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The sun gazed heavily over the icy sea beyond the main sea wall of the Southern tribe. Hues of delicate pink and orange painted the sky and illuminated the tops of the numerous igloos that were spread across the land. On a large veranda made of ice and snow, a red dragon basked in the last remnants of daylight, crimson scales glittering with gold in the sun. On the opposite side of the space, Korra flopped her body back heavily on the hard surface.
“There was nothing we could have done. Maybe things would have worked out if our situations were different, but they aren’t” Korra huffed sadly, twirling a piece of hair around her fingers.
“But that doesn’t make it hurt less” Zuko says, placing a cup of tea beside her. His tea making skills have vastly improved over the years, he would like to think. He poured a cup for himself before sitting beside her, folding his legs under himself.
“I loved him. I think I always will. And I know we made the right choice but I’m still so…sad? Is that crazy?” Korra said, sitting up and taking a sip of tea.
“No, it’s not. I think it’s a sign of strength to allow yourself to feel the hurt, especially for the sake of someone you love” His way with words has also improved over the years. Giving advice no longer felt awkward and forced. Katara had asked him to speak with Korra after her breakup. (“Why me? Wouldn’t she rather talk to you?” he asked. She just shrugged and smiled, “One hot head to another?”) It was true – Korra was not the gentle, patient soul her predecessor was. Even so, he felt an affinity toward the girl. Some friendships last more than a lifetime, he remembers being told once.
“I just wish — I don’t know — that the timing was better, do you know what I mean?”
“Believe me, I understand. I know what it’s like to love the right person,” Zuko smiled, looking behind Korra, into the living space of Katara’s home, and at Katara and his daughter. “At the wrong time.”
“You look absolutely regal, Princess Izumi” Katara says, her hands caressing Izumi’s cheeks.
“That’s Firelord Izumi, to you, Katara” Izumi says, smiling down at the older woman.
“And that’s Auntie Katara to you, dear” Katara said sternly, but that only made Izumi smile wider and giggle.
Korra follows Zuko’s gaze and, realizing who he is looking at, chokes on her sip of tea.
“But I thought…,” she said in a soft voice, leaning in closer, as if a great secret had just been revealed to her. A silence fills the space between them, as he brings his gaze back to her. “Wait, weren’t you famously good friends with her husband?” Korra blurts out, trying to put the pieces together in her head. Subtly was never her strong suit.
“I never acted dishonorably, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He said, with a laugh. There was no trace of defensiveness in his voice.
“I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to imply anything!” Korra said quickly, face flushed with embarrassment.
“Don’t be. I have a feeling if I had, we would not get along as well as we do” It takes Korra a moment to get the joke; he had that dry sense of humor that makes it hard to tell when he’s trying to be funny, she thinks. She smiles for moment, relieved, before looking at him seriously.
“Hold on, does she know?” Korra asks. They had been friends for decades, as far as Korra knew. She must know.
He doesn’t say anything, only turns to gaze out the village and the sea beyond.
“Oh, come on! You can’t just drop a bomb like that on me and not say anything!” Korra urges, eyes flickering with excitement. She sees Zuko begin to fidget with his hands, a nervous habit that has stuck with him since childhood.
“It doesn’t matter now, that was in another life — My point is, sometimes you love someone but the strength of your feelings isn’t enough to make it work — sometimes destiny has other plans for you”
Korra groans at the mere suggestion, “Destiny…don’t remind me”
She flops back on the floor of the deck, excitement fading.
“I know being young is hard, especially for you. Love can make things complicated. But it can also make all the difference in the world,” Zuko smiles at her. “You don’t get too many people in this life who are willing to look out for you. Don’t stop looking out for each other, the world is cruel enough as it is” He whispers the last part, his hand unconsciously finding the leathery skin of his scar.
“I know Mako would do anything to help me, even after everything. And I know I would do the same for him”
“He’s a lucky man, then” He says, refilling her teacup. There is something comforting – warm - in his presence, something that reminds her of her own father.
“I think she’s lucky, too. To have you looking out for her after all these years”
He laughs, “Believe me, if anything she’s looked out for me”
***
Zuko and Katara began exchanging letters shortly after the war ended, when he found himself confined to a desk and unable leave for a mission at a moment’s notice like he used to.
Sometimes it felt like writing to an imaginary friend or in a diary that was never meant to be read. It was meditative for him. The world was small and safe within the confines of black ink and enveloped carefully within papery walls.
In the dark of his room, when the monsoons brought heavy rain and lightning filled the sky, when sleep eluded him, he could hear her voice as he read her responses. Sometimes, it made the world easier to bear.
“What if this is all the love I ever get?”, he sometimes wonders in his darker moment, a heavy stone of anxiety weighing in his mind at any given time as his first relationship imploded in on itself. It hurt to think that his exchange of letters with her —some short, some long, all containing small revelations of his true self – may be the closest thing he will get to being loved, being seen.
With each letter, they let go of small pieces of themselves; his love of theater, her brief dalliance with a fire nation water spirit, his surprising talent for landscape painting (which she convinces him to send to her), stories of their childhoods (a silent understanding that these stories always take place Before, a kind of marking of time that only those who have lost someone they love use).
These insignificant parts of themselves whose only real function is as a bridge between them, crumbling edges of the walls they had put up during the war. Things that they talk about when the opportunity comes to visit in person.
And some that they don’t.
He tells her about his nightmares, in which he’s too slow, too late. She reveals her guilt that he took a deadly blow that was meant for her. (‘You could have died! My life is not worth giving another tyrant a chance to grab the throne’, she wrote. He saw a salt stain on the letter that he briefly mistook as seawater but quickly realized was not. Instead it was evidence of the affection she’d come to have for him and her turmoil at the thought of another person she cared about giving their life to spare hers.) His reply does not begin with formal niceties but a single sentence ‘Don’t ever think that way again’. He goes on to write ‘I owe you everything and you owe me nothing’. They don’t talk about it for several letters after.
There’s a letter he kept beginning to write but could never get past the second line before crumpling it up and throwing it in the garbage.
Dear Katara,
There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you –
‘No, that’s so boring’
My dearest, Katara –
‘Wait, does the comma go after dearest or after Katara? Forget it! Let me start over.’
Dear Katara,
You make me feel vulnerable and romantic!
‘Ugh, that’s so lame! I’m never taking romantic advice from Uncle again’
Dear Katara,
Please break my best friend’s heart and throw your life into chaos just to be with me. Or better yet, reject me and damage our friendship forever!
Zuko burns that one before it reaches the garbage basket.
Dear Katara,
I’m in love with you. And I have no right to. I’m sorry.
In spite of himself, Zuko folds that letter up and stores it in a desk drawer.
As Katara’s relationship with Aang progressed, Zuko could not help but notice a change in the tone of her letters. As if she was sending him a puzzle to work out, a clue to the struggles she could not admit on paper. Maybe he was imagining it.
Or maybe it was why he saw her less and less, each absence cited by Aang as her just “wanting some time to herself”. She and Aang had started officially living together, bouncing between the air temples, as soon as she turned sixteen. From her letters, he surmised that most of her day was made up of keeping herself occupied while Aang led the Acolytes through mediation, history lessons and basic forms. They worshiped the ground he walked on, but paid little mind to Katara. Zuko could imagine why; she was an outsider, who did not revere the ancient customs, did not pay tribute at the altar of nomadic life.
Zuko hoped she was happy, he sincerely did. Spirits know she deserved it.
According to Aang, the relationship was perfect, she was perfect, his life was now perfect. But he couldn’t shake the suspicion that there was more to story. Aang is a good man (a better man than he ever was, Zuko often thinks), he was just in love. Aang had a natural likability, he charmed everyone he met. It was a trait Zuko envied more and more with every trade meeting and mingling cocktail gatherings he sat through. But Aang tried to be everything to everyone and wound up with a love that was spread too thin. His perpetual restlessness was challenging to keep up with.
She suffered for his love; Zuko could see it all over her face.
Part of him wanted to believe that everyone had a perfect match that made them whole, complete, it was only a matter of waiting for them.
His more rational mind told him that maybe it was better to grab onto the nearest person you could halfway tolerate, cling to any shred of happiness and not let go. He had no right to judge her if she was trying to do just that.
Maybe he could learn something from her.
One spring, a few years after the war, when Katara and Aang came to visit after a trip to the Western Temple, he told her about the woman he’s been spending time with. It felt strangely like a betrayal, a small crime against the rapport they had formed, although he was never quite sure why. She was excited for him. For some reason, he was hoping she wouldn’t be. Instead, she practically begged him to regale the events of their first date.
They sat on the grass in the garden after everyone had gone to bed, a bottle of rice wine between them. He told her how the woman he was seeing was the daughter of a local politician and he invited her to have tea with him a few times.
“That sounds wonderful. What’s her name?”, Katara asked. The moonlight twinkled in her eye. She rested her chin on her hands.
“Izumi”
Katara looked puzzled for a moment, pondering what he had said, before her face twisted into a sly smirk. “Oh, that’s funny. Did you know that name means ‘Spring of Water’?”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I guess you really do have a type” she says, smiling wickedly knowing, even in the dark, he’s blushing furiously. Flustering him was too easy to resist. Zuko took another long sip of wine.
The sun had long since dipped below the horizon, the full moon hanging above them. The air, despite it being early spring, was warm and sweet with the scent of the lilac bushes. Bullfrogs and cricket-beetles croaked their noisy symphony. She can never sleep during a full moon and he could spare one full night’s sleep for her sake.
He’s grateful to have her here to talk to. Their letters were a nice constant to look forward to when the rest of the world seemed so uncertain, but nothing compared to having her next to him. Nothing could replicate the wave of calm he felt when she lays her head on his lap, though he feigns a look of annoyance. How for just a moment, the world wasn’t at their feet and monsters only existed in the constellations above their heads.
“She‘s…fun to be around. She’s always so happy and positive. I thought it would drive me crazy but it’s kind of…refreshing” Zuko finally says. In his mildly inebriated state, he begins playing with a curl of hair by her face. If she minds, she doesn’t say anything.
“You love her! That’s so sweet!” she coos, slurring slightly.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about — we went on, like, two dates!”, he said, getting flustered again.
“But you love her, don’t you”, she teased, unable to help herself from making his face redder than any wine could inflict.
“That’s not how real love works!” Zuko grumbles, crossing his arms petulantly. “Contrary to what your boyfriend thinks, it’s not just something you stumble into”. He gestures aimlessly at the sky.
“He’s…a romantic!”.
“He reads a lot of books. Real love is work —sacrifice— it’s not enough to just have feelings for someone.” Zuko says, pouting slightly.
“And what do you know about love?” She challenges playfully.
He pauses for just a moment, closing his eyes, letting his hand gravitate up to the middle of his abdomen — a thin cloth between his finger and an angry scar. He pushes the painful memories of its origin, pushes away the urge to answer her question truthfully.
“You’re impossible sometimes” He coughs, changing the subject, returning to that curl of hair by her face, twisting it between his fingers.
“You know, for someone who may have just met the not-love of his life, don’t seem very happy” She says after studying his face for a while.
“I’m…afraid” Zuko says after a pause.
“Of what?”
“That she doesn’t really know me”
“What do you mean? That’s what dating is for, to get to know someone”
“No, I mean…what if she gets to know me and doesn’t like what she finds? What if she’s falling in love with an imposter?”
She ponders this for a moment, looking up at him thoughtfully, “Do I really know you?”
“More than anyone” He answers, more truthfully than he meant to.
“Then you have nothing to worry about.” She smiles with confidences and for a just moment he believes her.
His head is swirling, feeling warmed by the wine and her words. A question burns forth in his mind, impulsiveness unfettered by the alcohol. He knows he shouldn’t pry, shouldn’t cross the line; normally he would leave it alone, but before he can think, the words are out of his mouth.
“Katara?”
“Mmm?”
“Are you happy?” His words seem to sober her immediately.
She shoots up next to him and stares down at him. “What are you talking about? Of course, I’m happy. Why would you say that?” The pleasant warmth he felt from her presence is replaced with the scorching burn of her gaze.
“I just – sometimes it seems like you aren’t.” He says softly, not looking her in the eye.
“Oh and you think you’re some expert on my happiness?” She scoffs bitterly.
“Forget it! Just forget I said anything!” He snaps at her, rage bubbling under his skin.
“No! Please, enlighten me!” she spits back sarcastically. Her face is flushed, and she sways slightly as she rises to her feet.
He sighs, looking away from her. “You’re drunk, Katara. I don’t want to do this right now.”
“Too bad! You started it and now you’re going to finish it” she demands, placing her hands on her hips. He stands, towering over her.
They had plenty of friendly, albeit intense, arguments since the war ended. They were both passionate people with strong conviction. They argued the way they sparred -jab, cross, dodge, regroup. She never shied away from conflict, it intimidated him yet was one of the reasons he respected her more than any of his friends. But this was different. She was angry, truly angry. He could turn away, refuse to engage and hope that this argument would simply fizzle out. But that was not their nature. They didn’t just let things go. And they had an unspoken trust in each other to be honest, no matter what. He wouldn’t be the one to betray that trust.
“Fine! I haven’t seen you in almost a year. You talked about all these things you wanted to do after the war in your letters and then you just stopped mentioning it. I don’t understand it! Instead you’re just…playing house with your boyfriend!”
He regrets it as soon as soon as it comes out his mouth. Katara stares at him stunned for a moment. She trembles, jaw clenched in rage, eyes wild like a tiger in a cage. Angry tears gathered in her eyes. “How dare you! You have no idea what you’re talking about! Aang needs me.”
“He’s not a child! He doesn’t need you to take care of him! I care about him, too, but that doesn’t make you responsible for his happiness, Katara.”
“It’s my choice to be with him! You make it sound like I’m with him out of obligation!”
“Look, I know you love him but is that really all you need to be happy?”
She turns her back to him. “I need you to respect me enough to respect my choices”, she manages through gritted teeth. He reaches to touch her but catches himself, returning his hand back to his side.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want you think I don’t respect you,” he takes a step closer to her and Katara swears she can feel his breath on the back of her neck. “I’m just worried about you.”
She sighs, the combination of the stress and the heat suddenly making her feel suffocated. “I’m going to bed”
In the morning, Katara wakes with a pounding her in head. She dry heaves over the sink and tries to convince herself it’s because of the wine.
It is several months before she finds it in her to write him again.
***
Zuko loved Izumi, who soon became his wife. More deeply than he realized he was capable of.
She reminded him how to love freely, without fear of reproach.
She was easy to love and loved him in return just as easily.
She was the first firebender he met after the war that didn’t carry the sneaking suspicion of destruction and mistrust. Instead, he looked at her and saw a glimpse of a new future for their nation. Unlike many others of his homeland, she spoke out about how the war affected her life and her home, about the suffering the poorer citizens endured, and she was determined to fix it. Her endless positivity, a trait which he had come to realize is synonymous with strength, gave him hope for a better world.
He briefly wondered if that is what made Katara gravitate to Aang at the end of the war, which felt like a million years ago. If that was the case, he was certain that she deserved a love like that, and forcing her to pick between the two of them would have unfair. (And perhaps he was too afraid of her answer).
He chose her happiness over his own when he decided to stand by, but maybe he deserved to be happy too.
And he was.
But they lived on borrowed time, as the people who love him often do. A sickness would take her shortly after the birth of their daughter, leaving him reeling in the wake of widowhood and fatherhood at the young age of twenty-five.
In the days before her death, he couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t eat, he could barely breathe. He wrote a letter to the only person he trusted enough to see him at his most vulnerable. ‘Please, I need your help, I need to know I did everything I could to save her’. He knew she would stop at nothing to save her. She never gave up on anyone, including him
Katara packed a bag and flew to him without finishing reading the letter. “Oh, Zuko”, is all she said when she finally reached him. She looked like she hadn’t slept either (she must have travelled all night). Before he could comment, she marched herself through the many physicians, healers, herbalists, and nurses, who had taken residence at his wife’s beside.
Through his dazed state of shock and grief, he called for them to clear the room. One by one they bowed and exited, finally leaving the three of them.
She put her hands over her heart, her throat, her stomach, pulling all her concentration into her actions. She could feel her energy weakening, fading with each pump of her heart. Her body burned with fever.
Something was wrong, very wrong. It was as if her body was being destroyed from the inside, less important body systems and organs shutting down to keep the heart pumping and lungs breathing. It was only a matter of time before those systems failed too.
She looked up at his haggard and fearful face. He looked destroyed. She told him to go get some rest and she will get him if something changes. He laughed darkly at the idea of rest, averting his gaze. She reaches across, pulling his chin slightly to look at her. ‘Please, just try, for me’. She swore for a moment she saw his lip tremble before clenching his jaw. He nodded, turning to leave.
The truth was she didn’t think she was strong enough to work on this woman as her closest friend, a man she loved dearly, watched helplessly. He always seemed so strong, so unshakable throughout the years.
She has seen him in vulnerable states, like when he lost his uncle. Rare, intimate moments he trusted only her with, where his strong façade faltered, and she could only hold him as his heart raged against the injustice of all he’s lost in his short life.
But this was different.
Now she held his future in her hands. If she failed, his life would forever be changed. She wondered if she would ever be able to look him in the eye again.
She spent the day working on her, trying every healing method imaginable. But as the day drew to a close, shadows of the setting sun creating a chiaroscuro across Izumi’s ashen face, it was clear that this woman was ready to leave this world. Her body was dying and her spirit was tired.
Tears formed in Katara’s eyes as she realized that she would need to tell him that she could not save her. Anger filled her gut, for she had the skills to save thousands, if not millions of lives by fighting in the war, and yet was rendered powerless to save the life of one woman. In that moment, she regrets every time she balked at the notion choosing healing over fighting; if she could only have just an ounce more of knowledge of this gift she took for granted. Then, perhaps, she would not have look her friend in the eye and tell him that, yet again, the cards were stacked against him, the game fixed by some higher power which dare not let him be released from the cage around his heart, lest he be smited. She closed her eyes, taking a shaky breath. Tears tracked down her face and were quickly wiped away. ‘No’ she whispered to herself, ‘you do not get to cry, not now’.
She approached his door, the air around her become thick, stifling. This wasn’t fair. He didn’t deserve this. She opens the door to find him standing at the window, hands clenched, body stiff as if he is ready to receive a blow. As if he already knew she wouldn’t be able to help. Why, then, would he ask me to come?, she wonders. He turned to face her. She looked into his eyes, so full of anguish and grief. Shame – the only word that fills her mind and strikes her in the chest like a lightning bolt. Shame because she’s not as skilled a healer as he needed her to be. Shame because she knew she was his only hope, his last resort to grab at the threads of his life that were unraveling before his eyes. She bowed her head. She could not help it, her lip trembled, and her face contorted into an almost wince as she fought tears, “I’m so sorry, I- I’ve tried everything I know.”
They stand there in silence for a moment as he stares at her. Suddenly, fire erupts from him fists and mouth, the cinders narrowly avoiding her. But she is not afraid, she knows this rage isn’t meant for her. She steps in the smoke and ash that surrounds him and wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him gently onto the floor with her. His chest heaves with gasping breaths, as if the air itself is drowning him.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it” he sobs over and over. He grips her back hard enough had she feels bruises of his fingertips bloom under her skin, but she will not pull away. Very soon he would have to stand before his people, his country, his daughter - stoic and strong – and guide them through the loss of the Fire Lady as a leader should. This was his nature - rise with the sun and labor through every trap and snare, every hardship, every challenge. But for now, under darkness and moonglow, she would let him exist in this inbetween world – a spirit world of their own making - to be small and torn apart. “I don’t know if I – how am I supposed to do this,” he chokes out. He shutters and whispers into her shoulder “How am I supposed to sit there and watch her die?” She pulls away and takes his face in her hands. He shivers, suddenly feeling cold and bare, cold sweat forming on where she once held him.
“We’ll do it together” she promises and for a moment he can catch his breath.
She helps him to his feet and takes his hand, squeezing reassuringly. They walk through the darkened hallway to Izumi’s room. The palace is filled with an eerie silence. She guides him with a hand on his back and feels him take a shuttered breath as they reach the door to her room. “I’m right here with you” she breathes. He nods and leads them into the room.
Izumi lay there, her pale face illuminated in the moonglow in the darkened room, noisy breaths coming slow and shallow. The mirrors and spirit relics around her have been covered in red paper – a tradition which Katara knew to mean that death was imminent.
Katara had seen tremendous displays of strength during her travels, by her friends, her family. She had seen Aang harness raw spiritual energy and take on the most powerful benders in the world. She had seen her brother run, unafraid, into battle, with little more than wit and skill. She had seen Toph force metal to bend to her will by sheer, unadulterated willpower. And yet, somehow, she had not beheld strength – true strength - until she saw Zuko suck in a breath before kneeling by his wife’s side, holding her hand to his face, stoic and strong.
“I’ll give you some privacy” she whispers, turning to leave, feeling like an intruder to a private moment.
“No, wait. Please, stay” he murmurs, his voice thick with emotion.
She quietly kneels on the other side of the ornate bed. She bends a small amount of water onto the fingertips and carefully moistens Izumi’s lips. She bends more water from her pouch, this time covering her hand with the glowing, cool liquid, and applying it to the woman’s forehead. “It might make her more comfortable” Katara explains quietly. With her other hand, she reaches across to touch Zuko’s silk-covered arm, feeling his pulse beat against fingertips. I’m here, I’m here, I’m here, she hopes her pulse beats back.
The moon hung high in the night sky, holding vigil for the spirit of a young woman who, like a flame flickering out, breathed her daughter’s name and was returned to the wind.
***
They couldn’t promise to keep the other from failing, couldn’t promise a world of fair skies above and kind roads below.
Couldn’t promise a world in which young girls don’t lose their mothers and sons aren’t hurt by their fathers.
But they could promise to make sure their children never had to suffer the way they did.
It was a safety net, a fail-safe.
When they and their friends started having children, the whole group became honorary aunts and uncles. It was a kind, familial gesture – a small way to express how much they had all become like family. Zuko, aside from being a father, knew no honor greater to him than being an uncle.
While the others saw his eagerness to take on that role as a nice gesture, Katara knew it to be a promise. A promise to be what he always knew an uncle to be. A guiding, stable comforting presence to a child when their parents (he dare say, inevitably) fail them.
The need for such a guiding presence became more glaring as the years went by. As his daughter lost her mother before she could even get to know her. As it became clear that Aang, (unconsciously, of course) favored his youngest child, leaving his oldest to feel hurt and inadequate.
Bumi often confided in him. One summer he visited with his mother, when he was barely fifteen, a young man by any culture’s standard. And yet, Zuko couldn’t help but see a young boy, confused and lost. He had been training him in broadswords, hoping to give him confidence he desperately needed.
They sat on the grass, sweaty and exhausted from an afternoon of training. Rain clouds gathered in the sky, covering the usually brilliant colors of sunset. The sun dipped unceremoniously below the horizon. The young boy shivered despite the humidity.
“You did great, you’ve improved a lot since we last saw each other” Zuko said.
“Yeah, well, it’s better than nothing I suppose” he said, not turning to face him.
“There was a time when I felt the same. But these skills saved me countless times. In times when I did not have the luxury of relying on my bending, these were a constant I relied on instead”
The boy closed his eyes and breathed deeply.
“I’ve been thinking” the boy, usually silly and lighthearted, spoke with a grave intensity Zuko had never seen before. “I don’t think I can keep living at home, there’s nothing there for me. My sister trains with Mom and my brother trains with Dad and why do I do? Nothing!” Bumi laughed sadly, “I always knew I wasn’t the son Dad wanted, but at least before I didn’t have to live in the shadow of the son he did”
“That’s not true…your Dad loves you so much” Zuko tries to protest.
“Then he does a pretty piss poor job of showing it!” Anger breaking through his voice. He took a breath, “If I can’t bring honor to my family by being a great bender, then maybe I can do it by being a great soldier”
The words filled him with such an intense sensation, a sort of twisted nostalgia, such a profound feeling of sadness for this boy.
He knew this was a turmoil that must have been threatening to swallow him up for a long time now. Feelings of inadequacy taking root in a deadly soil, bringing forth even more destructive feelings of shame and doubt.
He was a young man, just shedding his last traces of childhood, anxious to prove himself and come to terms with his own identity. Kind words were not enough to convince him to be satisfied with his life as it was. The best thing he could do for him, he knew, was to be patient as he figured out what he wanted from his life. And while he knew this was a journey he needed to take alone, he could offer him the smallest comfort in the knowledge that someone believed in him.
“You’re not beholden to anyone’s honor but your own,’ He paused, looking at the boy’s gaze fall downward in disappointment. “I know you feel like you need to prove yourself but I promise you, you already are more than enough.”
“Thank you, Uncle”
Zuko smiled at him. He paused for moment, smiling fading from his face. He put a hand on Bumi’s shoulder and spoke solemnly, “Bumi, listen to me for a second. None of this is your fault. Not being an airbender, whatever expectations your father is putting on you, all of the pain you’re feeling - none of it is your fault.”
Bumi gave him an unreadable expression before shoving Zuko’s hand off of his shoulder, and storming back into the house.
He left that autumn. He never told Katara that her son left to fight because he was tired of fighting for his father’s approval. The look in her eyes told him she already knew.
As was true her whole life, she was a natural mother.
Caring for the young and needy was part of her identity. He could never repay her for the love she showed his daughter (and himself) as she navigated life without her mother. She knew exactly what to say, exactly how to soothe the young (so painfully young) girl’s mind. It came so easily to her.
But when she realized that despite doing everything to love and uplift her children, they still felt the sting of their father’s frequent absence, it felt like a personal failure.
He saw the toll this took on her, when he found her at dawn in his usual mediation spot, hands clenched, eyes shining in the early morning light, angry tears spilling down her face. She was trembling - from the cold or her anguish, he couldn’t be sure.
He wasn’t sure what to do — she was always better at this than he was — so he wrapped his cloak around her against the chill of the early morning air and sat beside her. Afraid to overstep her boundaries, to make her uncomfortable, he wordlessly put a hand over hers, rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. At that moment, a sob escaped before she could press her hand against her mouth and she leaned against his shoulder. In spite of his reticence, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her face to his chest.
He murmured in her ear, “Kat, it’s alri—" It’s not alright. “You’re a wonderful mother”. She knew he wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true (they were never in the habit of exchanging empty encouragements, never just told the other what they wanted to hear. They always spoke to each other candidly, with no judgements). And yet, it only made her cry harder.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was supposed to be enough for him.”
“You’re more than enough”
“Then why do I feel like such a failure.”
He pulled away from their embrace and gently pulled her hands away from her face and tilted her chin to look at him. His hand trembled – he had grown unaccustomed to touching her with such tenderness. He wished he didn’t like it as much as he did.
“You could never be a failure.” he says softly.
He rubbed small circles on the back of her hand with his free hand, feeling the warmth of her skin under his touch.
“I love him. I want him to be happy but — but I want to be happy too. And it just feels so…selfish!”
“No, it’s not selfish,” he cuts in sharply, his grip on her hand unconsciously tightening. “If anyone in this world deserves to be happy, it you, Katara. You have suffered enough for one lifetime. Living just to be part of someone else’s identity isn’t going to make you happy, no matter how much you love him.”
“I have a good life, I have great kids and a husband who loves me more than anything. I’m supposed to be happy - I should be happy,” she begins to cry again, “Am I - am I broken?”
He doesn’t answer. How many times he has asked himself that same question, he has lost count. But he was born broken, it was his birthright, his legacy. She was not broken, she couldn’t be. She was supposed to the one who made it out – made it out of a life of war, pain and trauma, and found happiness. She gave him hope that it was possible to heal.
“You’re not broken. You’re brave enough to want to be happy.”
“I’m scared. He’s so obsessed with his legacy and the legacy of his people. I’m scared of living the rest of my life fighting for a space in his life”
He wondered briefly how someone with hundreds of years of wisdom at his disposal could be so utterly stupid, as to have this woman to love him every day only to squander it for a vague sense of duty. His felt his breath catch in his chest, quelling his temper in a way he had not had to in years. Had he hesitated all those years ago, never revealing his feelings for her, just for her to end up unhappy anyway? He never wanted to complicate her life, he has to tell himself. Perhaps he too was bound by a vague sense of duty.
“I’ve never known you to be scared of anything”
She shakes her head, eyes downcast.
“I think of that girl who ended a war and wouldn’t let anything stand in her way, and I don’t even recognize her” she whispers, her voice tight.
“I know what you mean”
Her eyes squeezed shut. “I love him, I don’t regret spending my life with him. But being by his side took something from me. He took something from me - little pieces over time - and I let him. One day I was me, and then suddenly I was putting all his dreams and responsibilities ahead of my own, and living by his customs, and his traditions, and agreeing to stay home and be a wife. And all of sudden, I was standing there, in an empty house, watching him leave for another month-long peace mission, and I wasn’t me anymore. And I don’t know how to find myself again.” She lets out a tense, blowing breath. “I’m sorry – it’s just been a hard…” night, month, year, lifetime?
“Hey,” He whispers, she looks up at him, eyes rimmed red.
The rising sun illuminated her face. He noticed the fine lines around her eyes that betrayed her age and yet, the strength he saw in her blue eyes was the same as when she was fifteen. He is reminded of a girl who stood inches from his face and promised to destroy him if he hurt the people she loves.
His eyes met hers, a tangible intensity between them. Come home with me, we’ll figure it out later, he wants to tell her. But they are both too pragmatic for that, he knows. She would never let herself spin out like that, lest she destroy everything in her path. And he would be more worried if he didn’t know her as well as he does; she will come to the right decision. It only hurt to know that she had to be brought to a such breaking point first. After all, it was so hard to see her in so much pain.
“You are the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met,” He whispers, almost too soft for her to hear. “I know you. If anyone can figure this out it’s you.”
He touched a hand on her cheek, wiping a tear away with his thumb. She leaned into his touch, fixating her gaze on his lip. His heart raced in his chest. He sat frozen in this moment of anticipation before tilting his face closer to hers. She gazed up at him. He felt her breath on his lips, warm against the cool morning. He hesitates, pausing as their faces were mere centimeters apart. Suddenly, she broke his gaze, and placed her hands either side of her face. She held him like that for a moment, stroking his cheeks with her thumb and Zuko knew he was completely at her mercy. She placed a gentle yet firm kiss on his forehead, lingering a fraction longer than a gesture between friends ought to last. There was a tenderness in her touch that he scarcely believed could be meant for him. Releasing his head, she ran two fingers on his scarred skin, lingering for a millisecond before drawing them across his lips. He hummed under her touch, the small vibration under her fingers seeming to travel up her arm and down her spine. ‘If things were different’, a message that her fingers burned into his flesh.
She settles back at his side, her head resting on his shoulder. He suddenly feels awkward, vulnerable. But he doesn’t move. The sun will be fully risen soon. The earth will continue to turn, and he knows this moment between them will cease to exist in the light of day.
***
Aang’s health declined rapidly around his 65th birthday. Zuko was there when he died, being the first one to arrive after receiving the urgent letter Katara sent out to each member of their little family. He was there when she asked to be alone with him while he took his last breath. He sat on the floor in the hall, getting up when he heard he a loud wail that he would never forget for as long as he lives. He was there to witness her lying curled up next to Aang’s body, sobbing into his chest. He scooped her up like a child, prying her away from her husband, and carried her to the chair on the other side of the room, so that the Air Acolytes could perform the traditional post-mortem care. He whispered loving words into her ear, stroked her hair, and held her tight against his chest as she sobbed with grief.
‘We’ll get through it, love’ he whispered to her over and over and her body shook.
He stayed for several days. He offered to stay with her for as long as she needed but she would not hear of it. They both knew he had responsibilities to return to and could not simply drop everything to stay with her for months on end. And so, he left, promising her that he could come back at a moment’s notice if she needed him.
***
That moment comes four months after her husband dies.
They sit in her cozy living room, sipping her favorite plum wine that brought for her from the Fire Nation.
“Where is Kya tonight?”
“I told her to go out and have some fun. She put her life on hold to stay with me, she deserves it.” She smiles sadly.
“Are you okay?” He feels stupid asking, all things considered.
“Yeah, I’m…holding up.”
“Because, if you aren’t, you can tell me”
She smiles softly up at him, “I know.” And that is enough to satisfy him.
They talk about their memories with Aang. Katara appreciates this. It seems that everyone else is unwilling to talk about Aang in front of her, afraid to upset her, unwilling to handle the emotions talking about him might stir up, perhaps. Her brother and Toph, despite their good intentions, found it too upsetting to talk about him. But not Zuko. Zuko knows how it feels when everyone else seems to have forgotten the person who was lost. How it is to feel stuck in the past with grief, when everyone else seems to have moved on. So he encourages her to talk about him as much as she wants.
“I’ll never forget how happy he was when he found out Tenzin was an airbender.”
“I remember. Bumi was with me when I received the letter.” He says with a hint of sadness. He also remembered how the boy who had become like a nephew’s face fell, betraying his disappointment.
Katara catches the quickly fleeting expression, her own eyes falling upon the fire dancing in the pit at their feet, “I know he wasn’t always the perfect father. I spent a long time making excuses for it. I just wanted to keep my family together.”
“Katara…”
“He wasn’t a bad person. H-he..he just...”
“Katara, you don’t need to defend yourself. I know how hard it was for you.”
“I guess,” She stands up, pacing to the window. Snowflakes fell softly on her windowsill. With a clench of her fist, they turned to sharp, icy fractals. “I always hoped it would get better, if I just patient enough with him. And as long as he was alive, I could hold onto that hope. But then he was gone, and that hope died with him.” She pauses, wiping a tear away hastily with her sleeve. “I knew it could be so much better and now he is gone and now it never will be.” She whispered bitterly, her voice breaking.
Zuko felt a chord struck within him. The feeling she described was exactly how he felt when his sister died, how every stupid hope he had of someday having a good relationship with her died with her. He stands to up to meet her at the window, putting a hand on her velvet-covered shoulder. They stay like that for a long time, watching the snow swirl through the arctic air. Despite, growing up and living in the tropical archipelago of his home, there was nothing that filled him with such warmth as watching the gentle snowfall through her window, he thinks as he feels her head touch his shoulder. Suddenly she breaks the silence.
“Can you take me somewhere?”
“Of course, anywhere. You mean right now?”
She nods, pulling away from him and retrieving her parka. “It’s not far from the village.” He follows her lead, putting his own coat on. They exit her home, snow crunching beneath their feet. The cold air whips around their faces as they walk farther away from the city lights. He lights a fire in his palm, lighting their path but Katara seems to know exactly where they are going in the vast, empty tundra. He briefly wonders if she is trying to kill them both when he hears the sound of the ocean. He looks out to see they are standing across an inlet, with black, inky water spread between the two stretches of ice. He is suddenly overcome with a feeling of awe that only the Southern landscapes can illicit. It was so fitting, he thinks, that the woman standing next to him, equally as awe-inspiring, was born out of this land.
“Do you see that little ball of ice on the edge, across the water?” She says, pointing to a distant outline of a shape.
He squints in the darkness, “Sort of?”
“That’s where we found him all those years ago. Sokka and I agreed not to tell anyone where to find it after the war. We didn’t want it to become some tourist destination. Besides, I liked knowing that a small part of his life still only belonged to me.” She breathed deeply and wrapped her hand around his upper arm. She continued, “I haven’t had to the courage to come here since he died. It was too painful,” She takes a shaky breath. “But if I am going to face this place with anyone, I’m glad it’s with you.”
He looks at her in equal parts shock and tenderness. Touched, “Thank you for trusting me”, is all he can say in response. He puts an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer.
“Always.” She whispers, leaning her cheek against the soft velvet and fur of his cloak.
“And I meant what I said when I left here last, I’ll be here for as long as you need.” She only curled tighter into him in response. So much of her life was spent taking care of others, putting their needs ahead of her own. And even now, Aang’s legacy is up to her to carry on, taking precedence over everything else in her life. To have someone so willing to put her needs before his, to let her, for just a moment, be selfish and cared for, took the breath out of her chest.
“Look!” Zuko said with a gasp. She looked up to the Spirit Lights, dancing in vibrant colors above their heads. The ethereal blue and green glow painted broad strokes against the starry sky, seeming to reflect against all the stars, turning them bright hues of emerald and jade. The ribbons of color met again to touch the Aang’s iceberg, illuminating the ice in a bright blue glow. “I’ve never seen something so beautiful.”
Zuko looked down to see tears streaming down Katara’s face, her eyes shining with the radiant colors of the Lights. “It’s him. I know it’s him.” She spoke with such reverence that he almost didn’t notice her voice tremble and rise half an octave. He tightened his grip on her, finding her hand and taking it gently.
Soon the Lights begin the fade, as does the glow of the iceberg. When the last bit of light evaporates from the sky, plunging them into darkness once again, she whispers, “Thank you for coming with me.”
“Always.”
By the time they return to the fireside in her home, they both exhausted. He guides her to her bed and turns to leave before feeling her hand tug at his wrist. He turns to see her eyes, to his surprise, wide open, shining with hurt and something else he can’t quite place. Please, hold me.
So he does.
“You’re tired, I should go.” But he makes no move to leave.
Silently, he listens to her breathing even out as she falls asleep and counts the almost hidden freckles scattered across her face before he’s too tired to keep track. For the first time in a long while, he finds it in him to sleep through the night.
***
Korra had since gone home when Zuko felt two hands against his shoulders.
“You should never sneak up on a firebender” He jokes. Katara comes around to sit next to him. He pours her a cup of tea.
“Did you and Korra have a nice talk?”
“We did. She’s going to be fine. She’s a smart kid, a lot wiser than I was at that age.” He says, with a teasing smile.
“Well, it seems any wisdom you had got passed along to Izumi. She tells me she’s working on a plan to build public hospitals throughout the rural countryside.”
“I may have passed along a few of your ideas to her.”
“I can’t believe you kept those letters. I wrote to you about that idea years ago.” She laughs, but he knows there’s a plain box hidden among her other memory items, filled with white parchment and red ribbon. Suddenly, her face is serious again, “She actually had something very interesting to give me.” She produces a slightly crumpled, folded piece of white parchment and he recognizes it immediately. Within it’s folds lies a declaration of love, written by his much younger self that he wants to believe is no longer true.
“She gave that to you?”
“She found it addressed to me while cleaning out your desk. You really need to work on your filing system.”
“I…I’m sorry. I never meant for you to read that.” A ghost of disappointment flits across her face for a moment. He almost doesn’t notice it.
“Why didn’t you ever send it?”
“I suppose, I was afraid. I didn’t want to make things weird between us”
“I mean, you do have a great talent for making things weird”
“Thanks, that warms my heart” he says dryly.
“Hey, you have other talents too. Your teamaking skills aren’t half bad now.”
“Yeah maybe I should have just stuck to working in the tea shop since the beginning, my life would have been a lot simpler” He laughs, because he suspects his destiny was always written for him, that he would have ended up on the throne no matter what path he took. He wonders if she was part of his destiny too. He would like to think he is where is he because of choices he made or didn’t make. But what if there was only one choice? Was it possible that every choice he made had led to this very moment?
She speaks again, quietly, snapping him out of pensive thoughts.
“Do you ever wonder what it would have been like?”
“What? Running the tea shop?”
“No, no…I mean,” she laughs softly to herself, “if you had…made things weird” A familiar warmth rises to her cheeks that makes her feel a thousand years younger.
He looks at her seriously and then cracks a coy smile “I don’t know, what would it have been like?”
She pauses to think about it before opening her mouth.
“Well, you’d be my best friend, like you already are. And we would be there for eachother, like we already do. And when I needed someone to listen to me without judgement or support me or go on life-changing missions with me, you’d be the one I’d turn to”
“Sounds like I was worried for nothing then” he laughs.
“If nothing else, I suppose it would have made a pretty interesting story”
“An interesting story?”
“Yes, I mean, two opposing nations, enemies finding their way to lovers, a love that was always meant to be,” her eyes sparkle as she dramatically clutches her chest.
“Sounds like a pretty grand love story” He cracks a smile
She hums in agreement, “A story, a myth, in and of itself”
“Too bad it wasn’t our story”
“Yeah, well, maybe I like our version better”
Suddenly he feels sixteen again, face flushing with embarrassment as he gazes at this woman, who he has loved for a lifetime. A woman who made him realize that he had been wrong and maybe people do get a perfect match in life, even if life is unfair and keeps them apart.
“If you mean it, I want to hear you say it” She says, with a timid yet determined look on her face.
He reaches to stroke the side of her cheek before tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, “I love you, Katara. I always have.”
She moves forward before he can think and presses her lips on his. Instinctively, he wraps his arms her waist, a comforting warmth radiating between them and for once, he does not feel any hesitancy. They break apart, foreheads pressed together. “I love you, too” She whispers with a smile, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“You know, I’ve been getting awfully tired of the Fire Nation heat these days.”
“Is that so? Well, I happen to know of a woman in a rather cold place that would be willing to exchange room and board for decent tea and someone to help her keep warm during the cold, winter nights.”
“You can tell her it would be my honor.”
Soon, her box of letters is joined by a leather satchel filled with yellowed parchment and blue ribbon. Each morning, he meditates, brings a cup of more-than-decent tea to their bedside, before leaving to pour over correspondences from Izumi because, as much as she begs him to enjoy retirement, he simply cannot not work. But each night, they play Pai Sho by the fire, share a meal, and read side by side in bed before falling asleep. She kisses him goodnight each night and he always responds with “Sleep well, my love” and holds her until she falls asleep.
After six months of feeling happier and freer than he has in decades, he decides he wants to spend whatever time he has left committed to her. He carves a delicate ivory ring with unsteady hands (which is non-traditional, but hey, so are they) and this time, he will not hesitate.