after they've run out of energy to talk about dead mothers and absent fathers.

Zuko raises his head. "Azula didn't capture him too?"

"No," Katara says. "He's at the Eastern Air Temple with a guru."

Zuko looks at her blankly. "The Avatar has a guru?"

"His name is Aang," she huffs.

He shifts uncomfortably. "I didn't know."

Katara sends him a sour look. "I guess you were too busy trying to capture us to pick up on names."

Glowering, Zuko crosses his arms and leans against the wall of the cave. "I had to restore my honor. It wasn't personal."

"Oh, and that makes it all better."

He sighs deeply. "Will you--" he pauses, looking at his feet as though they have the words he's looking for. "What's your name?"

A smile cracks across her face. "Katara. Nice to meet you."

"The Avatar thought we could have been friends," he says, after a beat.

"Aang."

"Aang. Aang thought we could be friends."

Katara eyes him skeptically. If Sokka were here he'd say something sarcastic, some shot about how many deep conversations Aang and Zuko must have had that one time Zuko actually managed to capture him. "When did he tell you that?"

Zuko ducks his head slightly and his hair covers his eyes. "It's a long story."

Katara steps closer to him and sits on the ground. "We're not going anywhere, Zuko."

He exhales noisily and slides down the wall to sit on the ground with her. "Do you remember Pouhai?"

She frowns. "Frozen frogs."

Zuko looks at her quizzically. "The Av--Aang was really determined to get them back to you guys."

Katara scrunches her face. "He made us suck on them."

He snorts. "Nice."
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His peripheral vision is suboptimal with the mask on, and it makes sneaking into Pouhai Stronghold much harder than it has any right to be. He's relying on sound almost entirely with his face pressed up against the bottom of a supply wagon, and he waits, coiled and ready, as the guards at the gate inspect the inside of the wagon. One stops at the side as the other walks away, and Zuko swings himself up inside as the man grunts with the effort of bending to look underneath the wagon.

The wood creaks as the wheels begin to turn, and it muffles the sound of Zuko shifting his weight to crouch among the boxes as the wagon passes through the gate. Once inside the fortress, it's surprisingly easy to find the Avatar. Every guard on duty is buzzing about which section of the fortress he's guarding and whether or not his patrol takes him past the Fire Nation's Greatest Threat. Zuko slips out of the wagon, stealing along the walls and slipping through the shadows in the hallways. Guards increase in numbers as he closes in on the Avatar, but they've grown sloppy with arrogance and a calm routine. He dispatches them quickly.

Freeing the Avatar is even easier than finding him, though getting out proves to be the most difficult part of the entire plan (Zuko suddenly wishes he had thought that far ahead. It hadn't occurred to him when he left his ship that he would need to get past the guards with a flighty child wearing bright orange). They make it out just the same, and for reasons Zuko never does figure out, the Avatar doesn't leave him to be captured by Zhao, and when he wakes up the boy is in a tree and Zuko is on the ground with a substantial headache.

"He was Fire Nation, like you," the boy says, in a tone that suggests he's talking to himself more than he's talking to Zuko. "If we knew each other back then, do you think we could have been friends too?"

Zuko looks at him incredulously. What kind of enemy sits around in trees asking to be friends, anyway? The Avatar looks at him with hope in his childishly large, gray eyes. Feeling a prick of something (and wanting very much for it to go away), Zuko slams a fireball in the Avatar's direction, but the boy flits through the treetops unscathed.

"Why did you rescue him," Katara asks, her voice soft.

Zuko glances at her from the corner of his good eye. "I couldn't let Zhao take him, and I couldn't fight Zhao."

The softness in her voice takes on a steel edge, and for a moment her voice sounds just a little like Azula's. "Why, was he too strong for you?" Zuko frowns, but doesn't respond. He's done taking bait; he won't take it from her and he won't take it from Azula (spirits forbid he ever sees his sister again). Katara's face contorts into a pained, spiteful grin, and she laughs bitterly. "You have to take all the glory for yourself, don't you?"

He hangs his head. "I just wanted to go home." It comes out weak, and suddenly he's ashamed of himself. He's losing all the dignity he had left, and this Water Tribe peasant is laughing at him.

Except that she stops, and looks at him curiously. "How would capturing Aang get you home? You're the prince."

"The banished prince," he mutters.

Katara frowns. "Why were you banished?"

Zuko glares at her. "Don't you have anything better to do than pry into my life story?"

She purses her lips. "Not unless you know a secret passage out of this crystal prison."

Zuko huffs. "I just was, okay. I was scarred and banished and the only way I could go home was by bringing the Avatar to my father."

"How did you get your scar?"

"Quit asking so many questions!"

They sit in silence for a while. Katara fiddles with the end of her braid and Zuko sits perfectly, stiffly still. "The Blue Spirit isn't the only one who wears a mask," she whispers, finally.

His face hardens more, if possible, but he looks her in the eye. "You don't know me."

"I can't know you if you don't tell me who you are."

He opens his mouth to respond when the wall of the cave explodes.
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"He betrayed us in Ba Sing Se," Katara spits. "He can't be trusted."

Sokka lifts one finger. "When someone shows you who he is--"

"Believe him," Aang finishes, dourly. "But I need a firebending teacher. And it's not like another one is just going to fall into my lap."

"You never know," Sokka shrugs. "We got one."

Toph stomps one foot. "You guys are stupid. Let's just get him to train Aang. He's sincere."

"He's not who he says he is!" Katara exclaims.

Sokka lifts one eyebrow. "What do you mean?" He's a prince, firebender, theoretically capable of teaching Aang."

"That's not what I mean," she huffs. "He has masks. He was Mister Vulnerable in Ba Sing Se, and then he turned around and betrayed us. And when he was still playing loyal Fire Nation Prince, he busted Aang out of Pouhai! He betrays everyone, even his own people."

Sokka rubs his chin. "Is that true, Aang?"

Aang hangs his head. I didn't want to tell you guys, but he got me away from Zhao."

"And so you just told Katara?" Sokka squawks.

"No!" Aang protests. "How did you find out?"

"He told me," Katara grumbles. "Like he was trying to get me to think we were on the same side."

"Hold it there, Sugarqueen. Even you know that's not exactly true," Toph rolls her pale eyes.

In the end, Team Avatar descends into bickering but allows Zuko to join (despite him burning Toph's feet, although she doesn't seem particularly upset about it once Katara has healed them and Zuko has fallen over himself apologizing). But that doesn't stop Katara from marching into his room, late at night, once every one has gone to bed, and glaring ice daggers at him.

"I don't know who you are," she begins, and he looks at her calmly, impassively. "But I know you're selfish and you're probably doing this for some reason I haven't figured out yet. So if you take one step out, give me one reason to think whatever you're up to is going to hurt Aang, you won't have to worry about your destiny anymore."

He nods, but says nothing, and she storms out of his room as quickly as she'd stormed in. Loyalty and Zuko, Katara decides, are mutually exclusive.
.
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By the time they return from not killing Yon Rha, Katara thinks she might have been wrong, but not wrong enough to apologize and certainly not wrong enough to forgive him, but she admits to herself that it might be time to at least acknowledge that he hasn't screwed up yet. When she finds him in his mother's room, staring at her portrait, her voice is as soft as it was in Ba Sing Se, though her back is ramrod straight and she can't quite look at him.

"Thank you," she whispers.

"For what?" He looks up at her, wide-eyed.

"For not turning on us yet."

He closes his eyes and bows his head. "I won't."

For the first time, she smiles at him. "And for helping me find him."

Zuko still doesn’t look at her. "It was the least I could do."

She walks up to him and places a bowl of rice and curried meat on his nightstand. "Normal salt."

He looks at her, finally. "Thank you, Katara."

His eyes are a beautiful gold, she notices, just like his mother's, and the slight upward tilt of his mouth is genuine. She wonders, suddenly, if the selfish, disloyal liar was the mask and if this boy, barely older than Sokka, who takes them on field trips and stares at his mother's picture and smiles at her when she brings him dinner, is what was underneath.

Maybe.

She shakes the thoughts from her head and stalks out of his bedroom.
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Zuko notices she stalks with a little less disdain today.
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Chapter Text

Li Peng is a humble restorer. He specializes in the thin paper scrolls favored during the Kaki dynasty (his preference is the scrolls with heat-sensitive invisible ink--a marvel--but few survived Sozin's War). He's poring over the ancient texts found in a wrecked warship, the author one Commander (Admiral, depending on the date of writing) Zhao. A girl enters his shop, and he starts at the jingle of the bells hanging from his door.

"Welcome to Li Peng's Restoration Service," he calls, trying to smile (but not too much). Li Peng has never quite had a knack for talking to customers. He's better with parchment.

The girl smiles back and approaches his desk, and as she comes closer he can see the pure gold of her eyes framed by black hair. He is struck by the notion that if the Council of the Four Nations hadn't banned monarchies years ago, he'd think her a princess. Come to think of it, she bears a resemblance to Fire Lord Izumi II (not that the girl would know who he was talking about. The woman abdicated and disappeared 60 years ago in favor of democracy).

"I have some letters," she begins, quiet and shy. "They've been in my family since Sozin's War."

Li Peng's eyebrows climb to his hairline. "Can they be read?" He asks, breathless.

"No," she replies. "My great-grandmother could read the Old Language, but the characters are faint and she can't see them well enough. That's why I brought them to you."

Li Peng nearly begins bouncing in his chair. "I can fix them for you--they'll look as they did 500 years ago." He pauses, looking at his hands.

"How much?" She murmurs, as if afraid to ask. "I don't have much to offer you."

"I'll do it free," he says. "But when your grandmother has read them, please write down her translation. I'd love to have it."

She offers him another smile, wider this time. "Deal."
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It's late, hours after he's closed his little shop and locked himself into the back bedroom with the box of letters. The girl (Li Peng is more than a little upset with himself for not catching her name) was right; the characters are faded enough that he has to put them under a scope to make out where the ink starts and ends, but he manages, and after several hours of work, the first letter is finished. He's made the letters black against the yellowed parchment, as he imagines they would have been so long ago. It's handy that he has these letters from Zhao; they seem to be from almost the same period, and the years spent in a metal box wrapped in ice has done a better job at preserving those letters than whatever has happened to these.

As the weeks go by and the work progresses, Li Peng's excitement grows. He's brushed up on the Old Language just a bit in his spare time, but it doesn't tell him much. His excitement comes from two names. Each letter starts with "Dear Katara," and ends with "Zuko."

If Li Peng knows his history, Katara was Avatar Aang's waterbending master and (this is the part that really gets Li Peng's blood pumping) Zuko must then refer to Fire Lord Zuko, firebending master to Avatar Aang, the legendary Fire Lord who defeated his sister in an Agni Kai for the throne and helped end the 100 year war. The man whose statue still stands in the Senate Chamber, across the room from Avatar Aang's.

Li Peng thinks he may just have a heart attack.
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The girl is as good as her word. Once Li Peng has finished restoring the ink and she's taken them home, she returns a few weeks later with a stack of translations. Li Peng rubs his hands together as she puts them on his desk with a smile. "Tell me, what was in them?"

She glances at him. "Sordid love letters."

Li Peng gapes at her. "You're not serious."

"Read them and find out," she replies. "Maybe you'd like to get coffee when you're done and we can talk about them."

Li Peng smiles. "I'd like that."

She nods, smiling, and bows (an afterthought, Li Peng thinks). "See you."

"Wait---" Li Peng stands from his desk and pushes his chair back. "What's your name?"

"Ursa."

Li Peng plops back into his chair heavily. "Your name…"

"Read the letters," she orders. "It's a family name."
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Dear Katara-- Li Peng squirms in his chair. He was right about the name, then--

It's not honorable to write this, so you should burn this, and I wouldn't tell you except you and Aang aren't together anymore and [Ursa has dutifully left a large blob of ink on the translation where he remembers filling it in on the original]

Anyway I was wondering if maybe you wanted to have dinner feed turtleducks have tea with me--and Uncle!-- not just me, I think I know where my mother is.

Your friend,

Zuko.
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Dear Katara,

I wrote you a letter before but it was stupid so I didn't send it. Would you honor me with your presence at tea with my uncle? We need to talk about reparations to the Southern Tribe--do you need metal. No, of course you don't, you have bone and you probably don't want my charity, but my council has been enjoying the arctic wine your father sent and they want more. It's awful; worse than the Fatherlord Fire Lord's sake and

Never mind. This is stupid. Why am I so bad at writing?

Zuko.
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Dear Katara,

Mai might want to get back together but I'm not really sure why. I'm not really sure why she left in the first place. Anyway how have you been? Uncle wants the three of us to have tea.

Your friend,

Zuko.
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Dear Katara,

I was thinking maybe we should leave Uncle out of the tea, maybe it should be just the two of us. I miss you everybody, we should get together soon.

Zuko
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Dear Zuko,

Why don't you ever write? You promised you would! Sokka and I have been designing new walls for the Southern Tribe (Sokka is very excited to be Head Architect, but some of the waterbenders from the North aren't happy about it). I haven't heard from Aang lately either, but I'm not expecting to either. I miss him, you know? We aren't really in love anymore, but he's still my best friend. It's just so awkward.

How've you been? How's Mai? Your uncle? My father says to pass along his highest regards, and Sokka says to say hi to the jerkbenders.

Please write. Even with the rebuilding it's quiet here, and I miss having all of us together.

Love,

Katara
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Dear Katara,

I try to write! It's just that nothing ever comes out the way I want it to. I'm sorry.

Zuko.
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Dear Katara,

I really do try to write. How have you been? I'm glad Sokka is making himself useful happy. Are you happy? I wish you'd come to the Fire Nation You should come to the Fire Nation. The five year anniversary is coming and Aang thinks we ought to bring dancing back and have a ball. I told him it was stupid, but maybe you'll like it. And maybe you'd want to go with me?

I wish
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Dear Katara,

The Council wants me to marry to secure my throne. They're probably right. Mai still wants to get married but I don't know. I want you I want us to I want to have everybody come to the palace
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Dear Zuko,

Sokka got your invitation to come to the palace. A reunion is a great idea! We're looking forward to seeing everybody. Aang and I can talk without it being too awkward again, which has been really nice. Toph was thinking about coming to visit but Sokka told her there isn't any dirt under the ice near the city, so she decided not to (I hear she's staying with you for a few weeks?).

Rumor has it your Council wants you to marry. Do you have anybody in mind? Your uncle told me last time I was in Ba Sing Se that you might but wouldn't say who it is. That's exciting. Is she pretty?

I wish you'd write to me sometimes.

Love,

Katara
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Dear Katara,

Yes, she's very pretty. She has blue eyes and brown, wavy hair that flies around her head. She's not pretty; actually, she's beautiful. I'll be seeing her when she comes with her brother to our Team Avatar --that's such a stupid name-- reunion.

[A blacked out paragraph]
[The rest of the paper had been torn off]
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Dear Katara,

It was good to see you. I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to feed the turtleducks or have tea with Uncle. I had meetings. And things.

I'm not avoiding you, I swear. I just don't know how to look at you You're beautiful and I don't want to mess this up so I tried not to look stupid in front of you but

I wish I could have spent more time with you.

Love,

Zuko.
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Dear Zuko,

I'm starting to think I should stop writing. You never respond, and I barely saw you when we visited.

If you ever want to, you can still write.

Love,

Katara.
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Dear Katara,

Please don't stop.

Love,

Zuko.
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Dear Zuko,

It's been a few years, hasn't it? I miss you. Aang and I have decided to try again (actually he proposed last week). We were going to tell you when we came next week, but I suppose I wanted you to know before.

Katara
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Dear Katara,

I am so, so sorry. Please don't marry him. We should have tea.

I don't want
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Dear Katara,

The wedding was beautiful.

You were beautiful.

Love,

Zuko.
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Dear Zuko,

I feel my life leaving me. Ever since Aang died, I've been living in the South, and I feel the cold more than I used to. Before I go, I want you to know that you've always been one of my best friends, and though I hoped once that we could be more, I understand that you've never felt that way about me. But I wanted to tell you.

I hope all is well with you and your family.

Best,

Katara.
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Dear Katara,

I love you. Hang on until I get there.

Love,

Zuko.
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Dear Ambassador Zuko,

Katara passed away this morning. The Southern Water Tribe hopes you'll be able to attend her funeral, which will be later in the week.

Best,

Avatar Korra.
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Jing: Send word to Avatar Korra that we'll be there within the hour. I'll be meditating in my quarters.

Ambassador Zuko.

Chapter Text

Zuko is getting altogether too old for this. This idiot dignitary and that idiot dignitary keep asking him whether Izumi is really prepared to take the throne, whether the new Fire Lord is as committed to peace as her father; whether he thinks she'll get along with the new Avatar. The new Avatar doesn't get along with anyone, he doesn't say.

"Retired Fire Lord Zuko," comes a woman's voice. It's scratchy with age, like his, and he hasn't heard it in years, but he recognizes it immediately. He suppresses a grin.

"Master Katara," he says, turning and bowing as low as his stiff back allows. "It's been a long time."

"And," she replies, smiling, "whose fault is that?"

"Mine."

In Zuko's defense, he's been very busy making sure Izumi is settled on the throne and worrying about Iroh; he can't possibly be expected to keep up with everything (not everything, Katara pouts, just your oldest friends). They slip out of the room and into the garden just after dinner, Zuko hiding a few of the dinner rolls he'd swiped in his sleeve. Katara chuckles as he pulls them out and tears pieces for the turtleducks.

"If you paid half as much attention to the people in there as you do to the turtleducks, there would never be another war."

He scowls. "These are turtleducks. Those are ratvipers."

She rolls her eyes. "They aren't that bad."

Except that they are, and Zuko knows this because he's spent 70 years trying to make them happy (unsuccessfully, he might add). They're also deadly, but it occurs to him that he's done such a good job of keeping his friends from finding out about all of the assassination attempts throughout his career that further arguing the point will only make him look paranoid.

"You're a little paranoid, Zuko."

Case in point.

"I'm not paranoid!"

She tugs on his long, white beard playfully. "You're paranoid."

Zuko throws a small scrap of dinner roll into the pond a bit harder than is strictly necessary. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

Katara lifts one eyebrow. "Social networking."

Zuko sighs. "I know that, I mean what are you doing sitting in the dirt with me? Shouldn't you be off making introductions, or showing off the Avatar or something?"

She scoots closer to him and rests her head on her shoulder. "I spent my whole life doing that. Don't you think I deserve a break?"

He tentatively leans his head on top of hers. It would be comfortable if he weren't 87 years old with arthritis in his hips. "Yeah, I guess."

She reaches across his body in a half hug. "I've missed you, Zuko."

He presses a kiss to the top of her white head. "I've missed you too, Katara."

They sit there for a while, largely to avoid the crowds and enjoy the other's company, but a little bit of Zuko has to admit there's another, far more embarrassing reason. He's pretty sure neither of them can actually get up off the ground.

This could be an adventure.

Chapter Text

She knows she's going to have to tell Zuko about this. Aang must suspect something, or he wouldn't be so silent (but then, he's been silent like this before and nothing's ever come of it). It's the height of summer, and the sun beats down on their heads oppressively, heat unbroken by clouds or breeze. They're watching Bumi and Tenzin pretend to airbend at targets--the rules are that Tenzin can't really bend because that's unfair, Kya had explained, rolling her eyes--when Aang looks at her, dark gray eyes unusually cloudy. The laugh lines around his eyes have smoothed, and his brows are slightly furrowed. Katara pretends not to notice he's watching her for a moment, taking the time to breathe deeply, carefully.

Aang reaches for her hand and runs his thumb along her knuckles.

He said, "Have you ever cheated on me? Has there been someone else?"

She's never cheated, never touched another man. Aang is her first and last everything; she'd never dishonor him that way. And yet the way his eyes look through her stops the protests in her throat. His soft hold on her hand tightens as she hesitates, and she can see the fear and dread in the lines around his mouth.

"Katara. Is there someone you love more than me?"

He said, "Have you ever cheated on me?" I said, "Only in my mind."

She doesn't know why she says it; his face crumples and he turns away from her, squinting into the sun. "How could this happen?"

How can I tell him that time we spent together was time between friends?

"Nothing happened, Aang. Nothing's ever happened."

He turns back toward her, face stormy. "Do you love him more than me?"

There's just some things I can talk about with you that I just can't with him.

"I--Aang, you're my husband." She feels the heat in her face, but she's not sure whether she's blushing or angry or sunsick.

He deflates suddenly, as if his bones have turned to sand and the wind has been turned out of him. His shoulders slump as he rests his elbows on his knees, and he dips his head down, refusing to look at her again. "Forget him, sweetie. Please."

She scoots closer to him and puts her hand on his thigh. "I will. I love you."

And when she's alone that night, after Aang has taken Appa and Tenzin and disappeared into the horizon (a field trip, he always says), she writes a letter to Zuko. She always does.

Answering his last letter doesn't take as long as she hopes. She goes on about the children a while, and rambles about a new waterbending form she's inventing, and then sits, twirling the brush, far longer than she should. The moon is high in the sky and the lamp nearly burning out when she puts the brush back to paper again.

And one last thing. Aang asked me a question today. He said, "Have you ever cheated on me? Is there someone you love more than me?" and I said, "Only in my mind." I don't know why I said it. We've always been so careful not to cross that line, but how can I tell him the time we spent together was time between friends? There's just some things I can talk about with you that I just can't with him. Always been something between us.

It's wrong, Zuko.

It's wrong, and we have to be better.

Love,

Katara

Chapter Text

For all the work he put into earning Katara's forgiveness, Toph thinks, it didn't do much. Katara's heartbeat still stutters angrily whenever she sees him, her blood rushing to her cheeks just as it did before (although to her credit it's no longer immediately followed by snide comments or sharp tongued shrieking). Toph is pretty sure the entire time they've been at the beach house Katara has been going out of her way to avoid Zuko.

Zuko is baffled, obviously, but he doesn't seem surprised, and it is better than being yelled at (better for the whole group that Katara isn't yelling anymore). And his food isn't oversalted lately. Toph should know; she's always made a point to switch bowls with Zuko when Katara isn't looking to make sure Zuko isn't poisoned. After all, Toph has far better odds of getting healed. Zuko could very easily be allergic to rice, or something, and you can't really heal an allergy (can you?).

Toph decides Katara needs a rock to the head sometimes.

Especially today, when after two days of being reasonably civil to Zuko, she's suddenly ignoring him. He asks her a question, she stutters some stupid short response. He greets her in the morning, she ignores him. He offers to do the dishes, she shakes her head and refuses to look at him.

Stupid.

It gets worse during Firebending training. Aang waves at Katara as she passes the courtyard with a bundle of dirty laundry. "Katara! Look at this new move Zuko taught me!"

Toph can feel Katara's approach; she's less willing than usual. Weird. "That's nice, Aang."

"Sifu Hotman does it better." Aang shoots a grin at his firebending teacher.

"Don't call me that!"

"Can you show me one more time?" Aang bounces on the tips of his toes.

Toph can feel Zuko's skepticism before she hears it in his voice. "You've seen it a hundred times, Aang. You just need to practice it more."

"Pleeeeeeease?"

Toph groans. Sometimes she's embarrassed to be the same age as this kid. "Hey Twinkletoes, how come you never ask me to show you again?"

"Uh--"

Katara steps forward (Toph knew she would). "Aang is just excited about learning to firebend, right Aang?"

"Yeah! Not that I wasn't excited about earthbending, Sifu Toph--"

Toph snorts as he bows hurriedly. "Zuko, just show the kid so I don't have to listen to this."

Zuko, eternally in her debt after burning her feet, complies. Toph feels his lungs expand as he takes a deep breath (and she can almost hear Tea Guy with his gravelly voice reminding him that fire comes from the breath). His muscles tense, and he drops to the ground, landing lightly on his palms and throwing his momentum into his legs. The fire is far enough away that she doesn't feel the heat on her face so much as a gentle, warm breeze that glides through the courtyard. It follows Zuko's feet as he twists his back and pushes off one arm to allow his legs to rotate through.

Must be something to see, Toph muses, because Sugar Queen's heartbeat has sped up almost uncomfortably, and the vibrations reach her cheeks (this, Toph has learned, is what blushing feels like).

Momentarily distracted, Toph has lost track of Zuko, but he finishes the form with a roll, pushing himself back up on the way out. She can smell the sweat mixed with smoke as he comes closer, and if Katara shifting backwards is anything to go by, Toph isn't the only one. At least Toph is self-aware enough to realize that when she was all lovey about Sokka, she was the same way (and Toph does pride herself on her self-awareness). And now there's Katara and Zuko, sitting in a tree--

"Where are you going?" Aang chirps, and Toph notices that Katara has very nearly escaped the courtyard.

"It's just a little hot in here. I'm going to go do the laundry." Much to Toph's newfound satisfaction, Katara drops at least three of Sokka's socks and trips over her own feet on her way out. Toph allows a devious grin to spread across her face, and she doesn't care that Zuko and Aang see it, look at each other, and sneak out the back of the courtyard.

This is going to be good. Awkward as heck, but good.

Chapter Text

The statue of the Avatar looms over the bay. Sokka stands at the station, watching as the knots of passengers untangle on their way out of the train, wondering if his magnetic levitation idea would work. Whether the council would approve the funds to try it is an entirely separate problem he tries not to think about (things were easier when the Mechanist was alive. He knew where to get raw materials on the cheap). He leans against the ticket counter, absently fiddling with his boomerang as the clerk chatters about all the cute boys shuffling down the platforms and how she can't get her hair to shine no matter how hard she tries (he should understand; he's more Water Tribe than she is).

He's not sure why he's here, really. Katara left on this train, but there's no reason to think she'll come back on it (no reason to think she's coming back at all, really, not after 15 years). The clerk abruptly stops talking as a few people gather around clamoring about being late and needing this ticket or that boy to give him back his passport. Sokka counts himself lucky he didn't move to Ba Sing Se. Zuko reports the bureaucracy is worse than ever on that side of the Earth Kingdom; Republic City isn't half bad.

The train is nearly empty by now, but as the last of the passengers trickle out, one catches Sokka's eye. He looks about 13, with dark brown hair that looks black in the shadows of the platform and blue eyes that scream Water Tribe. Hitching his bag up higher on his back, the boy walks toward the ticket counter, eyes darting across the room. After he reaches the counter, he's stuck behind about six people in line, glancing around nervously as the minutes tick by. Once the crowd has cleared, he steps up to the counter and raises his chin in a way that Sokka thinks would be almost regal if he weren't so nervous.

"Can you tell me where the Water Tribe Quarter is?"

The clerk lifts one thin eyebrow. "The Quarters were dispersed a decade ago, kid. Who are you looking for?"

The boy's eyes widen. "My mother's family."

"Who's your mother?" Sokka interjects, and looks back at the clerk. "I'll take care of it."

The clerk nods briefly and slouches back in her chair, fiddling with the radio dial.

The boy looks up at him, and Sokka studies the face. His skin is lighter than Sokka's, the nose aquiline, brow high, eyes narrower and slightly slanted. Probably part Fire Nation, Sokka decides, not sure whether 30 years is far enough removed from the war that a Fire Nation-Water Tribe child doesn't invoke either pity or loathing. "What's your mother's name?"

"Kya," he says, and Sokka feels like he's been sucker punched.

"That was my mother's name too," he says, putting one hand on the boy's shoulder. "Where is she?"

The kid looks down and toes at the ground. "In Makapu. She was sick, and now she won't wake up, but the old lady there says she's not dead. I thought maybe since her family was Water Tribe maybe there would be healers--"

"Say no more!" Sokka tugs the boy forward. "I know where most of the Water Tribe people live around here. You're sure she was from Republic City?"

"This is where she lived before I was born. I don't know where she grew up though."

"Huh." Sokka directs the boy down a footpath shortcut through the park. There's a burning ember starting to flare in his chest, a little flicker of hope that maybe this boy is Katara's. But at the same time there's the terror that this is his sister, alone in Makapu with some creepy old healer lady. Or worse, Meng. "Do you know the names of any of her family?"

The boy looks up at him. "She doesn't like talking about it. Just that if anything ever happened to her I should go to Republic City and stay in the Water Tribe Quarter. She said somebody would take me in."

Yeah, this can't be his sister. Katara would worry her kid half to death with details. Stupid hope.

"Well, like that lady said, we haven't had a designated Quarter in years, but we'll see if anybody recognizes you."

This seems to work for the boy, who mutters a quiet "thank you" and hitches his bag up again as they come back to a main road.

"No prob, kid. What's your name, anyway?"

"Zian."

Well, that settles it. Mom might be Water tribe, but Dad is definitely Fire Nation.
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"So we wandered all over town, and found all kinds of people willing to let the kid stay with them and a lot of healers willing to go to Makapu, which is great, but nobody knows who he is. And nobody knows anybody named Kya who's over 30." Sokka takes a long swig of his drink. "So I guess I'll just send him and half a dozen healers back where he came from, but it's bugging me."

Zuko peers at him from under his hood, doing his best to pretend they're not in a loud bar in the middle of Republic City. "Fake name, probably."

Sokka gulps the last of his drink down and slams the mug back on the table with more flourish than is probably due the occasion. "See, I thought of that, but why would she have her kid ask for help with that name?"

"Maybe he thinks it's her real one."

Sokka taps his chin. "Oooooh, the ol' parents lying to their children thing. You know, I was kind of hoping that would disappear in this new--" he waggles his eyebrows "--enlightened world."

Zuko snorts in a way that is highly un-Firelordly. "A utopia Republic City is not."

"You didn't happen to have any secret love children, did you?" Sokka whispers conspiratorially.

"No!" Zuko snaps, then considers. "No."

Sokka raises one eyebrow. "Not sure how I feel about you having to think about it, buddy."

Zuko narrows his eyes. "Try not to read to much into it."

Sokka puts both hands on the table (loudly) and leans forward, glaring into Zuko's eyes. Zuko retreats further into his hood. "Not exactly honorable, Fire Lord Pants on Fire."

"Creative."

"Hey, it's not like you come up with better nicknames."

"I could come up with something better than 'Fire Lord Pants on Fire'."

Sokka shrugs. "I'm a little drunk."

"And I have the privilege of babysitting you the rest of the night?"

"You betcha. And now you get to tell me all about how dishonorable you've been while I decide whether or not to tell Mai."

"Mai and I have an understanding," Zuko huffs.

Sokka guffaws, briefly drawing the attention of some nearby men hunched over their drinks. "Right."

In sum, Sokka learns, Mai wouldn't want to hear what Sokka has to say, but if he really feels he has to tell her, she won't be surprised. Sokka can't quite wrap his head around how Zuko justifies this to himself (maybe he never did regain his honor and he's given up?) but decides not to think about it too hard. The rumors around the Fire Lord having only one child and his wife's coldness have been festering for years; he shouldn't be surprised. Just the same, it's making his head spin. Or maybe that's the alcohol. He'll give Zuko a better listen in the morning. Not that Zuko will be in the mood for another chat.

When he's crawled out of his own head, Zuko is staring at him. "Are you done?"

"What?"

"You were mumbling."

Sokka lurches out of his chair. "Come on, Zuko. Let's go back to whatever miserable motel you're staying in and chat about all the ladies you've never bothered to tell me about."

"There haven't been that many!"

"Jerkbender."

Zuko huffs. "I'm not proud of it, okay?"

Sokka slings an arm around his friend's shoulders as Zuko stands up (far more gracefully than Sokka had managed, he notes with a mixture of jealousy and awe). They walk (careen, what with Sokka's stumbling) out of the bar and slip into the shadows of the dark streets, making their way back to the hotel Zuko has been so gracious as to patronize. That's what the manager keeps telling them as he walks them up to Zuko's suite, so Sokka figures it's as good as true, though graciousness has never been something he associates with Zuko.

Mai is waiting up for them. "Hello, Sokka."

"Mai! Zuko didn't tell me you were here."

"Sorry," Zuko mutters. Whether he's muttering to Mai or Sokka is hard to tell. "Sokka probably can't see straight, much less find his house."

Mai glides out of her chair and opens a door off to the side of the room. "The extra bedroom."

Sokka nods enthusiastically. "Great! Have any earplugs?"

Mai raises one eyebrow. "Why would you ask me for those?"

Raising his hand to his mouth and whispering theatrically, as if to pretend Zuko can't hear them, he replies, "Don't want to hear you and Zuko going at it."

"He's drunk," Zuko interjects, and pushes Sokka into the second room, slamming the door behind him. Sokka immediately presses his ear to the door.

"What is he talking about?" Mai's tones are measured, but Sokka likes to think he can hear a little spark of annoyance.

"Let it be, Mai."

Sokka strains to hear. "You'll take the couch."

Zuko probably bows his head and assents, but all Sokka can hear is the rustling of sheets being pulled from a heavy cabinet. "He found a boy just off the train. His mother is sick in Makapu and had led him to believe he'd find family here."

"And?"

Sokka hears nothing for a moment, then a deep sigh. "The boy's name is Zian."

Mai's tone is uncharacteristically sharp. "We had an agreement."

"It could be a coincidence."

"If Izumi had been a boy--"

"I know, Mai, all right? I know."

"Is it possible?"

Zuko groans. "No, it can't be."

"You promised you'd never dishonor me this way."

Sokka thinks that slap might be the sound of Zuko's bare feet abruptly hitting the floor. "All I ever wanted was you. You've barely looked at me in twenty years!"

"You promised there would be no evidence."

"A child named Zian is not evidence!"

Mai sighs. "Of course not, Zuko. I'm sure an ancient Fire Nation name that you were going to name our child, and probably mentioned to one of your other women, just happens to turn up one day looking for his family. I'm sure he can't possibly be related to you."

Sokka definitely hears some annoyance in her voice now.

When Zuko speaks, his voice sounds thick with unshed tears, cracking a little, and Sokka can picture his hands clenching and unclenching around a blanket or a sheet. "You want the truth, Mai? Fine. Here's the truth. I spent years trying to figure out what was wrong with me, why my wife wanted nothing to do with me. I offered to divorce you, let you go find somebody you actually wanted, who would make you actually happy, but you refused. You said I made you happy, but that just wasn't part of our lives anymore. So I tried to do that with other people so we could both be happy. It didn't work, Mai. I wanted you, the whole time. And you know what? After a while, I wanted you less. I wanted one of them. I told her everything; the way the rejections felt, how I felt stuck in a marriage that neither of us really wanted anymore. Eventually, I fell in love with her. So yes, I told her what I'd name my next child, if I had one. Yes, it's possible this boy is mine. Sorry it had to turn out this way."

Sokka's jaw hits the floor. And he briefly thanks destiny for giving him Suki.

All three of them stay awake for a long time.

Sokka wishes Zuko would get a handle on his emotional monologues.
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The hangover the next morning is nearly unbearable. Zuko had returned him to his home in absolute, painful silence, which Sokka had been equal parts grateful for and uncomfortable with. Curling up next to Suki and putting a pillow over his head, Sokka relishes the cool darkness of his own bedroom in the early hours of the morning. His wife stirs, turning over to face him.

"Sokka?"

"Shhhhhhhhhhhh"

"You smell like cheap fire whiskey."

"Cheap arctic vodka."

He can feel her rolling her eyes. "Weren't you supposed to find out if Zuko has any ideas about what to do about Zian?"

"Suki, my love, please whisper. My head…" Sokka groans theatrically (but also very accurately, if you ask him). "And I did, but please, don't shout."

Suki sits up and leans against the pillows. "Uh oh."

"Zian may or may not be Zuko's son. It was kind of unclear."

Suki gasps. "What?!"

"Suuuukiiii don't shout," he moans, clutching the pillow on his head.

"What?!" Suki hisses.

"Apparently," Sokka begins, poking his head out from under the comforting darkness of his pillow, "Zuko and Mai are a little…distant. Zuko gets his rocks off elsewhere."

"Oh," Suki breathes.

"Yeah, news to me too. Anyway apparently Zian is this super unusual Fire Nation name or something; you'd think there would be other people in this world with the name but Mai is pretty hung up on the fact that Zuko wanted to use it and I'm talking too fast and my head hurts. Oh man."

Suki removes the pillow from his head and runs her fingers over his scalp, through his hair. "Try again, slowly."

"Mai thinks it's Zuko's kid. Zuko isn't so sure but he can't deny it."

"Oh."

"Yeah, my thoughts exactly."

"What is Zuko going to do?"

Sokka groans. "Not sure. We didn't exactly chat much this morning."

"Is Mai angry?"

"Yeah, but she doesn't care that he had an affair. She's just mad he's going to get caught."

"Hmmm."

They spend the rest of the morning alternating between speculating about Mai and Zuko and napping. There comes a point near the middle of the day when Sokka's pounding head gives way to slight nausea and he feels not-miserable enough to get out of bed, and he finds that his children and Zian have been awake and busy enough to make a mess of his kitchen. They will pay, he promises himself as he wipes rice flour off the ceiling. They will pay.

Running a catalog of Zuko's type cross referenced against Zian's apparent ancestry, like the mind-blowingly brilliant genius that he is, Sokka tries to figure out who this mother could be. The possibility of Katara crosses his mind, but he dismisses it. Katara wouldn't tolerate being the side chick, and even if she did, she wouldn't be Zuko's. Would she?

Well, if she was, Zian's descendants are going to have some pretty darn legendary stories to tell about their great great great grandparents. Zian himself doesn't seem to be all that worried about who his parents are, just that one is really, really sick. So, Sokka packs up a few traveling comforts (mostly seal jerky) and the most eager waterbending volunteers, and they set off for Makapu that night. The train is peaceful, even if Sokka is convinced the ride would be smoother with magnetic levitation (can he call it mag lev for short? Who cares. He's inventing it. He can do what he wants). A bundle of nerves, Zian fidgets in his seat despite numerous attempts to get some sleep.

"Sokka?"

"Present."

The kid doesn't laugh (Sokka's jokes must be getting worse). "Do you think my mom is going to be okay?"

"Sure. We have some of the best healers in Republic City on this train."

A few of the waterbenders blush.

The train takes them to a ferry that takes them to another train (curse the curvatures of the Earth Kingdom coastline), which drops them off ten miles out of downtown Makapu--Sokka can't help but feel old when he learns the dinky little village of Makapu has suburbs-- just after the sun rises and the pink disappears from the clouds. An earthbender-run shuttle earth-surfs them to the city (village. It's always going to be a village in Sokka's head). "Take us to your mom," he says, and Zian takes off in a familiar direction.

Sokka groans. The boy is heading directly toward Aunt Wu's house.

Sokka groans twice. A woman with braids that stick directly out of the sides of her head answers the door. "Meng!" Zian exclaims, wrapping the woman in a hug. "I brought healers for Mom."

Meng smiles tightly and ushers them in. She looks at Sokka as if not sure whether she recognizes him, and Sokka whistles innocently and wonders if Aunt Wu's bean curd puff recipe is still around. The healers crowd around a bed in what Sokka is pretty sure used to be Aunt Wu's reading room. Clearly, Meng has not kept up the superstition.

A healer asks Sokka to hand her a water pouch, and as Sokka approaches to give it to her, he catches a glimpse of the woman on the bed. Dark curls cut short are frizzing near her face, and her breaths are so shallow it hardly looks like she's breathing at all, but Sokka recognizes her immediately. It's Katara.
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One of the healers, Yuki, interrupts his pacing a few hours later. "Councilman Sokka?"

"Is she okay? Can I see her? What was wrong?" He grabs her shoulders and stares into her eyes before remembering himself and jumping back.

Yuki giggles. "She had a head injury. But we repaired most of the damage. She's awake and asking for you."

Sokka has never been particularly mannerly. He pushes past her and darts into the room. "Katara?"

"Sokka!" She stretches her arms out toward him. "It's so good to see you."

"Where have you been?" He demands into her shoulder. "We looked everywhere for you."

"It's a long story, Sokka."

"Okay, so you were pregnant, and so you just disappear?" He pulls away from her and crosses her arms.

"Sokka--"

"What were you thinking?" He gesticulates wildly and his voice reaches a squeaky pitch.

"Zian, can you give us a minute?"

The boy bounces out of the room, his smile lopsided in a way that Sokka suddenly notices looks a bit like Zuko's. Or maybe that's just his imagination. "Who's the father?"

"Sokka."

"What? I'm your brother; I have a right to know."

"I'm not going to tell you."

"I can't believe this. He can't just get you pregnant and ignore you or his kid."

"He didn't know."

"Is it Zuko?"

"No!" But Sokka sees the flicker of her eyes to one side and the slight blush in her cheeks and has his answer.

"Don't lie to me!" He squawks.

"Listen Sokka, I couldn't tell anyone. Zuko didn't need an illegitimate child. Mai had strict terms."

"He loved you, you know."

Tears spring to Katara's eyes.

"Don't say that."

He crosses his arms and looks down at her. "He did. Maybe still does, I don't know."

"You can't tell anyone."

"I won't, I won't. Promise." Sokka grins. "Can't make any promises about Zuko though."

Katara raises her eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"Weeeell thanks to your complete lack of creativity in naming your son and stealing Zuko's idea, he and Mai figured it out pretty much the second I told them I knew this kid named Zian. 'Self peace' hasn't exactly been a popular name in the Fire Nation. War, and all."

Katara pouts at him. "It's a beautiful name."

"Yeah, yeah."
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It's not simple after that. Katara refuses to come back to Republic City with him, and everything is pretty much the same in Sokka's life except that he's the only one in the world who knows where his sister is and he has a secret nephew. Little things like that. Zuko's marriage is unraveling faster than usual (or so Toph reports from her letters every time she visits the Fire Nation. Zuko has refused to visit the city since that night out). And, perhaps most horrifically, Suki knows something is up and she won't stop badgering him about it.

This is all going to come out someday, and Sokka hopes he's around to see it. The fallout is going to be legendary.

Chapter Text

"We're caught, Zuko. We can't run away anymore."

He fiddles with the betrothal necklace in his hand. "I know," he rasps, lowering his eyes. "But I want you to keep this anyway."

It's getting harder to keep the tears from slipping from her eyes. "Zuko, don't."

Rising from the floor, he startles several turtle ducks he'd brought in out of the violent rain. She stands still as he steps behind her and holds the pendant at her neck, and she shivers when his fingers brush her nape as he moves her hair out of his way. "You're so beautiful."

"I wish we could," she says, and her cheeks feel wet. But they can't, because he's going to marry a Fire Nation noblewoman and have firebending heirs, because they need to be firebenders, because she wasn't good enough for the Avatar and it would be a terrible political move for the Fire Lord to marry the Avatar's--in the words of a Fire Sage Zuko nearly banished on the spot-- leftovers.

Because the South Pole needs her. Suki needs someone around besides her four boys (plus Sokka). Her father needs more waterbenders to rebuild and train the children.

Zuko fastens the necklace around her neck, and as she feels the stone drop onto her skin she pushes away from him and pulls her hair back around her shoulders. "Keep it, Katara. I want you to have it."

So she'll pine for him for the rest of her life? So she's burdened with the plans they used to have and the dreams they'll never see? She turns away from him and wraps her arms around herself, wracked with sobs he can't hear. Walking out of the room, her fingertips brush the carved stone, but it's not the comforting pattern of her old necklace, the one she'd left with her father, the one she'd thought she wouldn't wear again. The one she'd given up because Zuko wanted to propose, and they were going to tell the Fire Sages and the council and Uncle, and then they didn't get beyond the sages.

When she returns to the South Pole, quiet and resigned, her father takes her in his arms without a word, and Sokka brings her a blanket and a bowl of sea prunes. Suki babbles about the children and they all try to keep her busy, but a few days later she sneaks out of the igloo and wanders down to Sokka's old wall. His snow tower is just a mound now, largely collapsed by the winds and snowstorms, but the places where the wall had frozen over many, many times through the years are still intact. She can't see the gash where Zuko's ship broke through the ice, but she walks out to the shore where it used to be and unfastens the necklace. It dangles from her fingers for a moment, and then she lets go, and then it drifts into the dark, and she watches the glimmer of stone reflecting the light until it's gone.

How much simpler their lives would have been, had they not been destined for greatness.

Chapter Text

The only thing that has ever beaten her, Azula complains to herself, is arthritis. Well, arthritis and a psychotic break, but as Zuzu likes to say, that was a long time ago and there's no need to dwell on it. Zuzu has always been so good at forgetting her rare faults (just the way Azula likes it).

Azula likes to imagine her skin is still soft and her hair still black, but now that she's regularly sharp minded those things are less easily imagined. Just the same, making Zuzu squirm is just as satisfying as it was when they were young, and despite her frustratingly limited ability to walk properly--abused her joints in childhood, ruined her knees, insufficient rest periods, the doctors lecture. Fools. Perfection would never betray her. Ty Lee, on the other hand, was perfectly capable of ruining Azula's joints with that foolish chi-blocking episode.

Focus, Azula.

She's procured a machine that her great-nephew calls a camera from that Water Tribe imbecile (who insists he invented the technology, but frankly Azula thinks he was as much help designing this as he was designing the infamous submarines used in the colossal failure that was the Day of Black Sun invasion. Brutal failure, all of it. But Iroh has assured her the camera is precisely suited to her needs). At any rate, she's about to try her hand at photography, and master it, of course. She might be old, but she's still Princess Azula.

And thus, Azula cracks her knuckles (an unfortunate habit she picked up in the asylum), steadies her face against a burning wince, and smiles as she pushes herself out of her chair. She and the aforementioned camera step carefully through the long hallways (Azula is very careful not to shuffle) and into the old gardens where Mother used to feed turtleducks. Carefully, Azula lowers herself to the ground, in the midst of several bushes. This, she thinks, is the artist's shot. Leaves surround her, leaving just enough space to form a symmetrical-but-not-too-symmetrical gap, through which she can see the sun glimmering on the turtleduck pond and the grass lightly quivering in the warm breeze.

She lifts the camera and adjusts it, but doesn't take the shot.

Zuko's gravelly old man voice has interrupted her peace and quiet. He's prattling about politics again, the logistics of abdicating to Izumi. A few years ago Azula would have ordered him to abdicate to his little sister, but with the control the people have over the government these days it's hardly worth the trouble. So, she heaves a heavy sigh and slouches slightly in the bushes, focusing her camera on the precise spot she wants to capture.

Naturally, that's precisely where Zuko decides to stand. That horrible Water Tribe woman trails behind him, chuckling at something probably stupid he said. Azula narrows her eyes and rests her finger on the correct button for taking the photograph. As soon as they move out of the way, this shot is hers. And they'd better move soon. The sun won't stay here forever.

"And what would you do with yourself if you abdicated?" Katara asks.

Die of boredom.

"Travel the world, maybe I'll appoint myself ambassador."

Azula rolls her eyes. Zuzu an ambassador, indeed.

"Anything else?"

A smile creeps over Azula's face as Zuko puts his hands on Katara's waist and leans in, close to her face. "Would I be welcome in the South Pole?"

"Always," she says, and Azula feels sick (though with still enough presence of mind to know a money shot when she sees one). Katara leans closer and presses her lips to his, one hand tracing the side of his face. Zuko pulls her closer so that their bodies are pressed together and deepens the kiss. They break apart after a bit, and Katara runs her hands over Zuko's back as he kisses her neck.

It's all too perfect. Azula presses the button. A flash erupts from the cover of the bushes.

"What was that?" Katara shrieks, jumping away from Zuko (not as gracefully as she used to, Azula notes with some satisfaction).

Azula struggles to get off the ground but is not met with success. "Zuzu!"

Zuko hastens over to her and reaches down to help her up. "Azula, you know you're not supposed to sit on the ground!"

She waves him off. "The doctors underestimate me."

Zuko raises his eyebrow. "What's that?"

She lifts the camera in her hand. "What, this? Never you mind Zuzu."

"It's a camera," Katara provides, unhelpfully. "Sokka helped design it."

"What does it do?" Zuko, of course, has always been an idiot.

"It's for taking photographs, Dum-Dum."

Zuko pales. Katara doesn't look much better. "I didn't know you were interested in photography, Azula."

She doesn't have time for this. "I'm very interested. And yes, I now have a photograph of you and your girlfriend. And yes, I do intend to distribute this to every news organization in the Fire Nation."

"No!" Zuko grabs her wrist as she walks away. "Stay out of this, Azula."

"It's just so serendipitous that I was here to capture the moment, Brother."

Zuko pinches the bridge of his nose and Katara looks between them helplessly. "What do you want?"

Azula turns away from them, cradling the camera in her arms. Walking away, she taunts him over her shoulder, "I haven't decided yet. But you'll be the first to know."

She thinks she might hear Zuko stomp his foot. Good. She's not lost her touch.

Chapter Text

Standing in front of a very nonplussed polar seal, Zuko fidgets with the hood of his parka. He takes a deep breath. "Katara, we've been seeing each other--er, courting--no that's not right. Katara, we've been together a few years and I've been thinking."

The seal chirps indignantly. Zuko huffs and adjusts his mittens.

"Katara, we've been together a few years, and I really like you, but more than like--"

Zuko is pretty sure the seal is laughing at him. Still it's an improvement on practicing with Toph.

"Katara, I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life loving you." No, that sounds too much like something Aang would say, and Zuko is not about to model a proposal off his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend.

He drops to one knee in front of the bewildered polar seal. "Katara, I deeply care for you. Will you marry--" A snowball hits him in the back of the head.

"Zuko?'

Zuko flushes beet red as he recognizes the voice. "Katara! This isn't what it looks like!"

She raises an eyebrow and crosses her arms over her chest. "It looks like you're proposing marriage to a polar seal."

"I'm not!"

To Zuko's infinite frustration, as his face gets redder, Katara's body starts to shake. She covers her mouth with one hand and bends over, face almost to her knees. "Zuko," she says, struggling to speak (breathe). "Why are you proposing to a seal?"

Zuko takes a deep breath and pushes himself up off his knee. He closes the distance between himself and Katara and drops back to the one knee.

She doesn't stop giggling. Zuko fumes.

"Is there something you'd like to ask?" She says, sweetly, when she's regained her composure. Zuko's knee is becoming very cold and very wet, so he's grateful.

"Katarawillyoumarryme?"

He looks up at her, eyes wide (but he hopes not pleading; that would be undignified). "What's that?"

She's grinning, and Zuko wonders if it's possible to love someone as much as he loves Katara but also dislike that person as strongly as he currently dislikes her. "Katara. Will." He gulps. "You. Marryme?"

Apparently, Katara is feeling merciful. She leans down and kisses his forehead, smile never leaving her face. "Yes."

Chapter Text

Katara scratches another mark in the floor of their cell as the sun peeks over the mountains. She had lost count of the marks a long time ago, but it's a habit now. Huddling in a corner, she flicks her eyes over to Zuko, who's sprawled on the ground with one arm over his head. He'd gotten too thin, his muscles spindly, connected to bone by tendons that strained through the skin unnaturally. Katara's brown skin has gone pale and cracked, and she's starting to see long hair on her arms. Despite her initial resistance, she and Zuko have started curling around each other at night to stay warm, and he wraps the blanket around her because he's a firebender and she's not, so obviously you have to take it Katara, I'll be fine; but after he thinks she's fallen asleep she thinks she can feel him shiver. It's like what she imagines Hama's cell must have been. The air is dry and cold, pumped in, if the rattling of machines above their heads when the slight breeze starts is any indication. The guards restrain her when they bring water, but sometimes there are no guards, and no water.

Katara clenches her fists, struggling to keep tears from escaping, and crawls gingerly over to Zuko. His breath comes in shallow gasps, and blood pools sticky and half dried below a crudely bandaged, ragged wound on Zuko's side. A sob escapes from her mouth, and she presses her lips together and lowers her face to his chest, remembering.

She remembers his slight smile when he whispered that he loved her. She had kissed his cheek, hard, and he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. She'd still been able to count the marks on the floor then, and there were 408 of them. 409 when they'd given up sleeping at opposite ends of the cell. Somewhere near 450 (but she thinks that's around the time when she lost count) when he pulled her against his chest in the dark and wondered if maybe they could have tea when they got out. Or get married. He wasn't picky.

She had giggled and suggested they start with tea.

His gold eyes glimmer as they crack open when she presses her hand to his side. "Katara, don't."

"They gave us water this morning. I can try to heal you."

"No," he whispers. "Save your strength, and the water."

"Zuko--"

"There's not enough to do anything."

"No!" She grasps his face and kisses him, hard. "You've got to make it, Zuko. There will be enough."

"I love you, Katara."

She stops, and looks into his eyes. "Don't say goodbye yet." His eyelids flutter, and with her hand on the wound she can feel the same flutter in his pulse. "Zuko, I love you. Just hang on a little longer. Please." The last of his breath puffs out on her arm and sends chills up and down her spine, and she collapses into him, cursing Azula, the guards, Ozai, honor, and everything else she can think of. Herself.

Would he have held on longer if she'd said they'd get married first, and have tea after?

She's angry with him as the sun gives way to the deep blue of dusk and the light of the moon glows through the window. He could have made it one more day, couldn't he? She bites her lip, hard, as hot tears return to her eyes, and she flings them away violently. Grunts, immediately followed by soft thuds, echo in the hallway, but she doesn't move. Someone has finally come to rescue them, and Zuko couldn't bother to be alive.

(She feels guilty, suddenly. How could that possibly be his fault? But if it's not his fault, then it must be hers; hers for not protecting him, not healing him better all those dirt scratches ago, not making him take the blanket during the night, wanting to conserve water for an escape…)

A short young woman with black hair and pale eyes leads a large man with close-cropped brown hair who carries a flame in one hand. Two men in blue followed them. "Katara!" Toph shouts (it must be Toph, no one else with eyes like those and a scream like that knows Katara's name), the sound ringing through the blackness and pounding in her head.

Toph rips the metal cage apart and Dad--"Dad?!" It's her father, all bone beads and leather and woodsmoke--darts into the cell and falls to his knees, wrapping his arms around her quivering shoulders.

"It's okay. We're gonna get you out of here." Sokka comes in after him and looks with dismay at his sister through the limited illumination of the firebender's flame. Toph steps in cautiously, then freezes. "Where's Zuko?"

The tears, muddled in sadness and anger, fall now; there's no stopping them. The man moves his flaming hand, revealing Zuko with limp arm outstretched, blood sticky beneath him, the other arm draped over his body. Sokka gasps and recoils, and Hakoda sighs deeply and bows his head. "When?" Hakoda asks.

"This morning," she replies.

"629th day," Toph says, toeing the ground near Katara's tick marks.

Hakoda lifts his daughter in his arms, and touches Toph's shoulder. She nods and lifts the earth, carrying Zuko out of the prison, past the unconscious guards and into the cold gaze of the half moon. Katara rests her head on her father's chest and tries not to watch the hovering platform cutting through the air in front of them.
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"Try bloodbending me," he said.

"I can't."

"You can do it."

"Zuko, the moon is barely half full."

A half smile curls his lips. "You could do it with a crescent moon. Transcend." The smile grows on the last word, and he crosses his legs as if preparing to meditate. "You're the most talented waterbender I've ever seen."

"Why do you even want me to?"

"What if you could take my blood, blow open the cell, and put it back in?"

"It would kill you."

"Maybe." She could feel him shrug in the dark. "But if it didn't I'd love to get tea." He stood up and pressed his arms to his sides. "Just try to move my left arm."

So she flowed into her stance, breathed, and pulled, and nothing, and pulled harder, and nothing, and breathed and pulled and pulled more blood, more water, and then Zuko cried out and fell.

Chapter Text

Aang marches into Zuko's private chambers with his lower lip stuck out and his jaw set, in what he hopes is a somewhat intimidating posture (although he'll be the first to admit it's probably not. Throwing open the double doors, he is greeted by the one-part disturbing and one-part amusing sight of Zuko in his underwear, slumped over a scroll in bed. His mouth is open slightly, and Aang finds himself briefly distracted by the dribble on the side of Zuko's mouth. A soft snore brings him back to reality.

"Zuko!" He exclaims, raising one hand to cover his eyes.

Zuko jerks up, his jaw clicking shut and his head smashing one of the pillars of his bed. He reels back, falling back into the scroll he had presumably been trying to read and pulling one of his swords from somewhere (Aang briefly wonders how concerned he should be that Zuko apparently sleeps with sharp objects). He rolls to the side and swings the sword out in front of his body. "What?"

"I need to talk to you."

Zuko lowers the sword. "Don't scare me like that!"

"You drool when you sleep."

"I do not! How can you say that?"

"You also snore."

Smoke begins to come out of Zuko's nose. "What. Do. You. Want."

Aang sighs heavily (admittedly a bit dramatically) and floats into a seated position at the end of Zuko's bed. "Sokka told me you and Katara have been--" he makes a face "--seeing each other."

Zuko goes purple, then white, and then redder than his garish, blood-colored bedsheets. "We were going to tell you--"

Aang rolls his eyes. "Zuko, it's fine. Katara and I broke up a long time ago, and I want her to be happy."

"You do?"

"Yeah! Which is actually why I'm here. As Katara's former boyfriend, I have a lot of ideas for keeping her happy that I wanted to tell you about." Aang flashes his friend a cheeky smile.

Zuko groans and falls, face-first, into his pillows. "Why don't you just kill me now."

As a pacifist and moral vegetarian, Aang can do no such thing, though he will admit that when he first heard the news he had somewhat seriously entertained the idea. Not for long though. After all, the monks would say that to deny his forever girl happiness just because that happiness wasn't with him would be petty and foolish. Besides, General Iroh thought it was dishonorable, and far be it from Aang to argue with a Grand Lotus.

"I know you and Mai liked to be negative, but Katara's not like that."

"Aang. I don't need your help." (That's what Aang thinks Zuko is saying. It's hard to tell when his face is still buried in pillows.)

Just in case Zuko didn't actually say that, Aang elects to ignore him. "Katara is positive, and she sees good in people and she loves the color orange--"

"How do you know about that?" Zuko has lifted his head and glares at Aang over his shoulder.

Aang draws a blank. "Know about what?"

"That Mai hated orange."

Aang flushes. "I didn't. I just know Katara likes it."

Zuko narrows his eyes, and Aang wonders what exactly he's said wrong. "Why is that important?"

"Look Zuko, the point is that you need to have some fun. Be whimsical. Take her on a sky bison ride over the city or go cannonballing at the beach or go on a random vacation to ride elephant koi. Katara's not big on riding those, but she loves to watch!"

"Thanks for the tips, Aang." Zuko's voice is dry, and if Aang didn't know any better he'd say it was decidedly unimpressed.

"Don't worry; I know you'll do great."
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Truth be told, Aang wasn't exactly expecting Zuko to take the advice. At the time he'd wanted to offer it as an expression of goodwill, a sign of his approval (forgiveness for their betrayal of his deepest, most unexpressed feelings). This is why he's not sure what to make of a frazzled, unkempt Katara marching into the little hut he's built for himself on the west coast of the Earth Kingdom. Her eyes are blazing blue, bright like they always are when she's angry, and she thrusts her hands to her hips and narrowly avoids stomping one foot as she comes to a stop in front of him. Aang, for his part, is innocently eating a bowl of noodles (and anticipating an egg custard) with Momo, and he's entirely unprepared.

"What did you tell Zuko?!" She explodes.

Aang pauses a moment, eyes wide with a hunk of slimy noodles hanging from his mouth. He slurps them up and straightens his posture nervously. "What do you mean?"

"Oooh, don't look so innocent." Aang blinks at her.

"Katara?"

"I've spent the last two weeks being dragged all over the world. We went to Kyoshi Island, where Zuko insisted on riding elephant koi, the unagi, and one of Sokka's weird inventions--and I had to ride too! And then after that we had to go skydiving out of a converted war balloon. And now he wants to take a month off of being Fire Lord so we can take a backpacking trip through the Earth Kingdom. And why does he keep giving me orange gifts? Oranges, orange jewelry, orange clothes, orange this, orange that!"

"Wow," Aang breathes.

"And when I asked him what the heck got into him, he said you told him he had to be whimsical."

"Uhhhhh…" Aang has no good response for this.

"Needless to say, we will not be taking a backpacking trip through the Earth Kingdom. We are going to the Fire Nation, and I will be spending the next month at the spas." She takes her hands off her hips and crosses her arms across her chest. "Anything you'd like to say?"

"…I thought I could help?"

Katara sighs, almost deflating, and sinks to her knees across from him. "Aang. I appreciate what you tried to do. I know our breakup was hard on you, and I'm sorry Zuko and I didn't tell you about our relationship right away."

Aang slouches and puts his chin in his hands. "It's okay. I just wanted you to be happy."

She touches his shoulder. "I know you did. And that's what I love about you, Aang. You're so full of life and energy, and all you want is for the people you love to have that too. That's what was so great about our relationship. I'm with a different person now though. I'm older, and I want different things."

"Like what?" Aang hopes that being 18 adds some dignity to the slight pout he hears in his voice, but he's not particularly confident.

"I want to settle down. I'm ready to start thinking about a family of my own, and not traveling so much. I want a home, Aang. One place and one person that's always there, waiting for me."

"I guess that's why we're not meant to be together, huh?"

She smiles at him. "I love you. I always have, and I always will. But you and I both know we haven't had the same goals for a long time."

Aang sighs heavily. "I know. And I know you'll be happy with Zuko. Even if he doesn't know the best way to ride the unagi."

She laughs, light and breezy. Happy. "Thank you, Aang."

He pushes himself up from the floor, pulling her with him, and wraps Katara in a hug. "I bet Zuko's going crazy."

"He's trying not to show it, but he does not want to walk across the Earth Kingdom. Again."

Aang chuckles and rests his chin on her head. "I'm really happy for you."

And he is. This isn't the future he wanted five years ago, but she's happy, and that's always been the most important thing.

It's just too bad Zuko probably rode the unagi all wrong.

Chapter Text

Chong plucks at the pipa, contemplating. The Fire Lord has married a Water Tribe girl, and that's songworthy. "There once was a man named Sokka," he croons.

Sokka groans. He regrets everything about this road trip. Should have asked Toph to come.

"His sister hit him on the head with a rockaaaaa…"

"Not really--" he protests.

"Ooooh it was a rockin' little story and it got real gory when Sokka found out she was sha-ckin' up with the Fire Looordy…"

"You're really tugging at my heartstrings here, Nomad Guy."

Encouraged, Chong begins to strum. "Sokka had a sister, a real A-lister, fell in love with a grum-py fiiiiirebender. Then she said dear Zuko let's make Sokka puke-o, and you come loooove me teeendeeerrrrr." He finishes with a glamourous flourish on the pipa.

Sokka strokes his beard, and a beat passes in silence. "You know, that's not bad."

Chong throws his fists in the air, nearly throwing the pipa across the campsite. "So we can sing it at the next Summit?"

Sokka blanches. "Um. Maybe if you add another verse?"

That's a fair condition. Chong loves a good, sappy, forbidden love story.

Chapter Text

Mai held the old painting carefully, her aged hands gripping the deep creases along the wrinkled sides of the papery canvas. It meant so much to her, but the time for it had passed. As always, she sighed and put the painting back in its drawer, slamming it closed with a resolute thud. As always, she opened it and pulled out the painting again. As always, she traced her finger over the faces drawn in faded ink. Might as well. There wasn't much else to look at in the cell, cushy as it was. For a traitor's cell, anyway (even if Zuko didn't like to use the word "traitor". He preferred "political hazard").

The painting was sixty-four years old. She had been seventeen, young, impressionable, ignorant. He had been confused, antagonistic, angry. He left with a letter, and she never went back. It was over for sixty-four years, and it would be over for another three hundred. But she did miss him. Yet it was, after all, sixty-four years gone. She was eighty-one, with bitterness creeping into the edges of her mind, like fire eating away paper, when she thought about the past.

And he, well, he had been happily involved with that Southern waterbender for years after he walked out of Mai's life. They had married sixty years ago. Tom-Tom had come to visit her a month before nearly bursting with excitement over the anniversary--no Fire Lord had managed to be married that long since before Sozin; it's practically a national holiday, Mai. Regardless of her feelings on the matter, Zuko and Katara were celebrating sixty years of marriage with their three grown children, seven grandchildren, and the two infant great-grandchildren. Their relationship was cemented with more than a flimsy piece of parchment inked in a style that had been obsolete for decades.

She loved Zuko more than she feared Azula, but she'd never known love to last, and death lasts forever. Just the same, sometimes she wondered if she had miscalculated.

Chapter Text

Loving him was like Appa in a nosedive, world flying by while time crawled away. It was like trying to play Pai Sho without half the tiles, like changing her mind after the Omashu mail cart had started flying down the slope. Everything was perfectly clear and bright (until it wasn't), terrifying and exhilarating (until they crashed). Like a Fire Nation summer sped through fall and stopped dead and frozen in a South Pole winter.

Katara misses him. She's been flung from hot to cold in a heartbeat and now the world is dark and gray. It's not so much that she regrets everything, because Gran Gran always told her not to cry when it's over if she can still smile because it happened, but in some ways she wishes she'd never gone anywhere near him. If it had never happened, there wouldn't be a gnawing hole in her chest or pain from the crash (but then if it had never happened, there wouldn't be the euphoria right before it, either).

It had started at the beginning of summer, as these things do. Team Avatar's annual reunion had fallen to Zuko to host that year, and he welcomed them all to Ember Island with that air of being put-upon that they'd come to expect to ignore over the years. Uncle took nearly all of his teashop with him for the week, coming across the sea on one of the retired war balloons laden with his very best travel tea sets and six different canisters of tea for each of his favorite nephew's old friends.

At twenty-three and newly unattached, Zuko had been beset by the locals upon arrival, as if when he took off his shirt, doves appeared (which seemed to result in him patently refusing to leave his family's property for the duration of their vacation). "At least they aren't trying to kill you," Aang points out, helpfully. Zuko grumbles incoherently, and Uncle chortles, tasking Katara with getting the Fire Lord out to the beach.

It takes less convincing than she expects, once the others have gone into town.

They find themselves in the sun and the sand and the water early in the afternoon, and they've stripped down to their underwear in a way that's never been remarkable, and wouldn't be except that she notices Zuko's eyes linger on her white wrappings just a moment too long when she emerges from the ocean. And because Katara is twenty-one, perhaps because the only boy she's ever kissed is Aang or perhaps just because Sokka isn't here, she stretches her arms above her head, gathering her hair in her hands, off her neck, and glances at Zuko through her eyelashes.

He closes the distance between them and brushes his fingers along her hips, at the place where the bottom wrappings meet skin. She turns into him, close enough that her breasts touch his chest when she moves, and his hands stop fluttering, coming to rest, warm on her skin. Katara drops her hair and loops her arms around his neck, and he presses closer, his hands gripping her waist tighter. Zuko's eyes flutter closed and suddenly his mouth covers hers and his arms are around her, one hand tangled in her hair and the other fiddling with her wrappings. Heat courses through her and pools deep inside.

She kisses him hungrily and tightens her arms around him, suddenly wanting to be as close to him as possible. Zuko tears his mouth from hers and tilts her chin, trailing kisses under her jaw and down the side of her neck. Pulling away a little, he opens his eyes and looks at her, gold eyes warm and lidded. "Maybe we should go inside."
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Katara follows him back to the palace at the end of the week--the Fire Nation has been enduring a work shortage, which has led to slums at the edges of the city and corresponding rampant illness, something that hasn't happened for a hundred years. Zuko looks at her one night as she sits in his lap, facing him, running her hands over his chiseled chest, and grumbles that maybe they shouldn't have ended the war after all. She kisses him and retorts that in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se people had always preferred being poor to being dead.

"I didn't," he pouts, and nips at her ear.

"You're a spoiled prince," she says, and wiggles a little in his lap.

"Katara."

She smiles and lays back, pulling him over her.
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It comes to an end, as all summers do. As the autumn rains start, Katara finds a cure for the disease ravaging the capital--it was easy, she says, once she realized it was transmitted through the drinking water. Zuko thinks he should ask her to marry him, maybe because it's the honorable thing to do at this point, maybe because sometime during the summer he fell in love and can't imagine his life without her. Maybe both.

So he gets down on one knee before her as the rain pounds the roof and the thunder crashes outside, and she gasps as he looks up at her and stutters that he loves her and wants to be with her for the rest of his life and will she marry him and of course she will and then there are tears on her cheeks and the biggest smile on his face that anyone has ever seen. The wind howls that night as lightning sparks in the sky, and Zuko draws the curtains around the bed and pulls her close, her back against his chest, and his chin rests on the top of her head. They talk about everything and nothing, how to tell the others, when to tell the government, what they'll do the rest of their lives.

Katara spends the season learning the functions and duties of a Fire Lord's wife, broken up by bending in the rain. Winter comes, and the rain grows cooler. She misses the snow and ice, and her grandmother and Sokka and Dad, and Zuko notices she's putting off telling them (which she should really do if they want to marry in the spring). Aang comes for the Winter Solstice, and congratulates them as enthusiastically as only Aang can, with no trace of bitterness. The three of them go to the festival, full of youthful energy. Katara kisses Zuko as the fireworks explode over their heads, and the people cheer for the healer who saved them and the Fire Lord who has enough sense to keep her around.

When Aang leaves, things return to normal, but as the rains begin to clear and spring approaches, Katara feels the weight of a nation on her shoulders. The Sages and the Council scrutinize her mercilessly. Zuko grows busier dealing with what he calls "tax season" and "land demand season", wrapped up in meetings with petitioners and dates with paperwork. Katara has never been afraid of hard work; she's certainly never run from it--if anything, she runs toward it--but it's not the work that scares her. Summer had bled into fall, fall had bled into winter, but the heat of one kind is beginning to die down, replaced with fire of a different kind. They argue, they fight, they bicker, over everything from whether Zuko should grant a petitioner another tract of land to the incontrovertible fact that Katara seems set on surprising Sokka with her wedding. Zuko feels the grip of death upon him every time he remembers. Katara wants him to understand that it's better to ask forgiveness than permission. Zuko has found that it's harder to get forgiveness than permission, almost universally.

They are fire and water, one dousing the flame and the other evaporating away the water.

Then when the first blooms of spring start and the sun shines through the rainclouds, she's gone. Her note begins with "Zuko, I'm sorry you have to find out this way," and Zuko can't help but laugh caustically at himself.

Chapter Text

If anyone asked, she would be in her room. Not, of course, that anyone ever asked.

If anyone asked, he would be in the throne room, staring steadily into the sweltering heat of the flames. Not that anyone would dare ask.

If anyone asked, no, they were not avoiding each other. It was a simple disagreement, in the heat of the moment, objects thrown, dishes broken, hearts crushed.

Aang walks silently into the kitchen, light footsteps crunching broken glass. He frowns and picks up the largest piece, a shattered plate. Dismissing it, he calls for a maid (normally he'd pick it up himself, but as the Avatar it's his duty to look out for his friends first and broken plates later), and continues the search for Katara, whom he found sitting on the floor in her bedroom, hunched over, knees to her chest, murmuring in one of the ancient tongues.

Sitting down next to his girlfriend, Aang puts a hand on her shoulder, but she doesn't look at him. "Katara, what's wrong?"

Finally, she notices the boy, for he is just a boy at 15. "Usted es un chico."

Aang does not understand her, of course, but he tries. Not that it makes a difference. "Katara? If you want to practice, I'm probably not the best person for it. Sorry."

"No usted me entienda. No me comprende."

If Aang remembers correctly, those two verbs mean similar things, but he's not sure if Katara is trying to say two slightly different things or if she's asking him to differentiate the two for her. Either way, "Uhhhh…"

"Necesito otras cosas. Otras personas. Quiero calor."

Aang sighs. She is deliberately confusing him now. Not that she seems to care enough to translate. He never did get the hang of this particular language. "Katara…"

"Aang es un muchacho, Katara," a low voice corrects.

Aang is doubly confounded now. Katara, it seems, is interested in the purring roll of the 'r' in her name.

Katara shoots the boy a look of what he can only describe as regret. He can't say why (last Aang checked, they were very happy together). Not that he allows such glances to ruin him. Nor does Zuko appear to glory in them, which, Aang supposes, is a good thing. With all the time the two have been spending together, he's been feeling a bit on edge (although the prospect of confronting Katara about it is decidedly distateful). She enters the Fire Lord's arms in a gesture of apology and forgiveness, and something different. They have their own language, Aang realizes, and it is one that he does not yet understand--but he will soon. He and Sokka are reporting to the library first thing in the morning. These things that Katara seeks to explain to him fly over his head like arrows skimming over the hedge. Just the same, when he's being honest with himself, he thinks he knows what she wants to say but isn't ready for him to understand. Not, of course, that the realization will stop him from loving her. He'll wait as long as it takes for her to come to her senses. Maybe they'll take a vacation soon; go to the Southern Air Temple and make fruit pies. Aang repeats this as something of a mantra throughout the night as he tries to drift off to sleep.

Fire and water have never well melded before, and Aang knows they would face considerable difficulty. Heat evaporates water, after all, when turned up too high, and water extinguishes fire. Not, of course, that fears of mutual destruction ever held back the elements before. And not, of course, that Zuko and Katara have ever been particularly bound by their elements, now that Aang thinks about it.

If Aang were still in Katara's bedroom, he'd see that Zuko twirls a finger in a chocolate brown curl, and Katara smiles, knowing perfectly well that it is he who is wrapped around her finger. Not that any of this matters. Aang believes--demands, even--that passion, heat, the purring warmth of this calor she speaks of, is fleeting, at best.

Still, it would be nice to know where they stand.

Chapter Text

"I will oversee her execution personally, Father."

Katara's jaw drops. She looks frantically between Zuko and his uncle; Zuko's face is contorted oddly, like he's trying to be impassive but it's not quite working, and Iroh is shaking his head with disappointment etched on his face.

The Fire Lord nods. "Your sister will dock shortly. She will stay here, to aid you in your duty."

Zuko sucks in his cheeks, but he bows before his father notices. "Of course, Father."

The Fire Lord swoops out of the room, and as the door clicks closed behind him, Iroh approaches his nephew. "Are you certain of this decision, Prince Zuko?"

"Uncle, you've been telling me for years that I need to find my own path. I thought I could prove myself to him, that he'd accept me back, but if that means I have to kill someone…" he trails off, and Iroh brings a hand up to rest on Zuko's shoulder.

"Then what will you do?"

Zuko looks at Katara. "We have to leave. Now. Before my sister shows up."

Katara crosses her arms over her chest. "Oh, what, you think you can be nice to me for five seconds and I'll turn around and trust you? How do I know you and the Fire Lord aren't just using this to get me to show you where I left home?"

Zuko grasps her arm and tugs. "We can go wherever you want. We don't have to go to the Water Tribe. We just need to get out of here before it's impossible."

She looks at Iroh pleadingly. "Can't I just go by myself?"

The retired general tucks his hands into his sleeves and considers. "How will you leave?"

"Aang and I can take Appa."

"How are you going to get the Avatar?" Zuko demands. "You think the guards are going to cover for either of us?"

"Why do you want to come? Just say I escaped, and I'll break Aang out of the cell, and we'll leave."

Zuko glares at her for a moment, then storms out of the room. As he stomps through the door, he looks back at her and says, "I'm going to spend two minutes packing. In four minutes I'll be at the docks requisitioning a warship. You and Uncle can come, or not. I don't want to die for trying to help a peasant."

"I'm not a peasant! I'm the Chief's daughter!"

But he's already gone, and Iroh is looking at her with an expression somewhere between worry and frustration. "Go with him, Katara. The Fire Lord is not a merciful man. My nephew is right."

"What about you?"

The old man considers. "Well, it would be improper for me to leave you and my nephew alone on a warship without a chaperone." He produces a rice hat and a bathrobe from somewhere (Katara is at a loss about where somewhere is, exactly). "And I could use a vacation!"

"What about Aang?" She's growing frustrated. Neither man seems to care much that Aang is at the mercy of an apparently unmerciful man.

Iroh's face turns stormy. "He will be kept alive. We do not have time to bring him with us now," he says, pushing Katara out the door and leading her down to the pier. "I have given the Avatar something that may help him. We will go north. I know a man in the Northern Water Tribe who can teach you waterbending."

"I can't learn waterbending without Aang!"

"You can." The kindly old man looks every inch the steely general now, and Katara feels a little cowed at the boom in his voice. "Because when you are a master, we will go to the Fire Nation and liberate the Avatar." His voice returns to normal. "If he needs liberating, that is. Just don't say anything about that to my nephew. He can be a little stubborn sometimes."

Katara can't say she's happy about this. Gran Gran and Sokka must be worried, and she wants to go home. She wants to take Aang out from under the Fire Lord's nose and keep him safe. But she realizes Iroh and Zuko are right; they don't have the time or ability to get Aang and get off Kyoshi Island. And, she realizes, she'll be more useful rescuing him if she can waterbend.

Although how Iroh knows about a waterbending master in a world she thought didn't have bending at all is still a mystery.

Then they're boarding the ship, complete with Zuko stomping around angrily (although Katara is starting to think he's overcompensating for absolute terror) and a local, whom she later learns is called Suki, is perched in the crow's nest with an old drone and a camera. "Azula just pulled into port," he hisses, pointing to an elaborate, sleek vessel a few ships down the dock. "When she's out of sight, we move out."

"Somehow I expected your technology to be better than this."

Zuko huffs. "There hasn't really been a lot of innovation outside of keeping the domes running, okay?"

"You could let people out," she snaps.

Zuko rolls his eyes. "Not a lot I can do about it now. If you hadn't escaped like a water-brained idiot, we wouldn't be in this mess."

"Maybe if the Fire Nation didn't always try to rule the world, I wouldn't have tried to escape!"

"Well maybe--"

"Nephew," Iroh interjects. "Perhaps we should depart now."

Zuko shoots her a nasty look, but he wastes no time stalking to the bridge and tapping a series of engine control panels. Nothing Katara recognizes, but then her tribe still uses wooden boats with sails. "Do we have a full crew?"

Iroh chuckles ruefully. "We have my old friend Lieutenant Jee. We will stop in the Capitol and borrow some engineers from the prison."

"From the prison?!"

"Treason is a popular charge in the Fire Nation."

Katara has nothing constructive to say to that.
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Sokka found it. It took him almost the full week Katara and Aang have been gone, but he found their sneaky little hole in the wall (mostly because the warm air has started to melt the ice around it and the hole is now substantially bigger). Gran Gran doesn't like it that he's decided to leave (because Sokka still has a little respect for his elders and tells her first, unlike some people), but she's worried about Katara and can't go herself.

"Wait for your father and the other men to come home," she says, holding his shoulders.

Sokka continues packing his bag. "They're not going to be back for another month, Gran. I'm not going to send a messenger, either. Katara could be in trouble, and the village needs meat more than it needs me."

Gran Gran is nothing if not both practical and utilitarian, so she sighs heavily and begins packing the seal jerky. Sokka sets out before dawn (or what amounts to dawn in the dome, anyway), and drags his canoe across the snow and ice until he reaches the hole. It's bright blue against the gray wall of the dome, and sun streams inside, making Sokka blink quickly and shield his eyes as he approaches. He has to climb up what remains of Aang's iceberg to get to it, but when he does he's able to slide down in the canoe and directly into the water. The island looks like it's about a mile away.

That shouldn't be a problem. He can paddle that far. When he looks back, to Sokka's surprise, he can't see the hole as the gray skies inside are nearly the same color as the ice and snow that spill out. It's melting though, and around the dome there's odd, dead looking brown stuff that had crunched under the canoe bottom.

By the time he reaches the island, the sun has risen and he can see a commotion on the docks, so he beaches the canoe in a small inlet on the opposite side of the island, swings his pack over his back, and walks into town like he belongs there. Or he does after he's borrowed some red clothes from a line, anyway.

The people are gathering around a large, ornate ship decorated with phoenixes and Fire Nation flags. A tall man with long, straight, dark hair is at the head of a small procession, and a boy with an arrow tattoo on his head--Aang!--follows him, heavily shackled. As Aang is led into the belly of the ship, the tall man turns to face the crowds. "The Avatar threatens our very existence." A heavy silence falls over the crowd, and the hush is eerily expectant. "He will be held in the Capitol, in the most secure prison, for our safety and security."

The man turns back to the ship and disappears, and Sokka knows he absolutely has to get on that boat. Katara must already be on it. And he supposes as long as he's rescuing her, he might as well grab Aang too. Kid is too nice to get stuck in the Fire Nation for the rest of his life. By some miracle, perhaps an act of the spirits, Aang suggests later, Sokka is able to wind his way through the crowds and board the ship under pretense of being a servant. It's too easy, like the guards have never had to be suspicious of anyone in their lives, and Sokka can't imagine that's true.

Then he realizes the clothes he stole from the line were, in fact, a servant's uniform, when he stumbles into the engine room and a man shouts at him that servants aren't allowed down here. Which is really too bad, because Sokka can't help but stare a little at the sterile walls and the smoothly running engine in the center of the room.

Aang is being held deep in the ship, so deep that Sokka is pretty sure there aren't any guards because if the bottom hits something, this will be the area that floods first. The younger boy is absolutely thrilled to see him, something Sokka wholly expects from everyone in his life (although he always pretends to be a little confused that his expectations are never met), and they waste no time filing through the chains (thanks for the random box of tools in the bag, Gran) and hatching an escape plan.

"Where's Katara? I can't find her anywhere?"

"Still on the island. They only wanted me."

Sokka decides that doesn't make sense, but at least she's safe. "Okay. We'll get her. How do we get off the ship?"

"This old guy who loves tea gave me this weird whistle," Aang says, holding out a small white object, shaped like a bison. "He said it was an Air Nomad antique."

Sokka pulls it out of his hand and shoves Aang through the door of the cell. "Let me see." He studies it for a minute as they stop at the bottom of a ladder, then looks at Aang. "Do you happen to know what happened to Appa when you were captured?"

Aang grins. Then he snatches the whistle back from Sokka and blows as hard as he can.

Sokka hadn't believed the other boy was an airbender until the newly-apparent airbender had nearly blown him across the room. "Watch it!"

They manage to get through the decks and into open air without being accosted, but there are nearly twenty soldiers on deck and no sign of Appa. "What do we do now, Sokka?"

"I don't know! This was your plan!"

The soldiers advance on them, and Aang takes a defensive pose. It's enough to make some of them fall back, and it gives Sokka time to pull his boomerang off his back. "Sokka, take the whistle and blow into it as many times as you can. I'll hold them off."

"What makes you think this is going to work?"

Aang doesn't answer, busy as he is with twenty firebenders, so Sokka figures he has nothing to lose. He throws the boomerang at a man sneaking up on Aang from behind, and he blows, and then a moment later there's a bellow and a flying (he's really flying!) bison. Aang swoops both of them up into the saddle, and they escape by the skin of their teeth.

"Nice work Sokka." Aang grins at him.

"You too. Now let's stash Appa somewhere and get Katara."
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The ship glides through the smooth water, a welcome change from the storms of the night before. Katara and Iroh are bent over a Pai Sho board, with Suki off to the side trying to teach Katara about strategy. Zuko has been doggedly steering them north at top speed, constantly looking over his shoulder. Jee stays firmly planted in the crow's nest, eyes glued to his sensor monitors and mouth set in a line. There's a ship coming in fast from the south, he says, probably Azula from the size of it, and Zuko grumbles that maybe if they had a waterbender who actually knew something about bending, they could make a fog cover. Katara shouts that maybe if the Fire Nation hadn't convinced her people bending was impossible, maybe there would have been someone to train her.

Zuko's mood does not improve throughout the day, but the ship closes as the sun dips down.

Jee is surprised to find that the very, very large dot on his monitor turns out to be a flying bison and not a ship at all. He knew getting rid of the telescopes on warships was a bad idea. Katara runs out to the deck, Iroh close behind.

"Katara!" Aang shouts, jumping off the bison and wrapping her in a hug.

"Aang! You're okay!"

"Iroh helped me."

Katara looks at the man behind her and is about to thank him when she's distracted by a loud thud.

"Ow! Oh yeah, don't worry about me, Aang. I'll just stay up in the bison saddle while you have your happy-go-lucky reunion with my baby sister."

"Sorry Sokka. I thought you could get down yourself."

"I could--!"

He's cut off by Katara launching herself at him. "Sokka!"

They talk late into the night, trading details and arguing about whether they can really trust Zuko and Iroh, and why can't they just go back to the South Pole and because I have to learn waterbending, Sokka. Sokka, for his part, is a bit distracted by the girl named Suki who's almost as good at Pai Sho as Iroh and almost certainly a better fighter than Katara. It's mostly that she's pretty, but she looks at him like she's sized him up and found him lacking, and it rankles him.

Zuko finally allows himself to rest when the edges of the sky turn pink. The autopilot will do a fine job, Uncle assures him, and a man needs his rest. Katara brings him lunch around noon, when the sun has pulled him back to awareness.

"Why are you doing this?" She hands him a bowl of rice and pig-chicken.

He eyes her warily. "Why does it matter?"

"Sokka doesn't trust you."

Zuko snorts. "So? He can take you on the sky bison if he wants. I got you out of Kyoshi and I got myself out of Kyoshi."

"Why are you doing this?" She puts her hands on her hips. "I'm not leaving without an answer."

He turns away from her and glares at the wall. "It wasn't honorable to execute you. Just like it wasn't honorable to keep the other nations locked away. My father gave me a second chance to learn respect; he won't give a third."

Her eyes widen. "What--"

"Thank you for the food."

"Zuko."

"You can go."

"Excuse you, you can't just order me out!"

He says nothing, and the silence is so unbearable that after a minute or two, she leaves anyway.
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"Prince Zuko is very serious about his honor," Iroh tells her.

"What did he mean when he said he had a second chance to learn respect?"

Iroh raises an eyebrow at her. "I think that you should ask him."

"I did. He told me to leave."

He sighs heavily, and when he looks at her again, he looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. "When Prince Zuko was thirteen, the dome over the old city of Omashu cracked after an earthquake. Much of the city's population escaped, and the Fire Nation military leaders were called to the Capitol to decide the proper course."

Katara wraps her arms around herself. "What happened?"

"I allowed Prince Zuko observe the meeting. One of the generals proposed that the army slaughter the entire city, which would avoid the cost of rebuilding the dome and avoid the difficulty of all the people who suddenly knew they did not have to live there. Prince Zuko spoke against the plan. The Fire Lord did not take kindly to what he viewed as an act of disrespect."

Katara gasps. "They didn't--not all those people."

Iroh sighs deeply. "I should have spoken more strongly. I have many regrets about that day. The people of Omashu are no more, and Zuko has lost much of the sight in one eye."

"His father--?" She chokes on the words, her face pale.

The air is still and solemn between them after that, and things are quiet.

Quiet until Suki calls from the crow's nest that there's a ship closing from the south, and the sensors have identified it as Azula's ship. Zuko stomps up to the deck and taps his screens, begging the engines to go faster, asking Katara if she's sure she doesn't know how to make clouds. She doesn't, and neither does Aang, but Sokka has an idea.

"Katara, if you can just raise up the water a little, then Zuko can make it hot and it'll steam."

"Sokka, I don't know…"

Zuko doesn't bother with her uncertainty. "Uncle! Start throwing fireballs into the water."

Iroh looks at him blankly. "As you wish, Prince Zuko."

It doesn't work particularly well, but Katara is just starting to get better at pulling water into the air and Zuko is just starting to think maybe they've made it just a little harder for Azula to see--not hard enough that she can't find them; she could with the sensor data anyway, but hard enough that maybe she won't be able to board.

Then there's a clank of metal, and the light tapping of boot heels. Azula steps out of the light fog, the light bringing her from shadow to sharp relief. "Nice try, Zuzu. But you shouldn't worry so much. Father isn't angry with you."

A series of emotions flicker across Zuko's face. "You're lying."

"Now, Zuko. Why would I lie about something like that?"

Zuko narrows his eyes. Azula always lies. He would have fallen for it when he was thirteen. He probably would have fallen for it when he was sixteen. But Zuko is nearly twenty now, and he's had time to think some things over. One of those things is that he's tired of innocent people dying, and the other of those things is that he should always believe Azula only tells half-truths.

"Father isn't angry with me."

"No, of course not. He just wants you to come back, so you can work things out."

"Father left on his ship with the Avatar. He doesn't know I'm gone."

"I sent him a messenger hawk right away," she says, too sweetly.

"No you didn't. Father thinks Katara was executed yesterday morning and I'm still on Kyoshi, because if he knew we were gone, it would be your fault. He sent you to babysit me."

"Zuzu, quit being ridiculous."

"Take me back to Kyoshi and I'll tell Father the waterbender is still alive," Zuko says. His voice is level, but Katara can see his hands shaking. "You failed him."

"I haven't failed him. It's been a brief delay."

"You lied to him. Father. No one lies to the Fire Lord."

"You will regret this, Zuzu," she says, cold as ice, but she turns around and walks back to her ship. Pausing on the deck, she turns back to them. "You're fortunate Father would want you returned alive." A cruel smile curls one side of her mouth, but she turns away again and Zuko is left to shift uneasily. The bridge across is folded back, and the ship slowly pulls away from them and turns into a tiny dot on the horizon as they watch.

"Ha!" Zuko cries, and he reaches for Katara and grabs her with both hands, bringing her up in the air above his head and spinning them both around. When he sets her back down, a euphoric grin shining on his face and an unusual light in his eyes, Katara's cheeks are stained red and she's left breathless. Suddenly, he pulls her to his chest in a tight hug before just as abruptly pushing her away. Now his cheeks are red, and his smile falters. "Sorry. I didn't mean--I mean--"

"It's fine," she says, even if Azula gave up too easily and there's a horrible unease tickling her mind and it feels like a strategic retreat and nothing is fine.

He smiles at her, no smaller this time and still genuine.

They're not exactly sailing into the sunset; it's not even close to happily ever after, like the princesses in Gran Gran's stories. But she has all the important things. She's going to learn to waterbend, she's going to be the Avatar's waterbending teacher, she has her brother, and Zuko isn't so bad after all. Maybe, for now, everything is fine. They'll worry about Azula tomorrow.

She reaches out and hugs him back, her smile as large as his.

Chapter Text

She hears them outside her cell (not a cell, Zuko says, a room, but he knows it's still a cage). Azula squints at the closed door and wishes she could set fire to it with a glare, or even that her arms could move under this heavy, white thing Those People have strapped her into. Her mother, behind her, leans over her shoulder, breath hot on Azula's face.

"They're going to replace you, you know."

"You're a fool."

"Katara has given birth to a healthy prince," say the whispers outside, echoed by Mother.

"Princes can be disposed of."

Her mother jerks back, disgusted and shocked as Azula knew she would be. "What is wrong with you, child?"

Azula begins to laugh. It starts as a low chuckle, deep in her throat, then bubbles up into hysterical giggling before erupting into a maniacal cackle. Zuko rushes into the room, and Mother leaves her side (so much like Mother to leave her for Zuko). "Azula!"

Katara is close behind him, baby tethered to her chest and water on her hands. "Is she all right?"

Zuko kneels in front of Azula, about to put a hand on her shoulder, but she stops laughing abruptly and bares her teeth and him, and he thinks better of it. "I will be Fire Lord, Zuko. You'll see."

"No, you won't."

"You have one heir." A cruel smile crawls across her face. "Not a secure line, for a Fire Lord in such tumultuous times."

He sighs heavily and stands up, backing away from her. He gathers Katara to him, hand on her lower back, and guides her out of the cage, sparing only a glance over his shoulder at Azula. And it's full of pity.

He will pay for that.

Mother whispers to her that afternoon, little wisps of details she'd forgotten. The prince has blue eyes, but the sages believe he'll firebend. Azula struggles against the straitjacket. Zuko looks at her like he's sorry for her, like her schemes are unimpressive, nothing new. He'll see. They'll all see.
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Katara is feeding their son when Zuko walks into their chambers, and she looks up at him and smiles. "Are you okay?"

Zuko shakes his head. "It's always the same. She's not getting better, Katara."

"Give her time," she says, reaching for his hand.

They'll give her time, Zuko agrees, but he thinks he can give her all the time in the world and it wouldn't matter because he's given her nearly twenty years, eighteen of them peaceful, and this is the fifth living prince.

Chapter Text

The funny thing about being shot with lightning (well, not funny, but maybe odd) is the floating. Between the stinging pain, the relief that Katara isn't hurt, and the slow crawl of time, Zuko can't help feeling a bit out-of-body. He's floating.

Then he crashes. He hits the ground with a heavy thud and a crack in his shoulder, and then the pain is white hot in his head and his chest is numb. The moment is over and gravity has pulled him back, pinning him to the ground. As he tries to push himself up, to reach for Katara, his scorched skin screams at him, and it feels like the ground is pulling him down into the center of the earth.

Zuko's vision swims, and the world lists sideways. His limbs are too heavy to move; each one feels as heavy as Appa. Lightning flashes in the sky and lights up the backs of his eyelids when they sag closed.

"Katara," he whispers.

Zuko hasn't been a spiritual person in a long time, despite the best efforts of his uncle. But as the world fizzles into darkness, he begs everyone he can think of who might have any power at all to please, please save Katara.

When he wakes, gravity has gone back to normal, though the burning and stinging are only slightly soothed by the cool water Katara is holding to his chest. Katara. Katara is alive. And he can't decide whether he needs to kiss her or throw up more (he soon discovers that vomiting is the pressing need of the moment).

Just his luck.

Chapter Text

"I'll save you from the pirates," he says, and Katara would give anything to be able to slap him.

Too bad she's being tied to a tree.

When he holds the necklace in front of her, she wants to slap him again, in part because it's her mother's necklace and what right to his dirty Fire Nation hands have to be soiling it, and in part because he's ruined any fantasy she might have had about a boy tying a necklace around her neck. "Go jump in the river," she spits, and he moves away from her, a smirk pulling the corner of his mouth upward.

He's enjoying this. He's enjoying it like the sadistic jerks all Fire Nation people are, and she hates him.
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He doesn't see her at the tea shop, and she thinks she's lucky she tore her eyes away and ran in time, before those gold-yellow spider cat eyes found her. It shouldn't surprise her the way it does; he's been tracking them for a full season now, and as the early spring has burned into late summer, she should have expected him to burn his way into Ba Sing Se. So much for impenetrable city. So he's here now, and of course she has to be the one to see him, to be the bearer of bad news.

Katara bursts in on the Kyoshi Warriors so quickly that she barely sees them. "Thank goodness you're here, Suki. Something terrible is going on. The Fire Nation has infiltrated the city, I just saw Prince Zuko and his uncle! We have to tell the Earth King right away!"

"Oh don't worry. I'll be sure to let him know."

The voice is cold. Katara stops in her tracks.

The leader moves too sinuously to be Suki, where Suki is light on her feet and quick, this girl is steady, measured, like a snake. And then the eyelids flick up, and the eyes looking back at Katara are the gold-yellow spider cat eyes she was running from.

When her chi has been blocked and she's sprawled on the floor, water streaming from the open pouch, Azula leans over her with that curling, vicious, deliberate smirk. "My, what a knot my brother has tied you in. I think it's time for a reunion."
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She nearly leaps at him when he tumbles into the cell, but he seems to feel undignified enough from his entrance. "Why did they throw you in here? Oh, wait, let me guess. It's a trap. So that when Aang shows up to help me, you can finally have him in your little Fire Nation clutches!"

He looks up at her, eyes tinted green by the glowing crystals, but says nothing.

It doesn't take long for him to snap back at her, and from there it doesn't take long for both of them to think of their mothers. She offers to heal him, and he closes his eyes with her hand resting lightly on his face. The chi beneath the scar resists her hand, but she pulls out the spirit water and works out the knots, one by one. When she finishes, he looks a little silly and she barely muffles a giggle. His skin is smooth, matching the other side, but he has no eyebrow and his hairline is uneven. The ear is still slightly misshapen, as if some of it had simply been burned away, and the skin over his face is more textured and a bit puffy. Just the same, it's an improvement.

Zuko opens his eyes tentatively. "Did it work?"

Katara grins. "Pretty much." She looks for a large enough crystal, then leads him to it.

The tears that slide down his face when he sees his reflection are nothing compared to the ones on her face when Azula pays them a visit. "The Avatar is dead." She says nothing else, except to order the Dai Li to remove them in shackles, bound together. "We'll let the Fire Lord have the pleasure of dealing with them." A beat. "I see you've given him a blank canvas again, Zuzu."
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She takes a little too much joy in what happens on their way back to the Fire Nation. Azula, eternally practical, had selected a ship with enough firepower and useless gilding to signify importance but not so much as to draw attention to her royalty. And what self-respecting group of pirates wouldn't attack a lone ship of a middling Fire Nation noble? That seems to be the rationale, anyway, when they storm the ship and throw little grenades in every corner. Happily, one of those corners is the door to Zuko and Katara's cell.

They make it out to the deck, where Azula is standing calmly, shooting lightning at any pirate who shows his face (and even some who turn tail and run). Uncle is nowhere to be seen, but Zuko likes to think he's back in Ba Sing Se worrying about him. Or so he's implied to Katara a few times. So she grabs his arm and pulls him over the side when Azula isn't looking, because even the omnipotent princess can't hold off a horde of pirates and keep her prisoners in line.

Zuko gives her a look that is one part terror and one part respect. "What are you doing?!"

"Don't worry, Zuko," she says as their feet hit the water and the area freezes around their feet. She pushes them away from the ship, speeding through the open sea. "I'll save you from the pirates."

Zuko hates her. She can see it in his face, especially now that his eyebrow is growing a little. She's enjoying it, though.

Chapter Text

The screeching echoes into their bedroom, and Katara responds with a small, plaintive whimper.

"I'll get him," Zuko mumbles, and he kisses her cheek lightly as he drags himself out of bed. Katara smiles sleepily at him and burrows deeper into the sheets, curling her body around his pillow. Their baby screams again, and Zuko leaves his wife and moves into their makeshift nursery--the real nursery is still in the opposite wing of the palace. He bends over the baby's crib and lifts his son, whose cries quiet as Zuko holds him to his chest. "Shhhh…"

The baby whimpers a little, but it's small, more of a passing back into sleep and less a threat of more cries. "We need to find you a name," Zuko murmurs, rocking back and forth on his heels. "What about Kosekose? Since you cry so much."

Clearly, his son is not amused. Dark eyelashes flutter and gold eyes glance up at him, eyebrows slowly curling into a frown.

"Okay, okay, not that."

This baby is only a week old. He has no idea what Zuko is saying to him. Right? He'll have to ask Katara about that in the morning, especially after she made him play the tsungi horn every night for 6 months. Child development something.

"Your mom thinks you should be Iroh."

No response.

"He's only been gone a year. I'm not ready."

Baby is sleeping again, soft breaths brushing Zuko's chest like feathers. It's strangely comforting.

"Are you Iroh?"

It occurs to Zuko that he should really stop talking to things that can't talk back. Babies. Badger frogs.

They never give him any answers anyway.

His mind is soothed somewhat when he crawls back into bed and wrests his pillow from Katara, who reaches for him and wraps herself around his body, holding him tightly. "He's 'sleep?"

"Mhm," he replies, letting himself drift off, and he dreams of Uncle.

Chapter Text

Katara has been trying to light a cooking fire for almost an hour--and no, she's not going to ask Zuko, he can't be trusted, thank you very much. Aang wanders by shortly after she concludes it's just not happening today and they'll be eating fruit and jerky for dinner. "I haven't learned firebending yet," he mourns, looking at her dolefully. "Zuko can still make a few sparks though if--"

"I don't want Zuko's help," she snaps. "It's just all the rain from last night making the wood wet."

Aang shrugs, clearly trying not to impart unsolicited words of wisdom about dealing with (barely tolerating) Zuko. He shifts from foot to foot in front of her, silently, for a few moments, deliberating. Then: "Can I make a suggestion?"

"No!"

"Okay, geez." Aang raises his hands and slowly backs away from the pulsing vein in Katara's forehead. "Watch out," he whispers to Sokka, who has slunk in from the woods with a basket of berries and a few suspicious red marks on his face. Aang doesn't dwell too long on whether it's from the berries or Suki's lipstick.

"I'm out of here!" Sokka squeaks, and he skitters toward the center of camp, plunks the berries down at his sister's feet, and careens up on out of there.

Fuming, Katara crosses her arms over her chest and Aang swears her eyes bug out of her head. "You weren't even going to ask if I needed help?!"

Sokka makes for the safety of the temple, and Aang surreptitiously airbends a large, chaotic rustling in the bushes. Katara flings a wave of water into the nearest bush, and while she's distracted, Aang tiptoes after Sokka. Turning her attention back to the pending meal, Katara misses Zuko quietly stepping into the courtyard.

"Sokka said you were having trouble with the firewood."

Her head snaps up and she glares daggers at him. "Yeah."

"So uh, do you need any help?"

"Not from you!" She snaps, whipping back around and picking up a few bowls.

"What's wrong with the wood?"

"It's wet, okay! Just leave me alone. I don't need your help."

Zuko crosses his arms and narrows his eyes. "Look, I'm on your side. Why can't you accept that?"

"You betrayed me! You betrayed all of us."

"I was never your ally before. How did I betray you?"

"I offered to heal you, and then you turned against us in Ba Sing Se."

"Well you didn't heal me, Katara. You walked away and left me to pick between going home to my family and your good graces, which you're obviously not very generous with!"

"You know what--you're just so--UGH!"

"Powerful waterbender, and articulate too, huh? Why didn't you think to waterbend the water out of the wood?"

She huffs and pulls the water out of the logs, flinging it wildly in the general direction of Zuko's head.

"Thanks," Zuko says, his hair dripping into his eyes. He flicks a spark at the wood, and it catches.

"You're welcome," she chirps, and bares her teeth in what could have been a smile. He stomps away, steam rolling off his head.

Chapter Text

She knows the talk is serious because he's not quite looking her in the eye. "Zuko, just say it."

A cold hand grips her heart as she braces herself for him to call off the engagement, tell her he doesn't love her anymore, ask her to go back to the South Pole.

"My family is insane."

She blinks. "Okay?"

"My father is a power-hungry, self-absorbed maniac. My sister is in an institution. They both wanted to kill me. My great-grandfather tried to conquer the world and passed the madness down to his children."

Katara sucks in a breath. "I know."

He looks up at her. "I don't want that to keep happening."

"It won't, Zuko. The Fire Nation is changing for the better. You've changed the school curriculum, the people are adjusting--"

"That's not what I mean."

She waits, focusing on the wild breaths trying to escape her lungs.

"I don't want to have children," he says, avoiding her eyes, and it hits her like a bolt of lightning.

"Okay," she whispers.

"I understand if you don't want to go through with the wedding."

Her head is spinning. It's not fair that he'd change his mind when she can't imagine life without him, when she's put down roots in his country and settled into the rest of her life. It's not fair, but she's not going to tell him that.

"I'd rather have you," and she focuses on making the smile reach her eyes as her plans turn to dust and blow away.
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The wedding goes as smoothly as weddings go, and for the most part she's made peace with the occasional gnawing in her heart. Men in the crowd lifting their toddlers on their shoulders only prick at her eyes a little, the women bouncing babies only make her turn away for a half of a moment. Grandmothers herding their three or four or five charges make her smile. It probably isn't healthy, pushing the feelings deep down inside her and hoping they never bubble up, but if she's deliriously happy for six days out of seven, twenty-three hours out of twenty-four, what good would it do to throw that away for a life that was never guaranteed anyway?

Katara is happy, and if she's learned anything from fighting a war and losing many of the people she's loved, it's that she shouldn't try to squeeze too much out of life.

Life squeezes plenty out of her over the years. The holidays are so quiet in the palace, with the servants gone home and the parades echoing in the distance, muffled by thick walls and the scratch of Zuko's pen--Sokka's latest invention. Sometimes he takes her to a festival when neither of them is overrun with petitions and colony demands, and it's nice. The warmth of contentment settles inside her as she loops her arm through his, and their steps match as they wander through the booths.

"Are you happy?" He asks her one night, through his ridiculous, feathered mask.

She giggles, and swallows the bite of fried food she'd pulled off the wooden skewer. "Of course, Zuko." And she's not lying.

That doesn't mean she doesn't notice how quiet the palace is when they return, or how no one celebrates with her when she puts up decorations for Water Tribe holidays in their bedroom (Zuko comments, of course, and he's patiently listened to the old stories more than once, but it's not the same, and more than once she's begged Sokka to come and celebrate the Winter Solstice with her).

The rest of the year is peaceful, and she and Zuko feed the turtleducks and wander the gardens, reveling in each other's company. When the rainy season descends upon them, they build mountains of blankets in front of a low fire, sipping their tea, entwined. When she goes to bed, wrapped in her husband's arms, she knows she couldn't give up this perfect bliss for anything in the world. But when she wakes in the morning with the distant memory of a dream, perfect gold eyes set in a lightly tanned face looking up at her and cooing, or a slew of grandchildren running through the palace, she clutches Zuko's arm tighter around her and lets the hot tears run silently down her face. She mourns, alone, for all the people she'll never lose (but that she'll never have, either).