Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His friends think he’s insane for accepting the job offer at Caldera Memorial Cemetery to clean the graveyards in the middle of night while the establishment is closed.

On his first night, Azula had handed him a black, engraved hunting knife (that he never wants to know the backstory of) and laughed as she wished him good luck. Even Iroh gave him a serious look and warning to be careful, but Zuko knows his Uncle only worries because of his unusual and creative beliefs about the supernatural world.

Zuko suffers no such ideology and therefore accepts the position because it promises to pay off his rent in a way that half-baked superstitions cannot.

On the third day of his second week on the job, Zuko wishes he had paid more attention to Uncle’s fanciful stories.

He’s in the middle of raking a pile of leaves out of the walkways under the light of a full moon and a service lantern his boss had provided him, when she appears.

“Why don’t you just use a leaf blower?”

Zuko isn’t proud of the high-pitched “fucking shit” that tears its way out of his throat and into the still night air. He whirls around, hefting the rake like a sword, and his wide eyes meet the calm, if not amused, pale blue gaze of a girl standing behind him.

He seethes and winds himself up to tell her off for trespassing on private property in the middle of the night when something unusual catches his attention.

The tips of her long, wavy hair seem to almost float in a nonexistent breeze, and the ends of her shoulders, fingertips, and feet simply faze in and out of sight.

“What the hell.”

She laughs a little and tilts her head to the side. “What? Never seen a ghost before?”

His jaw unhinges, and a chill sweeps through the length of his spine. Stubbornly, he blinks hard, attempting to rid himself of this frighteningly realistic mirage.

The girl rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. “I know what you’re thinking, and yes, I am real. No amount of trying to convince yourself otherwise is going to get rid of me.”

Zuko stares unabashedly for a few moments before making the split second decision to rally whatever is left of his pride, and face this situation head on. She doesn’t look like a threatening ghost, after all.

“You can’t be a ghost.” Her eyebrow raises incredulously, but he plows through. “If you were really a ghost, then why are you the only one here? Why aren’t there any others?”

An almost frustrated look overcomes her and she huffs. Zuko notices that he can see his breath in the cold night air, but hers leaves no trace.

“There are others. Lots of them. But for some reason, none of the other spirits can see you except for me. And I don’t think any living people can see me except for you.”

He doesn’t know quite what to say to that, and can’t help the perfunctory look that he gives to the rest of the empty cemetery, before looking back at her.

He hadn’t realized it before, but she’s dressed in surprisingly modern and stylish clothes. Her yellow sundress with little white daisies scattered across the fabric is at odds with the cool fall air and the bright moon above them. Zuko almost does a double take at the red stain stretching from one side of her torso to the other.

“What’s that?”

She blinks in confusion before following his eyes to her stomach. Her figure goes slightly rigid, and she looks back up at him with a resigned expression. “I think that’s how I died. I don’t really remember much, but I know I was in the car with Sokka—my brother—and someone ran a red and hit us at the intersection. And then... Well, I woke up at the hospital, but the entire building was empty except for all these other spirits who had also just died. I didn’t know what else to do, so I followed them here. You’re the first live person I’ve been able to see.”

Zuko wrings his hands around the handle of the rake he’s still holding. “And how long have you been here?”

At this, the girl groans and rubs violently at her eyes with the heel of her palms. “Weeks. I’ve been here for weeks now, which is way longer than any other spirit I’ve ever met. But whatever I do,” her breath hitches here, “I just can’t pass on.”

Something aches in him, because he knows what it feels like to be left behind—to feel like you’re always sprinting just to catch up.

“How long do the others stay for?”

“All the other spirits—they only stay here for a few days at most, usually just to make peace with their death, and then they disappear.” She sits heavily on am ornate headstone beside her, and he’s fascinated by how it makes her seem that much more tangible. “But I’ve done everything I can to prepare myself for the passing. I went and visited my home to say goodbye. I went back to the hospital room that I had first woken up in over and over again until it didn’t hurt anymore to be there. I—I even sat at my mother’s grave for days and hoped that she would come to take me to whatever the hell comes next... but...”

She chokes off and Zuko watches a glimmering tear drop from her lashes and promptly dissipate before it even hits the ground.

“None of the other spirits will even talk to me. I know they can hear and see me, but every time I try to approach one, they just look the other way and move on.”

The dejection in her voice assuages the last of Zuko’s uneasiness, and he feels his sympathy pulling towards this strange ghost girl.

“I’m sorry.” He hesitates for fraction of a second before continuing. “I—I also know what it’s like to feel alone.”

She lifts her chin, a hopeful look brightening her face.

Zuko sighs. “A lot of people tend to get scared off by—well, I mean,” he gestures half-heartedly to the deep red scar marring his otherwise normal features.

Understanding bleeds across her expression and she stands to walk closer to him. The air around him drops in temperature with every step she takes, but he suppresses his shiver and holds his ground.

Her hand raises slowly, giving him enough time to reject her advancements, but Zuko just closes his eyes and stifles a gasp as the faint impression of ice cold fingertips graze the edge of his scar. He would almost swear in that moment that she’s a live person standing before him, caressing the ruined skin of his face.

“I’m sorry.” There is pity in her voice, but there is also pain, and somehow he knows that she does not think less of him for his mark of weakness. “If it helps, I think it makes you look badass.”

He opens his eyes to squint at her, a lopsided grin stretching over his lips to match her soft smile. “Really?”

She nods sagely, her not-quite-opaque eyes glittering with mirth. “Oh, for sure. Definitely gives you a devil-may-care vibe that every chick secretly digs.”

A huff of laughter escapes him, and he suddenly remembers that he is supposed to be doing a job and—perhaps slightly more importantly—that he is allowing himself to be distracted from said job by an oddly extroverted ghost girl.

Uncle would have a field day.

She seems to notice his hesitancy and drops her hand, backing up from him. The laughter still lingers in her eyes, but she just shakes her head and smiles. “I’m Katara, by the way.”

“Zuko.”

“Thank you, Zuko. For not being scared, and for letting me vent to you about my post-death conundrum.”

“I wish I could have helped you.”

Katara grins. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. It doesn’t seem like you have a whole lot of experience in this department, and I can’t begrudge you the fact that you’ve never died.”

Zuko nearly laughs, but settles for an only slightly awkward smile. “Well, let me know if there’s, uh, anything I can do for you. You know, for my next shift.”

She bites her lip, apparently racking her brain for something within his scope of ability, before perking up. “Actually, if you could bring a speaker and play the new Elementals album for me, that would be incredible. It was supposed to drop a week or two ago, and they’re my favorite band. I’ve been dying to listen to it.”

“I thought you were dead.”

The joke slips out before he can think twice, and Zuko winces. Azula has told him before that his comedic delivery is dry at best and insulting at worst, and he isn’t trying to cause unnecessary pain to this already suffering spirit.

But Katara only snickers and stifles a groan that somehow comes across as wistful. “You would get along way too well with my brother. And besides, it seems like I may only be half-dead.”

With that, she gives him a final parting smile and simply ceases to exist.

Zuko stares blankly for a few minutes at the patch of undisturbed grass she had been standing in and wonders why all the weird things always happen to him.

Chapter Text

He’s ashamed it took him so long to think of it.

By the time he remembers that he has a literal spirit world expert at his every day disposal, Zuko has already seen Katara four more times.

Most of their long hours together are spent in conversation born of easy camaraderie as he works late at night and into the early morning. He asks about what she was studying in University (psychology with a double major in honors humanities). She inquires about his sister and his mom (his father, she learns, is a topic best left undiscussed).

She raves about the Elementals album after they spend their second shift listening to the upbeat music drift into the still night air of the cemetery. Zuko finds that he likes her taste in music—finds that he likes a lot of things about her.

And if it ever occurs to him that this is the only girl that he’s really enjoyed talking to in months, he pushes the thought and all its uncomfortable implications away and asks her another question.

Sometimes, he asks her about her brother and her dad—quietly offering his services to find them and pass along anything she would want to say to them. But Katara always just solemnly shakes her head and tells him that she doesn’t want to make the grieving process any more drawn out for them.

It’s better this way. Better for her to be dead and to stay dead.

More often than not, their conversations circle back to her unusual state of partial existence. Katara doesn’t get as upset as she had the first night, but Zuko can see the agitation blossoming within her with every day she remains stuck between worlds.

Since becoming acquainted with Katara, Zuko has spent more hours than just the ones in her company agonizing over a solution to her predicament.

Which is why he feels profoundly moronic for waiting this long to bring Katara up to his Uncle.

One week after first meeting Katara, Zuko can hardly focus on clearing the graveyard headstones as he impatiently waits for her arrival. Normally the first twenty or thirty minutes he spends alone at the start of his shift don’t bother him, but tonight, every minute feels like a lifetime.

After his conversation with Iroh earlier in the day, Zuko has been bursting at the seams with questions and revelations for his one and only ghost companion.

If only the damn woman would show up.

Forty-five minutes into his shift, he feels the air beside him stir.

“Fucking finally.” He whirls around, dropping his broom. “What the hell took you so long?”

Katara raises a dark brow and crosses her arms. “Well, someone woke up on the wrong side of the tombstone.”

“Ha ha. Seriously, it’s important.”

“So important you forgot to clock-in?” She pins him with a meaningful look that gleams with her amusement, and Zuko pauses. And then he thinks. And then he swears, because she’s right. He had totally neglected his timecard in his rush to see her.

Scrambling, he half-jogs, half-sprints towards the main office, motioning for her to follow him.

Once he’s properly clocked in and written a hasty note telling his boss that he really had been on time and he swears it won’t happen again, Zuko finally turns back to Katara.

He’s sweating and out of breath and tugging at the collar of his old t-shirt, and she’s merely standing there with one hand on her cocked hip watching him.

“So, the urgent news?”

“I think I know what’s wrong with you.”

She huffs, eyes turning down into a glare. “Oh really. Please, enlighten me, Zuko. What is wrong with me?”

He merely waves a hand dismissively and returns her look. “I meant, I know why you’re stuck here. I think I know why you can’t leave.”

Her whole countenance changes in the span of a second, and he meets her stunned gaze steadily.

“What?”

“My Uncle—“

“Iroh?”

“Yes,” he shifts his weight from foot to foot, “My uncle got shot during the Agni War when he was my age and was pronounced dead for five minutes before miraculously reviving. And ever since, he’s always talked about encounters he’s had with spirits and ghosts. I—I never thought any of it was actually—you know—real, but then—”

“Then you met me.”

They look at each other for a moment, and something crackles between them, like the feeling a foot gets when it falls asleep and every step ignites a burst of near-unbearable sensation.

“Yeah. And then I met you.”

The skin around her eyes relaxes. “What did your uncle say?”

“Well, at first he asked a lot of the same things you and I asked. Like, whether you had unfinished business here, and what you could do to resolve it. But just like us, he didn’t think that sounded right. You’ve already gone through all the possible loose ends you would have, and none of them were it.”

“And?”

Zuko hesitates for a moment, and when he continues, his voice is uncharacteristically earnest.

“Uncle says that our souls have a difficult time letting go. They like to cling to what we love, what we don’t think we can live without.”

Katara’s face screws up, frustration—desperation—threatening to overcome her. “I’ve already done this, Zuko. Whatever my soul would still be clinging to—I’ve already cut my ties. There’s no way my soul is keeping me here, I just know it.”

“But what if it isn’t your soul clinging to this world, but someone else’s clinging onto yours?”

And those are all his cards, laid out between them. The King of Hope. The Queen of Souls. The Ace of Death.

“You think,” her voice breaks, and he thinks a part of him breaks with it, “You think that someone else’s soul is keeping me here?”

“I mean, I don’t think it’s necessarily intentional, and I have no idea how it even works, but...but yeah.”

She swallows, and something finally sparks behind her eyes. “So, who do you think it is? And how do we get their soul to—well, to stop?”

They strategize as they walk back to where Zuko had ditched his equipment, and debate their options as he finishes his shift.

By the time dawn’s first light peaks over the horizon, they have a solid plan, and Katara practically phases in and out like a strobe light from excitement.

On his next day off, Zuko will find Katara’s brother and father (because of course it’s one of their souls, maybe even both, keeping such a tight grip on her). When he does, he’ll recite the carefully worded speech that Katara helped him memorize that will explain why he sought them out and how he knows Katara.

She reassures him that she’ll be with him every step of the way to help, but because she’s pretty sure that no one else besides him can actually see her, and she still can’t see any living person except for him, they’ll assume and plan for the worst.

The worst being her brother and father kicking his ass for pretending to have some kind of supernatural correspondence with their deceased daughter. Zuko only prays that they won’t submit him to a psych ward.

Two days later, Zuko wakes up shirtless and sprawled across his twin mattress to the unsettling feeling of being watched.

He lifts his head from his warm pillow to blearily blink at Katara’s figure as she stands, watching him with a smirk.

“I thought you told me you were a morning person.”

Zuko grunts, rolling out of bed and feeling around for his shirt. “That was before I started a job working literal graveyard shifts.”

She snorts and disappears in the time it takes for him to blink.

Fifteen minutes later, he’s dressed, decidedly more awake, and ready to begin their quest. She reappears to his right and together they leave his apartment.

Katara tells him to try Sokka’s condo that he shares with his girlfriend and some of their college buddies first, but when they arrive, only two of his roommates are home.

Next, Zuko drives across the city to a nice townhouse where her dad and grandmother live. But after a few unanswered knocks, they concede to look somewhere else.

They go to her dad’s office, Sokka’s internship, Katara’s still-cluttered dorm room—all resulting in dead ends.

Zuko taps a nervous rhythm out on his steering wheel. “Are you sure that’s everywhere they would be? Is there anywhere else they might go?”

“I’m thinking.”

It’s the closest she’s ever come to snapping at him, and Zuko has to bite back his own retort.

“Look, we can try again another day. Maybe they’re just—“

“No.” Her voice is firm with a note of hysteria clipping it short. “We have to find them today. I’m going to go insane if I have to wait any longer to figure this out. Please, Zuko.”

He watches her with searching honey-gold eyes before nodding slowly. “Okay. Do you know where you want to go next?”

She thinks long and hard. “My Gran Gran was sick for a long time, and even though she’s better now, she still has monthly check-ups at the hospital. My Dad always tries to go with her when he has time.”

Zuko wordlessly shifts the car into drive and heads towards Caldera General.

He knows that despite her having faced all of her previous metaphorical demons, the hospital is still a loaded place for Katara. When they first step into the moderately busy lobby, her ethereal shoulders tense, and her expression becomes flighty.

Surreptitiously, Zuko brushes his fingertips against the chilled space where her hand should be. There’s the smallest impression of contact before the feeling gives way to nothing. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah...” She looks around distractedly, hand unconsciously and uselessly searching for his. “There’s just a lot more spirits here than I’m used to.”

Zuko’s eyes land on a young couple sitting in the waiting area, their affectionate gazes focused on the small child playing with toy cars by their feet.

“Really? Are they...upset?”

“Some of them are. I think a lot of them have only just found out that they’ve died. It’s...not pleasant.”

She grimaces and Zuko motions towards the front desk. “Let’s go ask if your grandma is here.”

The lady behind the tall counter smiles when he approaches, and Zuko attempts to smile back. At his side, Katara stares blankly at the space a few inches above the woman’s head, but Zuko supposes that makes sense since she can’t see her.

“What can I do for you?”

“Hi, I’m looking for Kanna, uh—“ Katara’s voice sounds in his ear, “Nanuq. Kanna Nanuq, please.”

The lady nods and types something into her computer. After a moment she squints at the screen.

“Do you mean Katara Nanuq?”

Zuko freezes and beside him, Katara eyes his reaction warily.

“Excuse me?”

“We don’t have a Kanna Nanuq on record at the moment, but there’s a Katara Nanuq in the ICU.”

Before he can think it through, Zuko’s impulse speaks for him. “Yes, I’m sorry. Katara Nanuq is who I meant to ask for. It’s been a stressful few days.”

The lady nods sympathetically, clicking a few buttons on her keyboard. “Are you family of the patient?”

“Yes. My name is Sokka Nanuq.”

Out of his peripherals, he sees Katara’s head whip towards him, but he ignores her.

The lady seems to check over something on her screen, and Zuko begins to grow nervous that she’ll challenge his bluff and he’ll be forced to admit his lie. But she only double clicks her mouse and hands him a name tag.

“Level three, Room 332.”

Zuko scribbles Katara’s brother’s name in fading black sharpie, thanks the receptionist, and heads towards the elevators.

“Zuko, what the hell was that? Why did you pretend to be Sokka?”

“You’re still a patient at the hospital.”

She gapes at him as he presses the button for the third floor and the doors slide closed.

“I—I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I, but apparently, you’re in Room 332 of the hospital’s ICU.”

She stares at him, wide blue eyes asking him a thousand questions that he cannot answer.

The elevator doors open. They walk down the large hallway, and each step feels like it’s bringing them closer and closer to a terrible truth.

325...327...330...332.

The wooden door is closed, but Zuko can see that the room light is on through the little window just at their eye-level.

They look at each other, and with a small, determined nod from Katara, he turns the handle.

Chapter Text

The first thing he sees is her.

It is a surreal moment for him, to have her faintly-translucent spirit standing beside him, and her all-too-vivid body laying before him.

His view of her tangible, unconscious self is quickly blocked by a broad chest.

“Who are you?” The boy looks about Zuko’s age, and there is a bone deep exhaustion present in him that sharpens his features and hardens his appraising look. “Why the hell do you have my name on your name tag?”

Zuko looks to Katara for help, but quickly remembers that to her, this is just another empty room. Although, he does curiously note that Katara’s eyes seem glued to the bed. For whatever reason, she is able to fully see her physical self.

“My name is Zuko. I’m a friend of your sister’s.” He peels off the name tag and crumples it in one fist. “I’m so sorry to intrude, but it was an emergency.”

“I’ve never seen—“

“Sokka.” A large hand appears on the other boy’s shoulder, and a serious looking man steps in front of Zuko.

“How do you know Katara?” The third voice is calm and wisened by age, and Zuko looks around both men to see an elderly woman sitting in a chair by Katara’s prone body. Her grandmother, most likely.

Zuko breathes in slowly to calm his nerves. He feels Katara’s presence behind him like a stone wall supporting him.

“My name is Zuko, and I know Katara because—because she’s sort of been haunting me.”

He hears an indignant snort from her spirit and nearly breaks into an inappropriately timed laugh.

“Haunting you?” Her father gives him a sharp, skeptical look that he forces himself not to wither under.

“Yes, sir. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I swear on my life that I’m telling the truth.”

Both her father and her brother look to be on the verge of dumping him right out onto the sidewalk outside of the hospital when her grandmother cuts in.

“It’s not the strangest thing I’ve ever heard.” Her wrinkled eyes twinkle with something secretive. “Why don’t you come sit down and explain it all from the beginning.”

So, he does.

He tells them about the cemetery job he picked up, and how she had shown up nearly two weeks ago with no warning. He tells them how he knows she and Sokka ended up in the hospital because of a reckless driver, and that she was wearing a yellow dress with white daisies the day that it happened.

Gran Gran hushes Sokka every time he begins to protest, urging Zuko to continue, and her father merely sits and listens with a tense expression marring his otherwise kind face.

So Zuko talks about her favorite band and her least favorite foods. He talks about how much she loves her major and why she chose Psychology. He launches into every detail about this girl that he’s managed to soak up in the past few weeks, and prays that it is enough.

When it seems like they finally are beginning to take him seriously, Zuko explains why he is here.

He tells them how she has been floating in an existence of non-existence, and that up until this point, they thought it was because she had unfinished business.

Now, he knows it’s because she’s in a coma.

At the end of his explanation, he is suddenly aware that Katara’s spirit is no longer hovering beside him. In fact, she doesn’t appear to be in the room at all.

Zuko frowns and double checks all the corners of the room, but is brought back to the conversation by Sokka.

“Look,” he rubs at the back of his neck, “I still think all of this sounds way too crazy and superstitious for my tastes...but you do happen to know an awful lot of personal things about Katara,” the other boy’s heavy gaze lands unseeingly on his sister’s prone body, “and I’ve met all of her friends. I’ve never met you. So, even though this is absolutely, batshit insane...I guess, I trust you.”

“Language, Sokka.” But Hakoda’s assessing eyes—so similar to his daughter’s—are trained hard on Zuko’s form. “My mother seems to believe you, and I will admit that you don’t seem like a dishonorable or malicious kind of man. If you are telling the truth, can you—I need to know. Is...Is Katara here? Right now?”

Zuko internally cringes, pale hands fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. “She was. I mean, she came here with me—Has been with me all day trying to help me look for you. But she—Katara sort of disappeared after I came here, and I’m not sure where—“

“Is she okay?” Hakoda’s voice is stretched thin with barely restrained worry, and his strong hand grips Zuko’s shoulder. “Has she been alone all this time? Is she alright?”

Zuko blinks at the rawness that morphs his handsome face into something almost painful to look at. “She’s doing fine. A little frustrated that she’s been stuck between worlds for so long, but otherwise, she’s okay.”

All three figures in the room with him seem to nearly sink into their chairs at once, relief spreading like a yawn from one to another.

“That’s good enough for us.” Katara’s grandmother rises from her seat, movements surprisingly graceful for her age. “Young man, I believe we may need a few moments to fully digest all that you have told us.”

Taking his cue, Zuko hurriedly stands, raking a hand through his long hair. “Of course—No, yeah, I can just—I’ll wait in the hall.”

Almost the second the door closes behind him, Zuko feels a familiar chill sweep down his spine. His eyes are drawn to the chairs lining the hallway, where a small, lone figure sits with her knees drawn up to her chest. If it wasn’t for the glitch-like stutters of her silhouette, Zuko would hardly recognize her.

“Katara,” he sits in the seat beside her, “what’s wrong?”

Her face is buried in the crooks of her elbows, voice muffled as she responds. “I was so ready, Zuko.”

“Ready for what?” He asks even though he already knows her answer.

She shifts, and watery eyes peak up at him over her forearms. When she speaks, it’s with the whisper of a confession. “I was so ready to die.”

Suddenly, a memory that had been buried deep in the recesses of his mind vividly resurfaces. It was nearly ten years ago, and nine hours after his father had burned him. When he had first awoken in the hospital.

At first, it had taken several minutes for him to remember why he was there in the first place, but when the reality finally hit, he hadn’t been able to keep back the torrential breakdown of bitter sobs and heartbroken accusations. And throughout it all, he had expected his Uncle to admonish him or offer words of comfort. Words that would have been just as wise as they would have been worthless to a traumatized child incapable of seeing anything but the pain of rejection and brutality.

But Iroh had only sat there in silence, offering nothing but the presence of a man who would never judge him for his suffering or pressure him into premature acceptance of such a fresh wound.

It had taught him what true compassion looks like.

Zuko doesn’t know what to say to Katara, so he follows the example of his Uncle—who has not failed him yet—and he does not say anything at all.

“I’ve spent twenty-eight days preparing myself for the eventuality of death. I finally had made my peace with everything, and I was—I am so, so incredibly ready to see my Mom again, Zuko.”

Her sobs are near silent, tugging at her shoulders and caving in her chest as if they are violently trapped within her. Her face screws up like she’s in physical pain, and Zuko desperately wishes he could carry this weight for her.

“And of course I love Dad and Sokka and Gran Gran— of course I would miss them with all my heart. But I was so close to seeing her again, so close to—“ she gasps, nimble fingers digging into the skin of her shoulders “—I was going to hug her and she was going to hug me back, and I’ve been dreaming of that for ages, Zuko—even before it all. I just, I can’t fucking—“

She cuts off with this terrible choking sound that racks her whole body once, twice, and then she stills. She sucks in air through gritted teeth, forehead pressed mercilessly to the tops of her knees.

And Zuko finally knows what to say.

“You feel like you can’t win.”

She looks up and he looks up and they both just get it.

“How do you choose between the living and the dead when they’re both so close?”

Something calm—almost peaceful—settles in her eyes. “Thank you.”

Zuko smiles a little ruefully. “You know, I think I figured out why I’m the only one who can see you, and why I’m the only one that you can see.”

Katara messily wipes the snot from her nose with the back of her hand. “Really?”

“Yeah. My father’s always been an asshole, but he didn’t start getting violent until he found out he wasn’t inheriting the family business after my grandfather passed away.” He tilts his head back against the wall with a light thud and stares at the ceiling. “One night when I was thirteen, I wasn’t feeling good and I couldn’t sleep, so I left my room to get a glass of water and some Nyquil. As I was passing by my parent’s bedroom, I saw my dad hit my mom.”

An indignant sound rips it’s way out of Katara’s throat, and Zuko wants to kiss her for it.

“I tried to fight him, tried to make him feel even a fraction of the pain that he’d been inflicting on us for our whole lives, but I was still just a kid. He dragged me to the bathroom and poured a drain cleaner onto my face. It left a chemical burn that almost blinded me.”

“Zuko...” There’s an interesting mixture of horror and sympathy twisting her face. He tries to ignore it.

“My mom and Uncle brought me to the hospital, and they said that I had swallowed a bit of the cleaner, which made me have two seizures before the medics could stabilize me. But I’m not telling you this just because I want you to know my sob story.”

He fixes her with an intense look.

“I think...I think that I got pretty close to dying a few times that night. And not just because of my injuries. I think a part of me really did die when my father tried to kill me. And I think that made it so much harder for the rest of me to want to live. My Uncle told me a few years ago that he remembers seeing my spirit trying to leave my body during those long hours I was unconscious, and he had begged and prayed that I would choose to stay—choose to come back. Even if it meant returning to a world of pain and suffering.”

His hand moves to where hers sits limply on the armchair between them. It hovers just above the back of her hand, just enough for them to feel a slight push and pull where his skin should meet hers.

“And slowly, my spirit mended itself back into my body.” His voice is soft now, all the previous tension draining from his form. “I didn’t die that day, but I nearly did. I had to choose to come back. I think that’s why we can see each other.”

She lets out a long breath, one that sounds heavy and tired and shaky, but free.

“Okay.” Her voice is the slightest bit nasally from all her crying. “I think it’s time I rejoin the world of the living.”

When Zuko enters Room 332 without knocking, the conversation between Katara’s relatives halts.

Kanna takes one look at the determined set to his shoulders and the way his eyes are devoutly trained on the space to his left, and holds up a hand to stop whatever protest is about to leave her son or her grandson’s mouths.

Zuko watches as Katara approaches her comatose body.

She trails her fingers from the tip of her own big toe—concealed by the thin hospital blanket—to the top of her shoulder.

The fabric bunches under her touch, and they all—spirit seers and spirit blind alike—inhale sharply.

Katara lays a reverent hand on her body’s chest, just above the heart, dark fingers spreading over the hospital gown.

She looks back up at Zuko and he holds his breath.

“You better be here when I wake up.”

“Where else would I be?”

“And I want to meet your Uncle. After all, he’s half the reason I’m coming back.”

“My Uncle wants to meet you too.”

A brilliant smile lights up her face, and then she closes her eyes.

In the space of a second, Zuko watches her soul stitch itself back into her body, and the heart monitor beside her bed begins to beep faster and faster.

Hakoda crosses to her side, hands gently framing her face and speaking her name softly.

One agonizing moment passes, and then the heart monitor slows down and Katara’s body stirs against the bed.

From where he stands, Zuko can see in perfect clarity the way her eyes flutter open—the way her father’s face crumples like a paper held to a flame.

Katara tries to speak, but her throat rasps, and her eyes shut tight against the overhead lights. She breathes sharply, and it occurs to him that waking from a coma is not as simple and clean as the movies make it seem.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re okay—“ Hakoda’s voice breaks as he lowers his forehead to hers, and Zuko looks away, feeling as if he’s intruding on something extremely personal.

As Sokka rushes to the door to call a nurse, Zuko discreetly presses himself to the back wall and tries to make a quiet escape. The events of the last few hours come crashing down, beginning to overwhelm him. He inches towards the door just as several nurses come rushing in, but stops when a warm hand firmly circles around his wrist.

“What did you say your name was again, young man?” Kanna’s eyes are brimming with tears, but she pins him with a determined look.

“Zuko Tanaka.”

She smiles, and the skin around her mouth folds like oragami. “Ah, one of Iroh’s. I thought you looked familiar.”

“You know—How do you know my Uncle?”

“All old people know each other, don’t you know that?” She winks at him, her knotted fingers slipping from his wrist. “Give Iroh my thanks for raising such a wonderful man.”

Before he can ask how she knows that Iroh raised him, Gran Gran pats him affectionately on the cheek and moves to support her son.

Zuko pauses for a moment to watch the busy movement of nurses updating Katara’s vitals and her family watching from the side with equally relieved and anxious expressions.

Katara apparently fell back asleep, too exhausted and disoriented to remain conscious. The nurses are quietly explaining that she’ll need at least another week in the hospital to recover her strength, but that her waking was a miraculous sign of a successful recovery.

A little lost, but not forgetting his promise to be there when she woke up, Zuko shifts uncertainly by the door.

His eyes meet Sokka’s as the nurses finish looking over Katara. The other boy crosses over to him, and where his face had been serious and grim since the moment they had met, it now shone with friendly ease.

He slaps a hand on Zuko’s shoulder and then pulls him in for a hug that won’t take no for an answer. After a moment of Zuko’s stunned silence, Sokka pulls away.

“I still don’t understand a damn thing about what just happened, but Katara’s back, so I guess it doesn’t really matter if I get it or not.” He grins, and Zuko is struck by how much it makes him resemble Katara. “Thank you. Seriously. You’re welcome here with us any time.”

Zuko doesn’t know why, but he has the strangest feeling that he’s about to cry.

Chapter Text

epilogue

“Eat it.”

“I told you, I’m not hungry!”

“I didn’t ask if you were hungry. I’m telling you to shut up and eat it!”

“Bite me, asshole.”

“I swear to Agni, you’re such a—“

“Such a what?”

Hakoda peeks over the top of his reading glasses and the paperwork spread out on the couch before him, barely suppressing a chuckle as he observes his daughter and her well-meaning friend shove a bowl of oatmeal and bananas back and forth across the dining table.

The strange boy from the hospital has become somewhat of a new staple in his home, and after two weeks, Hakoda has become quite used to their interesting dynamic.

He decided he was quite fond of the boy when he had watched Zuko lay into a nurse in the hallway about how he had been late to Katara’s daily physical therapy sessions. And since then, the boy has only made a habit of his fussy, mother-hen tendencies.

“Zuko, I seriously am going to throw up if I have to eat anything right now. My appetite still hasn’t fully recovered.”

He seems to soften at that, scar loosening as he sinks into the chair across from her, all signs of confrontation dissipating. “I know, but you haven’t eaten since this morning, and Dr. Bumi said you have to try and force some light food down every four hours.”

When Katara makes a face like she’s gearing up to argue—an expression Hakoda knows intimately—he decides to interject. “Sweetie, you really should eat something. You don’t have to finish it, just take a couple bites.”

She huffs, but after a bit of grumbling (“my own father turning against me”), she gives in and drags the porcelain bowl towards herself.

Hakoda watches Zuko attempt to hide a smile, and not for the first time, he’s hit with the notion that his daughter may very well be in for much more than she’s aware of.

Surreptitiously, he pays close attention to the way Zuko interacts with Katara.

“See? It’s not that bad.” His whole body faces her, legs spread out before him with his feet bracketing hers. “I even added an ungodly amount of brown sugar.”

“Oatmeal is just baby food marketed for adults. Hardly a gourmet meal.”

Zuko grins and leans forward to rest his chin on one fist, golden eyes warm as they track her begrudging movements.

“I don’t know, I put some backbreaking labor into slicing those bananas.”

She shoots him a dry look. “Oh yes, thank you oh so much, Chef Tanaka. This bowl of lukewarm mush is absolutely exquisite.”

He only laughs, and Hakoda thinks he recognizes the look in his eyes. He thinks he’s seen it on himself years and years ago when he had still been courting Kya. And on Sokka’s face nowadays when Suki says something particularly sarcastic.

The strange feeling he’s been getting ever since the boy had turned up begins to bubble in the pit of his stomach.

“Okay, I really can’t eat anymore, or I’m gonna upchuck your five-star oatmeal all over you.”

Zuko reaches over and tilts the bowl to see what remains. Evidently satisfied with the amount she ate, he gathers it and stands to rinse it out in the sink. “Alright. How do you feel?”

“Fine.” She purses her lips. “Well, fine besides being bored out of my mind.”

“Oh, that reminds me.” He dries his hands on a stray towel and crosses to one of the chairs with his beaten and fraying backpack on it. After rummaging through its contents, he pulls out a thick book. “I got this at the bookstore for you yesterday.”

She takes the hardcover book from him and smiles. “I totally forgot this had been released. Thank you, Zuko.”

He shrugs his shoulder with the air of someone trying desperately hard to look nonchalant and failing. “Yeah, it’s nothing. I remember you telling me how upset you were that you wouldn’t be able to read the end of the trilogy since you were—uh, well dead and all.”

Hakoda’s eyes follow Zuko’s eyes as they intently watch Katara skim her fingers over the author’s name on the cover.

“I thought we could read it together—you know, because Dr. Bumi recommended you practice and all.”

When one wakes from a coma, it is common for he or she to experience loss of certain abilities or memories as a result of the interrupted brain function. Katara had, to her dismay, discovered quickly after waking that she struggled to read anything above kindergarten-level writing.

Since then, she had been practicing daily by reading children’s books, then newspaper articles, and now, she was finally reaching more complex novels. She was able to get through most parts on her own, with only a little help from someone else (usually Sokka or Zuko) when she reached a word or phrase particularly advanced.

“Have you read the first two?”

“No.”

Katara shoots him a playful glare. “Well then there’s no way I’m letting you skip to the last part.”

Zuko flushes a little and begins to protest, but she cuts him off with a smile.

“We can start with the first one. Besides, it’s been awhile since I last read them all the way through. I could use a refresher.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m down.”

When Katara begins to stand to presumably go and find her copy of the first book, Zuko forcibly sits her back down, and—after a few minutes of bickering—gets her to tell him where the book is so he can get it while she rests.

The simmering worry in Hakoda’s stomach smooths over.

It soon turns to amusement when Zuko disappears down the hall and Katara refuses to meet his knowing gaze.

———

Some people would call Sokka over-protective.

Katara would call him the bane of her social life.

It’s no secret that he’s critical of the guys Katara talks to, and even though he knows that she can handle herself, he still tries to keep some tabs on the people she spends her time with.

Most notoriously was the incident with her ex-boyfriend from high school, Jet. The guy was an immature dick who was unluckily—for them, at least—blessed with an ungodly amount of charm. It had taken many nights of Sokka arguing with her, and certain intel from a reliable source on Jet’s infidelity, in order to end the six month long relationship for good.

Her other past boyfriends or flings were usually alright, if not short-lived due to complications, miscommunications, or bad timing. But Sokka never let his guard down, and made sure he was never so chummy with the guy that he’d be blindsided.

It hasn’t failed him yet. And after the whole coma thing, his big brother instincts have only intensified.

So, considering all of this, Sokka absolutely cannot figure out why he gets along so well with Zuko.

At first, he’d just been trying to get a feel for the guy, so he’d know exactly what he was dealing with. But then, he started getting a little too excited when they talked about their mutual love of hockey, and when Zuko would make some awful pun, he’d find himself laughing just a tad bit too hard.

More often than not, he doesn’t even think about Zuko as Katara’s maybe-almost-could-be-boyfriend, but more as his friend.

He’s been friends with Katara’s boyfriends in the past—hell, he’s still friends with Aang—but this weird thing between him and Zuko is just plain odd. It’s too natural. Too easy. It’s absurd how quickly they just seem to click.

When he’s not filtering his own thoughts, Sokka almost thinks that this is what it would have been like if he’d had a brother.

Clearly, Zuko is angling for something here. Surely, it’s all an act and he’s trying to get on Sokka’s good side to accomplish his own evil plan.

When he explains this theory to Suki, she merely rolls her eyes and tells him to just admit that he’s got a dude crush on Katara’s newest not-quite-boyfriend.

To this, he sputters, and then yells, and then proceeds to sink into silent, deep thought.

Suki only laughs and says it’s okay, she and Katara are secret wives anyways, so he and Zuko are free to embrace their passion-filled love.

“—it’s probably not the best season for him to retire, but the team will—Hey, Sokka.” Pale fingers snap in his face, pulling him from his thoughts. “Are you even listening to me?”

Sokka blinks up at Zuko, who’s lounging on Hakoda’s couch reading something on his phone. Gran Gran and his Dad were out picking up some grocery essentials that they hadn’t had time to shop for during the week.

“Yeah yeah yeah, I’m listening.”

The dark-haired boy half-heartedly glares at him. “Really? What was I just saying then?”

“Something about the Eaglebears and how they’re losing The Boulder, but they’ll probably still manage without him and continue being the most badass team in all of the Four Nations.”

Zuko looks ready to sass him back, or maybe reach over the couch to put him in a headlock, when his phone gives a shrill ring.

Reflexively, Zuko taps the mute button and checks the time. With a grunt, he hoists himself from his seat and ambles over to the kitchen.

“Work?” Sokka calls out after him. It’s getting dark out, and he knows Zuko has to be at the cemetery later.

“Nah, I gotta give Katara her AEDs.”

He opens a side drawer and pulls out a crumpled brown bag. A prescription note with instructions is stapled to the top. Then, he swings open the cupboard to his right and grabs a blue plastic cup. Once he’s filled it to the brim with water from the tap, Zuko heads towards the hallway.

The ease at which he finds everything speaks to his continued—and welcomed—presence in the Nanuq household.

After a second of deliberation, Sokka retracts his feet from their perch on the coffee table, stands, and follows him.

He peeks around the corner of Katara’s old bedroom door, softening his footsteps.

Zuko is leaning over her figure on the bed, the pills and water sitting on her nightstand. One of his hands lays itself gently on her shoulder, and immediately she curls more tightly around the pillow that she’s hugging to her chest.

“Katara, it’s time to take your meds.” His voice is soft, almost unrecognizable from his normally bracing tone.

His sister merely groans and pulls the blankets further around her.

“No.”

“Don’t be difficult.”

“They taste gross, Zuko.”

“Well they’re not supposed to taste good, they’re just supposed to prevent your seizures.”

She rolls over, eyes blinking slowly up at him. “I haven’t had a seizure since the first one, and that was weeks ago.”

“And we can keep it that way if you take your meds.” His voice is patient but firm.

Katara groans, but Sokka knows exactly why Zuko is being so strict about the pills that she admittedly probably doesn’t have much need for anymore.

Sokka had been there when the seizure had hit, only a day after she had first woken.

Looking back, it was ironic in a way. None of them had given much thought to what would happen after she came out of the coma, too preoccupied with worrying about whether it would happen in the first place.

Now, they all know better.

The constant hospital check ups, rigorous physical therapy sessions, and occasional functionary lapses have trained them to hope for the best but expect the worst. And Katara’s seizure had hammered that philosophy into the base of their skulls.

She had been asleep, and Sokka and Zuko had been exchanging memes on their phones when the tremors had hit.

To be honest, the seizure itself hadn’t been too severe. It only lasted about a minute, and Zuko himself remarked that his seizures from his youth had been longer and more violent.

It was more of the fact that they could do nothing but watch.

It was more of the fact that for one paralyzing second, even in its brevity, they simply were completely unable to help her in any way.

Sokka is a do-er.

When faced with a problem or a puzzle his brain immediately kicks into overdrive, fingers eagerly tinkering and fiddling with tools, equations, his trusty titanium protractor. Everything existing around him has both an explanation and a solution.

He only needs the right combination of willpower and caffeine to figure it out.

But both his willpower and caffeine intake hadn’t aided him in the slightest when he’d been pinned to his leather seat by his seatbelt and Katara had been bleeding out right next to him—hadn’t helped him do anything other than freeze and hold his breath when she’d been convulsing on the hospital bed.

Sokka blinks hard, dismissing the morbid rabbit trail, and slips into the room just as Katara finishes swallowing down her pills.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

She shoots him a dry look and then sticks her tongue out at him. The action is so ridiculously childish that it comforts him in a strange way, managing to sweep away the last remnants of his depressive mood.

He steps up to her bedside and reaches over to stick a finger in her ear. She curses and swats waspishly at him, her hair poking out wildly around her shoulders.

“Hey, that’s no way to treat your stay-at-home nurses.”

She glares and adjusts the huge orange t-shirt (his huge orange t-shirt, Sokka notes) that’s twisted itself around her torso. “You barely do anything other than bother me. Zuko is the one I should be thanking.”

He mock gasps, one hand to his chest. “I can’t believe you would disrespect me this way. If you didn’t have me to bother you, you would’ve died of boredom already.” Sokka knocks his shoulder into Zuko’s. “Back me up here, Zuko.”

The older boy rolls his eyes and holds his palms up in surrender. “I’m just the un-hired help, don’t look at me.”

And because Sokka has never been able to pass up an opportunity to make other people squirm, he slyly comments, “You’re just saying that because you don’t want to pick sides against your best friend and your girlfriend.”

Their ensuing sputters of indignation and embarrassment bring a deep satisfaction to Sokka’s cold, oil-slicked, industrial heart.

By the end of it all, Sokka may have a growing bruise on his arm (zuko) and a ringing in his ears (katara), but their flaming cheeks and awkward twitches are enough to ensure him that he hasn’t lost his upper hand just yet.

———

Her middle-aged son is going to give himself an ulcer if he continues to gnaw at his worries like a dog on a bone.

Nowadays, it’s all ‘they’re spending too much time together,’ or ‘she doesn’t know what she’s doing to the poor boy,’ and—her personal favorite—‘do you think Iroh will still give me a discount on the ginger and lemon tea after she breaks his nephew’s heart?’

She would roll her all-seeing eyes if it didn’t endanger her image as the mature, wise, and sage matron of her family. Instead, she settles for half-listening to his solemn ramblings and patting him reassuringly on the arm.

After all, her son—even with his careful discernment and philanthropic heart—is still a boy at his core, and therefore, does not catch all the signs that Kanna does.

The handsome young man who has taken so swimmingly to fawning and blustering over her granddaughter certainly makes his budding affections glaringly obvious to all who watch their interactions for more than thirty seconds. But while his infatuation is of the more clumsy kind, her granddaughter exhibits a subtler, smoother, albeit just as intense fascination in turn.

It’s in the way her lashes flutter in soft recognition when he wakes her to take her pills. How her eyes fixate almost absently on the front door long after he’s disappeared through it. Even her constant teasing, so often delivered with a contagious grin, is a sure sign of her own impartiality.

Kanna knows her granddaughter’s mind almost as well as she knows her own. Hakoda likes to pretend that his children inherited their snark and quick-wit from him, but Kanna knows damn well that while that might be half the truth, Hakoda himself had to get it from somewhere (and it certainly wasn’t his goofy, candy-sweet father).

So, she knows without a doubt that while Katara is treading carefully and quietly with this blooming relationship, it is not for lack of feeling. She may use sass and veiled looks to deter further scrutiny from outsiders, but the roiling current of questions and admiration and raw longing just underneath the surface is one Kanna recognizes in an instant.

Which enables Kanna to keep a truly admirable poker face when Katara mumbles under her breath from the kitchen table, “Gran Gran, how do you know if you’re in love?”

She heard the hushed question perfectly clear the first time, but asks Katara to repeat it simply for the sheer satisfaction of knowing she is—once again—dead accurate.

Katara clears her throat and resolutely stares down at her flour-dusted hands as they dutifully stuff and fold pork dumplings.

“How...do you know that you’re in love?”

Kanna breathes deeply and recalls the stuttering heartbeats and shy glances from her first love all those years ago, and with equal clarity, remembers the deep and solid affection she shared with her late husband.

“Love is different for every person.” She pauses, not because she is hesitant, but because she knows she must time her interrogation tediously in order to optimize Katara’s participation. “Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know.” Her tone is unconvincing, and Katara knows it, so she hurriedly adds, “Well, I guess I just want to be sure that whenever I do fall in love, it’s the real thing.”

Kanna nods with a hum, dividing her attention between the boiling pot of soup in front of her, and her fidgeting granddaughter. She can feel another question burning in the space between them, so she contents herself with adding the baby bok choy to the broth and patiently waits until Katara works up the nerve to continue. It doesn’t take but a few minutes.

“So, how did you know you were in love with Papa?”

A fond smile creases her weathered face. “There wasn’t really a specific moment for me. It was more of a slow sort of build up.”

“What did it feel like?”

She considers, parsing through all the ways she can try and interpret a feeling into words, before settling on something that sits just right on her tongue and in her chest. “It feels like when you are just waking from a wonderful dream, and it feels all at once just within reach yet blissfully surreal. The kind of dream that makes you want to fall back asleep just to catch another moment of it.”

Katara is quiet, her fingers pinching the thin dough around its stuffing on autopilot. Kanna sneaks a glance at the girl over her shoulder and hides a smile when she sees the contemplative tilt of her dark eyebrows.

It isn’t until later that night, after they have all eaten dinner (minus one pale boy and his wine-red scar) and she is sitting with Katara in the living room watching a rerun of some popular sitcom, that she brings it up again.

“Gran Gran?”

“Hm?” Her wiry fingers reach to turn down the volume of the television.

“Do I tell him?”

“Tell who what, dear?”

Katara lifts her head from her grandmother’s shoulder and slants her a half-resigned, half-challenging look. “You know.”

She smiles, caught, and finally turns her full attention to her sharp granddaughter. “Yes, yes I think I do. As for whether you should tell him or not... What is holding you back?”

Katara barks out a disbelieving laugh. “Uh, well probably the fact that he might totally and utterly reject me, and then I’ll have embarrassed myself for absolutely no reason. Or maybe it’s that I’m potentially ruining—probably forever—a really amazing friendship that’s fun and safe and easy.”

“You think he will reject you?”

Her young, ocean blue eyes fill with uncertainty. “I don’t know. I mean, I think he...likes me? At least a little. But I can’t tell if that’s because he’s interested in me—you know—as a girl, or just because we developed this strange, supernatural bond and he somehow feels responsible for me. Which would suck.”

“And you’re certain that it cannot be both?”

She stops at that, mouth pulling into a thoughtful frown. “I guess it could be. What do you think?”

Kanna blinks long and slow. “Honestly, Katara? I think that boy is in serious danger of spontaneously combusting if you keep him pining after you for much longer.”

Katara’s face screws up in confusion, but Kanna cuts in before she can argue.

“Now, there is no need to rush things, and you must know that it’s okay to take everything at your own pace. However, I know down to my old, creaky bones that he’s been deep into this for a very long time, and—should you tell him your feelings—he will probably respond with much enthusiasm.”

Katara looks almost stricken. “That’s—how can you be sure?”

“Call it a woman’s intuition.” She smiles a little wryly. “And besides, would you really be satisfied with just a ‘fun and safe and easy’ friendship forever?”

“I could be.” Katara huffs a little sheepishly. “Well, probably not. But what if you’re wrong, and this ends up changing our friendship? I like what we have right now. I don’t want to ruin it.”

“That is something you have to decide for yourself, Katara. Love and relationships are not an exact science. If you believe that you could be satisfied with only the friendship you have now, and that you will not regret living with the ‘what if’s’ that come with it, then you do not have to say anything at all. However, if the chance of finding a true and beautiful love is worth the risk for you, then what can it hurt to try?”

They don’t say anything more after this, but Kanna knows which side her granddaughter will land on.

And if she has a running bet with Iroh about which of the two will confess first, it is of absolutely no consequence. After all, she is merely fulfilling her role as an encouraging and understanding grandmother.

Four days later, Kanna receives a letter in the mail with a decent sum of money and a coupon for a free cup of ginseng tea upon her next visit to the tea shop.

Iroh signs the letter off in good humor with an invitation for afternoon tea the next day (he would invite her for one later that afternoon if not for the fact that he was already closing his shop in the evening so that a certain nephew may accompany a certain girl there for a private and romantic date).

Kanna pens a letter accepting his invitation, already looking forward to the gossip that they will undoubtedly be exchanging.

At the bottom of his letter, Iroh adds a “P.S. Twenty gold pieces that they will be engaged by fall of next year?”

She accepts that too.