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Zuko isn’t sure what he’s feeling as he hangs up the phone. His father is dead. For people with normal - or even just moderately fucked-up - families, the obvious answer would be sadness. It doesn’t feel good, but that’s not the right word for this.
When Ozai had his first scare, Zuko had been the only one of the family to make the trip when Azula, who had been the emergency contact and the one to actually hear from the doctor, made it clear that her work was far too important for her to step away for even a moment. After waffling with his car keys in hand for an hour, Zuko had concluded that at the very least, he was not going to get any work done and finally left his office. It wasn’t until he came to the highway and had to choose between taking the north-bound ramp to go home or the south-bound ramp towards the hospital district that he actually made the decision to go and see his father.
A receptionist had given him a room number, but when he got to the right floor, he’d been informed that his father was not available for visitors. He’d gone back into the elevator, half entertaining the idea that maybe this was a sign that he shouldn’t have come at all, and he should go home after all. But his feet took him to the cafeteria instead, where he mindlessly piled things he had no particular interest in onto a pink plastic tray. It made him feel a little better when he sat down at a crooked table for one and saw that everybody else in the caf seemed to be in similar states of dissociation - worried or desolate relatives, exhausted medical professionals and graduate students all hunched over identical plastic trays, either poking absentmindedly or eating too fast to taste.
When Zuko had decided that he couldn’t fool himself into thinking he was still eating the tasteless noodles in front of him, he discarded his meal, but held onto the still sealed cup of jello. He’d boarded the elevator yet again, telling himself that if he went upstairs and couldn’t go in again, he really would have done his due diligence and could go home.
As his luck would have it, Zuko was greeted by the nurse from earlier looking up from behind the desk and saying, “You can go and see him now,” with a tight smile that communicated well enough that Ozai was still alive and kicking.
Zuko had heard his father before he saw him. “...not going to ask permission to take a piss-”
“It’s not permission, sir,” a voice replied, pitched into the tremulous but perky tone Zuko had heard restaurant servers and assistants attempt to use as a shield against Ozai’s moods. “But until the medication clears up your disorientation-” His palms starting to sweat, Zuko made himself walk a little faster. These people never knew that there was no voice sweet enough to calm his father.
“You’re disoriented if you think you have the authority to-” there was an uncharacteristic pause, and when Ozai continued, it sounded like speaking took more effort. “Tell me shit,” he finished weakly.
“I’m sorry you-”
“You’re going to be sorry. I am paying for this - I won’t be ordered around like-” Another pause, and Zuko finally arrived at the room, the glass door left open like the nurse had been in a rush.
For just a moment, Ozai had actually looked almost old, seated on the edge of the hospital bed in a generic blue gown that swallowed him, the fluorescent lights making his fair skin look washed out and almost gray. He’d been hunched, a hand on his chest as he seemed to struggle to catch his breath. A monitor beeped, and the nurse had glanced nervously at a monitor before darting her eyes back as if to make sure Ozai had not moved closer. Her hands had hovered in the space between them as if she knew she should be reaching out to assist him somehow, but didn’t think it was quite safe.
“Dad,” Zuko had said, drawing his father’s attention. As soon as his father took in the sight of him, all signs of frailty dissipated. It was like loathing filled him up in the absence of oxygen, and in an instant he was sitting up straight. His regal posture made the stiff cloth of the gown look like a pressed suit. The nurse took a quick step back and pressed at a couple of buttons on the IV stand a safe distance away from Ozai himself, glancing over her shoulder as if trying to gauge if Zuko was on her side or not.
“Zuko,” Ozai said coolly. “What are you doing here?”
“Hospital called Azula. Azula called me. Said she couldn’t leave work.” If Zuko hadn’t known better, he might’ve thought that his father was surprised, perhaps even a little hurt, that his favored child had brushed off his illness to the family failure, that had this truly been his end, Ozai would have had nobody but the son he had burned and shunned willing to stand beside him in his final moments. Zuko held up the plastic cup in his hand. “Want some jello?”
Ozai’s jaw had clenched, the bone pressing against skin, his face starting to turn red. He stood slowly, and Zuko’s hand closed around the jello cup until the plastic edges bit into his palm sharply. “You sniveling little boy,” Ozai snarled, shuffling an unsteady step closer. Zuko had stumbled back a step too, the alarm bells in his head screaming at him to not let his father close enough to touch. Behind them, the wide-eyed nurse edged closer to a red button on the wall.
“Sir,” the nurse had said, and Zuko was briefly envious of the steel she managed to put into her voice in the face of his enraged father. Ozai turned to look at her, but kept Zuko in his periphery. Zuko was never lucky enough for someone to fully distract his father from him. The nurse had poised her hand over the button labeled “SECURITY” in a clear threat. “As I said, you are not cleared to walk unassisted. You need to get back into bed, now.”
Slowly, Ozai complied, watching Zuko with a venomous expression the entire time. “Humiliating,” he muttered, and for an instant, Zuko felt his face soften in sympathy for his father in his moment of weakness. “Even my nurse feels the need to coddle you,” his father accused, and Zuko had felt the sharp words dig in, too late putting his defenses back up. “Have you no idea how it shames me for people to know my son is so pathetic?”
Zuko’s mouth had fallen open, but he had nothing to say, just stood gasping for breath as it felt like he had been punched in the stomach.
“Get out of my sight,” had come his father’s familiar dismissal, the wave of his hand slower than in memory, tired. Zuko was stunned for yet another beat, only to be jolted into movement when his father’s face twisted and he shouted again, “Out!” He scrambled out the door, blood roaring in his ears, his vision already starting to pinhole.
When the light and sound returned, he was hunched over in the hallway, gripping his hair tightly, just around the corner from his father’s room. The remains of the red jello cup were splattered across the floor at his feet, a gruesome spray. A squeak of shoes on polished floor alerted him to the presence of another person, and he looked up to find the nurse from his father’s room hovering at the beginning of the hallway.
“I’m sorry,” he had said, meaning for many things. She had nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said again, swallowing against the painful dryness of his throat. “I- I dropped it.”
“I know,” she had said back, and he knew that she understood that it had been more than clumsiness, an accident but not. Shame burned in his throat.
“I can clean it-”
“I’ll call a janitor,” she had said, shaking her head. “Go home.” It was perhaps meant to be gentler than his father’s command, but the base message was the same: Zuko was not wanted here. So he left.
He had left, and not gone back. When he’d told his sister what had happened, she’d clicked her tongue and said, “Well that was pretty stupid of you,” and that was that. So when the call had come again, he had taken the news with a quiet mm-hm and left it at that.
Only this time, instead of hearing from Azula later that their father was back at work, there is a second call, late at night: “Father is dead. You need to go claim the body tomorrow.”
Zuko tells himself that this is his sister asking to be protected. He tells himself that she is not capable of asking in a way that leaves her vulnerable to rejection, so she hides her pleas as orders. It doesn’t make him feel better, but he agrees anyway and emails his boss to say that he will need an unexpected leave, perhaps a week to get affairs in order. And then he gets out of bed, abandoning sleep altogether.
The next morning, Zuko’s request for directions to the hospital morgue leads to a watery look from the receptionist and instructions to “Wait here just a moment. A social worker will walk you down.”
“Oh really, it’s- It’s fine,” he stutters out. “You can just tell me how to-” his words falter when her soft, wrinkled hand lands on his arm and gives it a pat.
“Nobody should have to make that walk alone, honey,” she says, and Zuko gives up, thanking her and settling into a squeaky vinyl-covered chair to wait for his appointed babysitter.
The woman, who introduces herself as Joo Dee, arrives with a smile that is very carefully warm without being happy. “I am sorry for your burden,” she says, which is perhaps the most fitting apology he has been given in the past twenty four hours. “Allow me to carry it with you.”
“Thanks,” he says, and with a slight twitch of his lips jokes, “I’m gonna need the help; he was pretty tall.”
Joo Dee looks briefly horrified before she schools her expression again and forces a smile. “We will of course be happy to cooperate with the necessary transportation,” she says, and does not speak again until she hands him off to the technician in charge of the morgue, an older man with a serious brow who takes his name and walks him brusquely to what looks like a very large file cabinet drawer. The man gives a yank, the drawer slides open, and then there is Zuko’s father.
He looks…smaller. Not like the monster that terrorized him in childhood, but now just a man, ordinary and dead. For years now, Zuko has told himself that he takes more after his mother’s side of the family, but it is only now, with all of the anger drained out, that he sees that he is an almost identical copy of his father. Apart from the scar. Unbidden, Zuko’s hand reaches out, and touches his father’s left cheek. The skin is shockingly cold, even more so in contrast to how he feels like he is burning from the inside out. He feels the smoothness of the skin, and traces it up to the unmarred curl of his ear. Zuko stares down at the face that might’ve been his, had his father been just a shred less horrible, and all he feels is rage.
The sudden urge to strike the body that was once his father nearly overwhelms him. As his thumb worries at curving cartilage, in his mind’s eye, he sees his fist connecting with a perfect cheekbone. He imagines punching and punching until his knuckles split and the face he is looking down at mirrors his own. It’s a satisfying image, and the rising pressure in his chest urges him to lift his hand and strike.
A hand lands on his forearm, cool and wrinkled, rough from repeated washing. When Zuko jolts and turns to find the technician at his side, his first thought is that his violent thoughts had been written on his expression. Instead, he finds a sympathetic look that is all too sincere to be anything less than professionally honed. “I’m so sorry, young man,” the tech says.
The sound that bursts from Zuko’s throat is a laugh so hysterical it could pass for a sob. He covers his mouth before it can tip one way or another.
The technician clears his throat and confirms, “So he’s yours then?”
Zuko hears Joo Dee’s words again, I am sorry for your burden. “Yeah,” Zuko sighs. “He is.”
“Well, then you can sign this form here, and now that you’ve claimed the body, you can put me in touch with the funeral-”
Zuko’s eyes go wide at the thought of planning. The only funeral he remembers clearly is his grandfather’s, a massive affair filled with incense that made him choke, praying until his legs went numb from kneeling, and an ostentatious afterparty. “Oh, I don’t think I’ll be the one…” handling any of that “arranging the services.”
“Well, we need to know who will be, then. The body needs to be…handled properly, and soon.” Before it starts to smell in here, is the unsaid part.
Zuko pinches the bridge of his nose and nods. “You’ll know tomorrow.”
“If you and your family don’t already have plans discussed, I have a list of places in the area that handle these affairs. Would you like a copy?”
“Please,” Zuko says, quickly, and stares a hole in the paper as Joo Dee leads him back to the lobby.
Afterwards, he drives aimlessly around the city for a while, until he knows Uncle will be at home, and then he quietly lets himself into the apartment above the Jasmine Dragon where he once lived. Slipping his shoes off by the door, he gives himself a moment to wiggle his toes in their socks on the wood floor and breathe in the scent of toasted spices and Uncle’s aftershave that always lingers in the air here. This is what having a father is supposed to feel like, he thinks to himself for the thousandth time, and feels tears prickle at his eyes.
“Zuko?” Uncle asks, and he tries to will himself not to cry. With a deep breath, he succeeds in keeping the tears at bay, but they remain close, threatening to spill over when his uncle wraps him in a tight hug.
“I missed you.” It is not what he meant to say, but it is suddenly the only thought he can articulate as he squeezes his uncle back.
“Tell me, my boy,” Uncle says. “What happened?”
He steps out of the hug and stands tall, needing to not feel so much like a child when he speaks the words. “Ozai is dead.” His voice is as neutral as he can manage, and he watches the news sink in. It settles in the creases of Uncle’s face, making him look terrifyingly old and sad. The folded paper in Zuko’s back pocket suddenly feels a hundred times heavier, and he knows right away that this burden is still his.
Because while Uncle has spent many years attempting to stand between Zuko and what hurts he could prevent, this is not, in fact, a moment where Zuko has the luxury of seeking refuge like a child. Despite his silver hair, Uncle is not so old, and yet he has already buried both of his parents, his wife, and his son. All Zuko ever saw of his father was the menace of a husband and father he had become, but Uncle remembers times before that. Impossible as it is to picture, Ozai had once been just a child who looked up to his brother. Zuko can not ask Uncle to protect him from this. Uncle has done more for Zuko in his life than it is possible to repay, but he thinks that this may be a start.
So, he keeps the paper and questions to himself, and brews them a pot of tea. His skills have never quite made it beyond acceptable, but he likes to think the thought counts as Uncle sits quietly opposite him at the table and allows himself to be served jasmine tea. Zuko orders in dinner from the place around the corner with really good soup, and as they eat, Uncle gradually begins to speak. They don’t talk about his memories of Ozai, or whatever complicated tangle of emotions he must be feeling as well, just idle tidbits about what the Jasmine Dragon’s regulars are up to, but it’s something.
Zuko spends the night in his old room, marveling at how cramped the single bed is. Had he really been so small back then, when he told himself he had to be a man? It is then that he does cry, great gasping sobs that tear at his throat when he tries to swallow them down. He trembles, clutching his pillow to his face to muffle the sounds, and feels foolish for wishing that he was clinging to Uncle instead, or perhaps his mother. One of them, at least, is a possibility, if only he would allow it of himself to ask. Instead, he just holds as still as he can until it passes and he finally falls asleep.
In the morning, Uncle is even more himself, whistling and frying an omelet on the stove by the time Zuko drags himself into the light of the living area. He quietly pours himself a cup of tea from the pot steaming on the table, and comes to stand beside Uncle, hovering at his side while he cooks the way he once did as a teenager. As he had done in those hard years, Uncle simply allows it, providing no acknowledgement until he plates the food and slides Zuko the one with the most bacon cubes in the rice.
“Thank you, Uncle.”
Uncle squeezes Zuko’s arm as they move to the table. “Of course,” he says, like he always does, like it’s easy.
Zuko doesn’t linger after breakfast, as reluctant as he is to leave. He needs to start on the list though so that he can give the hospital a name, and the sooner he gets this over with the better. Before he gets on the road, he unfolds the paper. The list is alphabetical, so the first listing is for Agni’s Light Funeral Services: Traditional Fire Nation Burials. It should be an easy decision, the choice his father would’ve made, but he remembers the elaborate trappings of his grandfather’s funeral and his mouth tastes bitter, ashy.
He knows that it is childishly spiteful of him, but the louder part of Zuko demands to know, Why should Ozai still get exactly what he wants? Why does Zuko need to suffer through Fire Sages and business cronies making speeches about how successful Ozai was, how he honored Azulon’s line? Why should he have to throw himself into planning yet another opportunity for people to look him in the eye, to stare directly into the proof of Ozai’s cruelty, and tell Zuko what a great man his father had been? He’d had enough. Closing his eyes, Zuko leaned back against the headrest, thumb worrying over the fob of his car key. He was so tired. When it came down to it, really that was the feeling: so damn tired.
He made himself scan over the list. There were a bunch more that sounded like traditional temple services, a few Earth Kingdom style places. Then one towards the bottom of the page caught his eye: The Waters of Change. No description, just a phone number and an office address in one of the outer boroughs of Caldera City. He dials. He puts the car in drive.
Somebody picks up on the second ring just as he merges into traffic, a woman’s voice clear and light as she says, “Waters of Change Burial Services, how can I help you?”
“Uh,” he starts. He’s so sick of this already, how every conversation is about death and therefore inherently awkward. Zuko has never needed help fumbling social interactions. “Uh, my dad’s dead.” He comes to a stop at a red light and leans his forehead on the top of the steering wheel, the plastic leather grip biting into his skin.
“So you’re looking to make arrangements for him?” the woman asks.
“Yes,” he says, and jolts upright when the car behind him beeps to inform him that the light has turned green. “Please.”
“Okay, we’d be happy to have you take a look at what we offer. When are you able to come in for a meeting?”
“Now?” he asks, and then realizes that might be rude and she’s probably busy, so he clears his throat and corrects himself. “I mean, I’m available whenever you are. I don’t, uh, really have much going on at the moment.”
To his surprise, she says, “You can come now if you’d like. We don’t have any more appointments booked today.”
“Okay, I guess I’ll just head over?”
“Alright. Just ask for Katara when you get here.”
“Katara,” he repeats. It’s a nice name, rhythmic. Then he realizes he hasn’t given his own name and says, “Oh, uh. I’m Zuko.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Zuko,” she says gently. “Drive safe.” She ends the call then, and Zuko keeps coasting down the road for a minute, sitting in the echo of her voice. It isn’t until he has to stop again that he realizes she was the first person who didn’t apologize to him on behalf of the universe.
When he sees Katara for the first time, smiling across the cozy waiting area, his feet go numb. Her voice over the phone had sounded lovely, but his brain was processing too slowly right now to make any assumptions about what she might look like. That, he realizes immediately, was a critical error, because it left him entirely unprepared to keep his wits about himself when faced with the fact she is breathtakingly beautiful.
“Zuko?” she asks when she sees him, her head tipping just slightly to the side. It makes her long hair sway, the waves catching the soft golden light of the floor lamps. Her eyes glitter, even in the low light. For all that Uncle pushes him about getting out and meeting people, Zuko has never quite gotten the hang of it. He seems to always find the absolute worst times to discover he likes the sound of his name in someone’s mouth - during a fight, saying goodbye, or…making funeral arrangements for his abusive father. His mouth runs dry.
“Uh. Hello.” He stands quickly, a series of jerky motions, and rather than walk towards her, he just stands like a pole and holds up one hand in a wave. “Zuko here.”
She doesn’t seem perturbed by his behavior, simply waving back as she crosses the room, her shoes whispering over the patchwork of rugs covering the floor. Everything about this place seems to have been designed to muffle the outside world, to shield people from the harshness that has brought them here. “Katara,” she confirms, holding out her hand. He takes it, her fingers sliding cool and smooth over his own, but she doesn’t shake their hands. She just cups his between both of hers for a moment, squeezing gently. “Follow me,” she tells him when she releases him, and he does, grateful for some clear instructions.
The office she leads him to is just down the short hall and feels like hers in much the same way stepping into a person’s home feels like seeing an extension of them. There are plants, but not the massive arrangements dripping with lilies that make a place smell funereal. These are just small things: a terrarium of succulents nestled in rocky sand, an ivy plant creeping down over the side of a knick-knack shelf, an orchid resting on the windowsill, sunning its white petals. The floor is laden with more rugs, these looking hand-woven in geometric patterns, and much of the light comes from the wall that is lined with large windows draped with gauzy curtains. There are paintings that he thinks are meant to be landscapes on the wall, but they are more abstract than the generic calming ones that he is used to from his therapist’s walls.
“My brother paints,” she explains, and when he blinks, he is surprised to find her already seated on a large cushion over by the windows. When had that happened? “His work has always been…unique.” There’s laughter in her voice that speaks to a joke he is not part of, but the kindness that emanates from her makes it sound like she is inviting him to join. He smiles.
“I like them,” Zuko tells her.
Her eyes crinkle at the edges, and he thinks for once he has done something wonderfully right. “Where are my manners?” she asks, shaking her head. “Please, sit.” Katara pats the large cushion beside her. He must look hesitant, because she then looks uncertain and says, “Unless you would prefer to sit at the desk?”
Zuko opens his mouth to deny having a preference until he suddenly realizes, “The desk would be nice, thank you.” As much as he would love to lounge on sun-soaked pillows with her, he would prefer it in almost any context but the current one. The desk, a minimalist creation of light wood and rounded edges, hardly resembles the dark studies he is used to business being conducted in, but feels less intimate at least.
Katara settles in the desk chair, swiveling a bit with her continued momentum before righting herself and shuffling some papers into her hands. Zuko takes the seat across from her and gratefully accepts the brochure she offers. Ah, yes, normalcy. And then she begins her sales pitch.
Zuko does not mean to zone out and miss almost every word she says, but as he opens the brochure to follow along studiously, he realizes: she turns the bodies into pods that sprout trees. He tunes in enough to pick up some stand-out phrases, but spends a good portion of his mental energy on not rudely bursting into laughter. The notion of his father being “sustainably processed” and planted in the “comforting embrace of nature” - or worse, a “beloved community space” - where he can become one of the “caretakers at the core of our ecosystem” is almost comical.
This is perfect. “So where exactly can you put these things?” Zuko blurts, cutting off Katara’s spiel.
“Excuse me?” she asks, rearing back a bit.
“Sorry. Them, I guess. The people. Trees. Whatever.” He looks back down at the brochure, and his eye catches on an image of a family - two parents, two children, symmetrically framing a polar bear dog - as they “visit grandma”.
“Oh. Well, a lot of people like to plant them on some kind of family property, someplace where generations will come and visit. But we have relationships with the local parks department as well.”
“What about dog parks? Do they allow this kind of thing?”
“Did your dad like dogs?” she asks, in a way that Zuko is sure would lead an entirely different kind of person with an okay-ish dad to go on and on about the pet they’d begged for as a child or the little mutt that had been their father’s retirement buddy.
“Hated ‘em. Sentimental little fuckers. Plus they piss on everything.” He gives her a significant look, waiting for his meaning to make it past the shock on her face.
Katara clears her throat and folds her hands on the desk in front of her. “I understand that you’re grieving,” she says, voice odd sounding. Her knuckles turn briefly white before relaxing again as she continues, “but I take a lot of pride in my work, so I don’t really appreciate you mocking it. This process is very healing for many people.”
“I’m sorry,” Zuko says, fingers fidgeting with the coarse recycled paper of the brochure. “I don’t mean to make fun of your work. It’s alright if you aren’t okay with doing something like this. My dad was a terrible person. It just seemed sort of…poetic, I guess, to make him spend eternity making up for all the oxygen he wasted.”
She regards him for a moment, and he can feel her weighing his words, feeling for the truth in them. “Do you want a mint?” Katara asks, pushing what looks like a poorly handmade clay bowl heaped with pastel candies towards him.
“Mints?”
Katara shrugs. “Grieving people smell sometimes.”
“Are you saying I smell?”
She laughs, shaking her head. Her hand settles on his. People touch the bereaved an awful lot, Zuko thinks, but he doesn’t mind it from her. “I was going to say, the rest of the time, sugar helps them get their shit together. You smell very nice.” There’s a lovely hint of a blush to her cheeks when she says it, and Zuko feels his right ear starting to turn an embarrassing shade of red in response. Clearly he has a lot of shit he needs to get together, so he removes his hand from hers and takes three mints. He shoves them in his mouth all at once to keep from saying you smell nice too or something else so fatally stupid he would need to be dissolved into a tree.
“So,” Katara says, popping a mint into her own mouth, her posture relaxing as she leans towards him over the desk. “Usually these meetings aren’t so…sales-y. We’re very niche, so people tend to already be sure they’re going to use us. But the first meeting ends up being more like a therapy session if I’m honest. I like to learn a bit about the person being memorialized so that we can, you know, make it a meaningful ceremony, and that tends to bring up a lot with the families. But given that you’re leaning more towards the ‘I hope dogs piss on your grave’ approach, I feel that’s not where we’re headed.”
“Probably not,” Zuko agrees. “I already have one person I pay to listen to me whine about my daddy issues.”
The mints are soft and dissolve too quickly, leaving his mouth free for his foot. “Why do you do this?” he asks.
Katara blinks. “Well I mean, I read you our mission statement.”
“I wasn’t really listening,” he admits.
With a roll of her eyes, Katara huffs a laugh at him. “Then I suppose I’ll give you the unsanitized version.” That piques his interest at least. The idea of seeing a side of her that is usually kept hidden away sounds infinitely appealing. He leans forward too, mirroring her posture until there is scarcely a foot between their faces and he is overwhelmed by the sweet scent of mint on her breath. “My mother was killed when I was little,” she begins, and Zuko bites the inside of his cheek to keep from reacting too strongly.
His own mother is alive, but for much of his childhood, he did not know for sure. She had been in the wind for a long time after leaving Ozai, and he had grown up without her for so long that when he had found her again, he almost hadn’t recognized her face.
“We’re from the South Pole,” Katara explained, “We just moved here for my father’s work. And in the Water Tribes, we bury our dead at sea. Long story short, it’s a whole thing about our body returning to feed the ocean that fed us our whole lives, continuing the cycle of survival.” She flicks her hand with a roll of her wrist, mimicking the sweep of ocean currents. Zuko wants her to tell the whole story, to keep hearing her voice and the way things just make sense when it is her saying them. “The practice isn’t allowed in the Fire Nation though, so Water Tribe people have to either assimilate to the local traditions or ship the bodies home and fly back. It’s really expensive to travel so far, and my family didn’t have the money for all of us to go, so my father flew back with Mom and he and my grandmother did the rites themselves. My brother and I had to stay here.”
Zuko knows that this is an old story, but her eyes turn glassy with tears, and he can tell that despite its age, this is a story she has not gotten used to telling. She is not done though. “We never really got that closure, and so many of our people who live here don’t either. But this, the trees, they’ve been doing this in the former colonies with cremation for ages. So my brother, he does all this cool stuff with green tech - I don’t really know how most of it works - but he had come up with this process for breaking organic material down with water that was lower emission. Originally it was for composting, but then I sort of asked him if…” she trails off, starting to look self-conscious, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. She glances at him warily, like she is trying to figure out if he thinks she’s crazy, but he’s just impressed.
“If you could use it for burials,” he finishes for her, and she nods. “That’s…honestly brilliant.”
“I’m glad you don’t think it’s wildly morbid. Sokka sure did at first.”
Zuko shrugs. “Someone has to think of these things. Would be nice if at least some of them did it because they want to help.”
“Right?” she says, incredulous, and pops another mint into her mouth. Zuko takes another for himself. “I mean, we’re all gonna die. So wouldn’t it stand to reason that maybe there should be a few options that aren’t utter shit for everyone still alive? Something that doesn’t pollute the earth or depress the crap out of you?”
“That should be your new slogan,” Zuko says, pointing at her with the brochure.
She plucks it from between his fingers with a laugh and says, “I’ll change yours right now.” He finds himself staring at the crown of her head as she hunches over the paper, scribbling at it with a pen. When she slides it back over the desk, the heading that once read “Kindness for All” was crossed out, “Give a hoot, don’t pollute!” written in loopy script above it, and “Making Peace” was replaced with “Put the Fun in Funeral”. Zuko laughs so hard his stomach hurts, and when he hears Katara snort, he feels tears prick at his eyes. He thinks he has maybe gotten a bit hysterical.
“This meeting is so many kinds of wrong,” she says eventually, out of breath and slumped in her desk chair.
He chuckles just a little more before he forces himself to clear his throat and take a deep breath to shake it off. “Yeah, well.” He scratches at the back of his head, unable to look her in the eyes for fear of either dissolving into giggles again or getting too painfully sincere. “This did help though - a lot. Thanks for not making me pretend to be sad.”
She is still grinning at him, but it is muted. “Glad my streak still stands.”
“I do think my uncle will like this,” he says honestly. Uncle is always trying to get Zuko to meditate more and rambling about the importance of a world in balance. It probably will bring him the kind of peace the brochure promises to have his brother reborn into a tree.
“Well, I’m glad it’s not entirely spiteful then.”
“Nah,” Zuko says, shaking his head. “Uncle is the reason I’m making myself have anything to do with this in the first place.”
Katara nods. “Okay, then let’s work with that.” She pulls over a notebook and flips to a blank page, her pen poised over the waiting lines. “What do you think your Uncle needs from this?”
It’s so much easier after that, to focus less on the anger he harbors towards his father and more on the love he has for his uncle. Zuko explains Uncle’s philosophy about balance, his appreciation for beauty in all things. They discuss what music and literature he might like to have at the brief service. Katara pulls out a binder that contains a list of the parks she works with and they hunch over the small maps, searching for a location. She marks a few options with a marker over the shiny covers. “This is a nice walking trail,” she says of one. “Lots of dogs.” Zuko slips the marker out of her hand, heart jumping at the brush of their fingers, and circles the x she has just drawn.
When they have sorted out all of the details and Katara has to go make phone calls to the hospital and the parks department, Zuko steps out of the homey offices of Waters of Change and into the full brightness of midday in Caldera City. The sudden light and sound stuns him a little as he stands on the street: cars zipping past, stereos thumping, pedestrians talking. The world around him feels almost unreal, or Katara’s office feels like a dream, as though being with her had been in a pocket outside of time.
Sitting behind the wheel of his car, parked in front of his apartment, he pulls the brochure she had scribbled on out of his pocket again, just to prove to himself the reality of her. Turning it over in his hands, he finds a small note he had not seen the first time: ten digits, encased in a cloud. The rainbow arcing out of it reads, “Katara”.
Zuko enters Katara’s number into a new contact in his phone. He does not call. He does not text. He does, however, stare longingly at the plain gray circle with a little white “K” in it. He does put a tree and a green heart next to her name, then delete the heart, then re-add the heart six times in the space between their meeting and the actual funeral.
The morning he and Uncle are set to meet Katara and her brother Sokka at the park, Zuko stands before the mirror in his bedroom buttoning up his shirt and still pondering what to do. He is almost certain that Katara gave him her number because she was flirting with him. There is no other practical reason, given that he has her office line, and if she had hit any snags, she has his number and Uncle’s in the paperwork he had signed. Still, he finds himself hesitating each time he types out a message to her, jerked back by the fear that she really had given it to him in case he has questions, and that she will laugh at him or be freaked out if he makes any less than professional overtures. As he does and re-does his tie, he finds himself growing nervous that perhaps, even if she had meant for him to ask her out, a week of silence had spoken for itself and left her feeling spurned. With a huff, he yanks the tie out from his collar entirely, flinging it onto the bed. Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath in, feeling it fill him from head to toe, and as he lets it out, he banishes all thoughts besides going to retrieve his uncle.
Uncle slides into the passenger seat with a sad smile, an old picture frame and a pouch of incense tucked in his arms. Zuko doesn’t have any words, so he just looks at him, a little helpless, and hopes to be understood. A worn hand grips his shoulder fleetingly, and Zuko settles himself back in his seat, as ready as he can be for the day ahead.
When they find the space in the park that had been marked for Ozai’s tree, Zuko is half relieved, half disappointed to find that Katara is not there. Sokka - who looks so much like her that it can only be him - has already arrived, a wooden crate resting below his swinging feet while he sits on the open tailgate of the truck he has brought. There are a series of landscaping tools strewn about the bed, and yet another shovel is sticking up out of a pile of freshly-turned dirt heaped beside a mid-sized hole in the ground. Showtime.
“Hey there,” Sokka says, hopping down from the truck and walking over to meet them. “Are you guys my 11 o’clock?”
“That’s one way to put it,” Zuko replies. He wonders if Sokka’s attitude is a product of being related to Katara or of the industry they work in. He is even more curious about it when he introduces his uncle, and Sokka’s demeanor becomes more serious, as though he is naturally tuned into the sadness of others. Uncle says hello and thanks him for his help, but excuses himself to take a brief stroll while they wait for Katara.
“So,” Sokka says, rocking on his heels, but doesn’t continue.
“So,” Zuko echoes, glancing down at the crate. “So that’s…”
“Yup.”
“Smaller than I thought.”
Sokka’s eyes light up. “I know, right? Just revamped part of the design last year, streamlined things a little.” He looks exceedingly proud of himself. “Wanna see it?”
Zuko isn’t especially curious about anything having to do with his father anymore, but Sokka seems very eager to show off his work to someone besides his sister. He doesn’t imagine many of their clients are interested in Sokka’s end of the work as much as Katara’s. “Sure.”
Sokka pops the lid off the crate with a crowbar, and nestled in a pile of wood shavings is a pod that almost blends into the packaging. With a small grunt, Sokka hefts it out of the container, cradling it almost like a baby. Zuko blinks to shoo away the weirdness of that thought. It looks almost like one of the compostable salad bowls he sometimes gets when work orders in for meetings, just deeper and with an opaque lid. Zuko makes this observation aloud, and Sokka’s eyes light up.
“You know, that’s actually how I got my inspiration for the casing! I always think best when I’m eating.” He launches into a lengthy explanation that is far too technical for Zuko to follow, but he nods along anyway, grateful for a conversation that asks nothing of him in return.
When he winds down, Zuko just raises an eyebrow and asks, “How do people usually react when you tell them you’re sending their decomposed relatives off in a giant takeout container?”
Sokka shrugs, “Katara doesn’t usually let me get this far. I wonder what’s-” he looks around for her, and Zuko does too, both of them stopping when they see her headed towards them, her arm looped through Uncle’s. “Ah. I should, uh. Maybe put a lid on this for now.” Zuko narrows his eyes at Sokka, who grins back guilelessly, at him and at Katara, who flashes him a warning look.
Katara looks lovely, dressed in a white sundress and holding her leather-bound notebook. She smiles at Zuko, and he feels his anxiety from earlier return in full force. It leaves him distracted all throughout the brief service, his eyes caught on the sunlight dappling her warm skin and the breeze swishing her skirt while Uncle’s eyes remain fixed on the small pod nestled in dirt. The sound of her voice speaking poetry is even more lovely than he had first thought it over the phone - he only wishes the words were happier.
When she is done speaking, she closes her notebook gently, and asks if either of them would like a spade to finish the burial themselves. Zuko shakes his head, but Uncle steps forward to accept the tool with a small bow. As he works, she steps off to the side, and Sokka moves to start packing up his truck. Taking a deep breath, Zuko uproots his feet from where they have sunk slightly into the soft grass and moves to stand beside her. He watches his uncle bow his forehead to the fresh earth, but he has no parting thoughts to offer his father, especially not when he can feel Katara’s eyes on his back.
She doesn’t acknowledge him outright when he settles at her side, but her eyes drift so that he can tell she is watching him at the very edges of her sight. He pulls out the brochure that he has folded in his pocket, the paper starting to get soft, and at this, she turns to face him fully. Turning the paper over, he shows her the phone number on the back page, hands starting to sweat.
“So, please correct me if I’m completely misinterpreting why you gave me this,” he begins, “before I die of humiliation.”
Katara flashes him a new smile, a little mischievous, like she is enjoying watching him squirm. “Well business has been slow, so.” She shrugs. “Maybe you should keep going.”
He clears his throat, heat creeping up his neck to his cheeks. “Just to be clear, this is your personal phone number?
“Yes,” she says, rather unhelpfully.
“And you wrote it on purpose?”
“Yes.”
“For…personal reasons?” Zuko wonders if this is about to become full-on twenty questions.
“Also yes.”
“Since I’m sort of on a roll right now, I feel like I should keep going,” he says, and Katara starts to nod slowly. There is a fluttering in his stomach, and he’s really worried that any minute now Uncle will turn around and remind them of where they are, so he forces the question out quickly: “Do you want to have dinner with me sometime?”
“Are you asking me out at your father’s funeral?” Katara has the nerve to sound affronted by his irreverence for the dead.
“You gave your phone number to a mourning client.”
“You weren’t mourning that hard. Besides, your dad is literally being buried right now.”
“Don’t make it weird.”
“Kind of hard not to.” Then she smiles. “But I’d love to have dinner with you.” Her hand comes up to cup the back of his neck, and as she pulls him down to meet her, she murmurs, “Don’t judge me for this.”
Zuko doesn’t want to think about what it says about either of them that it is the best first kiss he’s ever had. But he also does not want to think about anything that is not Katara, possibly ever again. If Sokka’s indignant squawk and Uncle’s quiet “Oh my,” are anything to go by, the car ride home is sure to be full of uncomfortable questions and silences for both of them, but Zuko finds that he is not afraid of them - not when he finally feels certain that there is happiness waiting for him around the next bend, and the next, and the next.