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The temple is deserted this late, or so Zuko thinks.
There’s an inner courtyard, a neat little square of stone corridors and pillars surrounding a space in the middle that Zuko is quite certain used to be a garden and meditation area back when the monks lived here. Now it's just a place with overgrown weeds and grass barely surviving in dying tufts. Dirt and decay have overgrown everything in the century of their absence, nature creeping in over lost civilization.
And Zuko is slipping along one side of it, the statues of passing monks watching him in the dark, and he’s almost to the edge, where he can turn into the next corridor and get to his room, when a rustle of movement from the other side of the courtyard catches his eye.
Moonlight on bare, dark skin.
Long, flowing dark brown hair tumbling down to the curve of a waist.
Other curves, too.
Zuko’s mouth goes very dry.
And then he slams right into the wall. He forgot to watch where he was walking.
Head throbbing and warm all over with shame, Zuko freezes. He fully expects Katara to have heard. He expects to hear her shriek, or for her to shout at him to go away. He expects that he is doomed and that he has ruined all chances of reconciliation with her forever. When nothing happens, Zuko cautiously peeks over his shoulder. Katara is only walking away, disappearing into the other corridor.
Maybe she doesn’t care that he saw her. Maybe walking around nude is just normal for her.
Zuko tries to swallow and fails.
It takes him a few moments before he regains proper control of his limbs and can slowly move toward his room again.
The next day, Katara acts no differently.
She doesn’t blush, or avoid him, or act mortified.
Zuko, on the other hand, nearly drops his tea cup when she sits beside him at dinner, and he spends the majority of his time trying to avoid looking in her direction at all. He knows he has to snap out of it. So walking around naked in the Fire Nation as if it is nothing is pretty taboo, yes, and it's never something Zuko could imagine doing, but that isn't her problem. This is probably just a cultural thing.
He can be open. He can be very chill and relaxed about this.
Totally.
And then it happens again.
Except the second time is worse.
It’s worse because this time he rounds a corner and she’s there, approaching him full on. Full on, and naked.
Zuko tries not to stare. He mostly succeeds. But the shock freezes him for just a second too long before he can tear his gaze away and direct it up to the ceiling, his chest suddenly robbed of all the air it previously possessed. His brain is fuzzy, and it takes him a moment to get words out of his mouth. “Oh. Uh, hi,” he says. His voice has automatically gone huskier and he wants to kick himself.
He fervently tries to convince himself that the ancient, crumbling stones of the temple above him are far more interesting than what’s in front of him. It doesn’t work, but he still manages to keep his gaze trained upward.
“Hello,” Katara replies, and there’s something wrong with her voice.
Whenever she talks to Zuko it’s hard and cold. When she talks to the others it’s warm and cheerful.
This is neither. It’s dreamy and half-absent, almost breathless. It isn’t right.
Zuko frowns and glances down again.
He forces himself to concentrate firmly on her eyes, and he notices there’s something very wrong with them, too.
Their usual bright blue is clouded. Glazed.
“Are you okay?” Zuko asks, cautiously.
“Uh huh.” Her eyes wander past him, over his shoulder, and their emptiness is eerie.
And it finally hits Zuko what is going on. She’s sleepwalking.
Which means that if Katara were conscious of this she would probably be horrified.
He runs through his limited options with a rising sense of panic. He could go find Suki or Toph to help get her back to bed, but that would mean leaving her alone while he sprints across the temple and tries to wake them, and Katara is likely to wander off while he's away. Zuko had a crew member on the ship that used to sleepwalk, and he’d nearly jumped overboard one memorable night out at sea; Zuko knows that a sleepwalker is potentially in danger, and he thinks of the sharp drop-off of the temple, of Katara hurtling right off the cliffs to her death.
He also knows trying to wake someone sleepwalking doesn't usually go well.
“Hot, isn’t it?” Katara says, her glassy eyes finding him again.
It is a warm night, but Zuko really doesn't want to be reminded of heat or warmth or anything remotely similar at the moment, because he has more than enough of it churning in his body and in ways that aren't entirely appropriate. So he just makes a strange, strangled sound of agreement and carefully moves toward her. He finds that looking at the spot right between her eyes is easiest. Looking into them is difficult, even knowing that she isn't really conscious; but the worst thing is seeing her eyes so empty and vacant. He vastly prefers the usual distrust and accusation he sees when she looks at him. He grimaces and put his hands on her shoulders like he's handling a bomb.
“You’re going the wrong way,” he says, turning her gently around and staring firmly ahead down the corridor.
“Oh, I am, aren’t I?” She sounds pleased and relaxed. That’s a good sign.
“You have to go this way,” Zuko tells her, guiding her down the corridor, careful to barely touch her shoulders.
Later he would still have no idea how he got Katara all the way to her room and to her bed without a problem.
It's impossible not to catch glimpses of her, especially as she starts to climb into the bed and she nearly misses and falls over. He has to grab her shoulders again and steer her to the proper spot. He quickly turns to leave, but her voice drifts through the room, wistful and hopeful.
“Aren’t you going to tuck me in?”
Agni help me.
With stiff, jerky movements, Zuko turns back and yanks the covers over her. “There,” he says.
Katara snuggles deeper into the blankets with a little smile, closing her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispers.
Zuko just strides out, closes the door, and locks her in the room.
And then he sinks down outside the door to wait for morning, dreading what he knows has to be done.
Zuko is awoken by a sharp rap on the wood behind his head.
“Hey!” Katara’s voice is saying. “Who locked me in here? Toph, if this is your idea of a prank—"
Zuko scrambles to his feet, still bleary-eyed from sleep, and wrenches the door open. Katara, this time blissfully and fully dressed, nearly falls over the threshold. When she sees him standing there instead of someone else, her face immediately dips into its usual scowl-glare combination. "Was it you?" she demands fiercely. "Did you lock me in here?"
Zuko takes a brief moment to fervently pray to anything listening that her mood isn't foul enough to actually attack him.
"Yes," he admits, voice hoarse.
"Explain," Katara snaps, eyes flashing at him. "Now."
"Uh, well, you...uhhh," Zuko stutters, feeling his cheeks already start to flush with unbearable heat.
She raises an eyebrow. "Aren't princes supposed to be eloquent?"
His face burns hotter. "Uhh...have you ever had a problem with sleepwalking?"
"Sleepwalking?" She frowns, eyeing him suspiciously. "No. Why would you—" She stops. Something flashes across her face.
"Well, uh, you were sleepwalking. Last night." Zuko gestures awkwardly up and down the corridor. "You know, just around the, um. The temple."
The look on her face has now become a mix of horror and blatant morification, and it is spreading across her features like a storm cloud rolling in unnaturally fast over the horizon. It's awful to witness, because Zuko knows exactly what's going on in her head. She's remembering her decision to sleep without clothes, and she's putting together what that means.
"You—you saw me?" she gasps, fingers digging hard into the edge of the open door.
He shrinks back. "I...well I...I didn't mean to, but—"
"What is wrong with you?!" Anger begins to creep onto her face.
This is really not going well. Then again, Zuko didn't really expect it to.
"I'm sorry!" Zuko says. "I swear, I was just trying to help! I came around the corridor and you were just, um, walking there, but I didn't...I mean, yeah, I saw, um, a little, but I didn't...keep looking, okay? I promise!" Katara's face crumples dangerously as if she is going to cry, and Zuko adds, in a very stupid attempt at being soothing, "Not that, uh, you would have anything to be self-conscious abou—"
Katara lets out a truly feral shriek and he hastily changes tactics.
"I just helped you back to your room! I locked you in here and stayed to tell you because someone had to. You could have walked off the cliffs."
But Katara's face only screws up with rage. "You touched me?"
"Just—just your shoulders!" Zuko assures her. Her face twists further, into anguish and disgust and suspicion. "If I left you then you could have really hurt yourself, and I didn't want—" She slams the door in his face, but he saw her face crumple further and heard her small little sob before it closed. Desperation rises in him. "Katara," he tries again through the wood, pounding a fist on the door.
"Go away!" she shouts, voice wavering.
And Zuko, defeated, has no real choice but to leave her be.
"Suki," Zuko mutters nearly a week later, as the two of them are clearing dishes after dinner, "Hey, uh, can I talk to you about—"
"Katara?" Suki asks, giving him a knowing glance as she balances yet another cup on the growing stack in her right hand.
Zuko nods.
He thought Katara's clear anger and distrust of him was bad, but her behavior ever since he told her about the sleepwalking was so much worse. She always looked like she was torn between wanting to run away or cry. At dinner, she sat as far away from him as possible and curled into the shadows. If she saw him approaching, she simply turned on her heel and went back the direction from which she'd come. She no longer attended his firebending training sessions with Aang, perched on the stairs and watching them move through steps and katas.
Zuko saw the embarassment in every line of her face, and for some reason that was so much worse than the anger.
"Look, Zuko," says Suki with a sigh, "I don't think Katara actually thinks you were being pervy or anything."
"Good, because I wasn't!" he says heatedly.
It would be a lie to say that the image of her had not crept back into his thoughts, or that he hadn't appreciated the admittedly brief view.
But he had done his very best not to look, or fixate on it after. It was the honorable thing to do.
"If you had," Suki continues, as if she hadn't heard him, "then I think she knows you probably wouldn't have stuck around to warn her."
His shoulders relax a little. "Can't she just go back to being mad at me? This is so much worse. I can't stand it."
Suki pauses in her gathering of the dishes. "Look," she says again, "I don't know what happened between you two to make Katara so adamantly against you being here, but I'm going to go ahead and guess that the fact that she feels even more vulnerable in your presence isn't helping your case right now." Suki gives him a look that is almost sympathetic.
"Then what am I supposed to do?" Zuko asks, narrowly avoiding dropping all the dishes he's carrying out of agitation.
Suki looks thoughtful for a moment. "I think," she says slowly, "you should offer to even out the scales."
Zuko stares at her. "I...what?"
"You should let her see you naked." Suki grins.
Zuko physically reels back, and this time he does lose a couple of the dishes from the top of his stack. They shatter beneath his feet, but he barely notices. "Are you insane?" Zuko hisses.
Suki just shrugs. "I really do think that's the best way to equal out the vulnerability imbalance."
"No," says Zuko, shaking his head furiously.
"Fine," says Suki, shrugging again. "But I know you want her to feel better, and that might mean being a little uncomfortable for her sake—"
Katara suddenly bursts out toward the campsite, bristling. "Did I hear another dish break? I swear, at this rate I'll be going to the market every other—" She stops in her tracks and her words die out, seemingly just having noticed who is cleaning up the dishes. She takes one look at Zuko standing there, the shards of hardened clay scattered about around his feet. A muscle in her cheek twitches.
And then she turns and leaves without another word.
There's a long silence in which Zuko feels Suki's eyes boring into him.
"Fine," he snaps. "But if this makes it worse, I'm blaming you."
She just laughs as he storms off to stack the dishes in their designated spot, though he changes his mind halfway and decides to just go and wash them. He hauls them to the nearest stream and tries to let the tediousness of the task numb his brain. He's finished only a few cups and plates when he hears a rustle behind him and a snapping of twigs.
He turns and sees Katara, carrying the dishes that need washing.
She freezes when she sees him, and it would be comical if Zuko didn't feel so achingly terrible about it.
Katara looks as though she is seriously considering abandoning the dishes and running the other direction. One foot even starts to turn away.
But Zuko quickly stands and says, "Katara, wait. Please."
She stiffens, but she doesn't leave. "What are you doing here?" she asks coldly. "This isn't your job."
"I know, I just..." He doesn't know what reason to give for doing extra chores. He doesn't really have one. "Um, listen, about the other day..."
"I don't know what you're talking about." She walks over and thrusts all the dishes into his empty hands. "There. Since you apparently want more chores. Have fun."
"Katara—"
"Zuko." Her glare hardens.
He swallows and the next words tumble out without his conscious input. "I asked Suki for help."
This seems to give her pause. Surprise flickers across her face before she can smooth it out. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I'd rather you just go back to hating me," Zuko says. "I prefer that to you being humiliated whenever you see me."
"I'm not humiliated!" she snaps, though the way her shoulders hunch and she half turns away suggests otherwise.
"Suki suggested that I even the scales," Zuko says.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"The, um...scales of vulnerability?"
"Again, I thought princes were supposed to be eloquent. And maybe a little less vague and annoying."
Zuko lets out a furious growl. "She thinks I should let you see me naked and that will make you feel better."
Katara laughs. It's a short burst of a laugh, quickly stifled behind a palm. But then she studies Zuko's face for a moment longer, and her eyes go wide. "Wait, are you serious?"
Zuko feels like he's going to combust. "Yes."
She studies him again, for a very long time, so long that Zuko begins to shift his feet just for something to do, uncomfortable with her scrutiny.
"And you're willing to do that?" she asks finally. "To make me feel better?"
"I, um..." Zuko's mouth is dry again. "Well, will it help?"
"I don't know." Katara's mouth suddenly twitches. "I suppose I have to see to find out."
He glares at her. "I'm not about to just pull off my clothes without knowing whether you actually are fine with—"
"Okay," she says, and there's definite mischief in her eyes now. She sits down at the base of the nearest tree and leans against it, drawing her knees to her chest. "I agree."
Zuko stares at her. He was almost certain Katara would say no. Almost certain she would slap him even for suggesting it, actually, but now here she is, sitting on the ground and looking up at him with both expectation and amusement swirling in her eyes. When he just continues gaping at her, she says, "Well?"
"What, here?"
"Yes, here." Her eyes dance.
He sighs irritably. "Fine." He carefully sets the dishes down beside him and begins tugging at the sashes of his robe.
Zuko shrugs it off and Katara folds her arms, watching with a carefully neutral expression.
He gets his trousers off before he really begins to have doubts. He already feels highly exposed standing here in just his bottom wraps, but Katara tilts her head with an expectant look and a small smile on her lips, and Zuko grits his teeth and pulls them off, tossing them in his little pile of clothes. He tells himself that he won't check for her reaction. He doesn't think he can stand it if he sees revulsion on her face.
But somehow he finds himself looking at her anyway.
She doesn't look revolted. She's just...staring at him, a distinct light in her eyes, even if her expression is almost detached. Her gaze flicks up and down him, drinking him in. She still doesn't look revolted. Her lips part and she just keeps staring.
Zuko's heart begins to pound. Part of him suddenly wants to move much closer to her.
He frantically wills himself not to get excited. If she sees that, it would ruin any possible progress this ridiculous exercise may have made.
It would probably also ruin any future chances of her ever liking him.
So he tilts his chin and stares up at the leaves of the nearest tree and waits.
"Oh," Katara says finally, and he hates that he can't read her tone at all. "Oh wow."
Zuko flushes deeper and fights the urge to cover himself with his hands. "Is that a bad 'wow'?"
Her eyes flick up to meet his, and she smirks. "Just wow," she says.
He thinks her eyes might be a little darker.
He also thinks that he really shouldn't contemplate that any further right now.
"Am I allowed to get dressed again, then?" he asks dryly.
Katara nods, pressing her lips together to stifle her smile. Immediately Zuko bends for his clothes, and he's distinctly aware of her watching him get dressed. His cheeks are flaming by the time he finishes. Katara stands and makes her way to stand right in front of him, and his heart stutters in his chest. "You know, I'm surprised," she says finally. "I didn't think you would actually do it."
"You're welcome?"
She snorts. "Yeah. Thanks."
"So we're even now?"
A slow smile spreads across her face. "Yeah, I think we are."
Well, at least it seems to have worked. She doesn't seem embarrassed anymore. If anything, she seems a little smug.
"Good," says Zuko.
It's quiet for a moment. Katara's eyes flick down him and back up, and his heart skips another beat.
She leans in close. "You don't have anything to be self-conscious about either," she says, voice very low.
And then she turns and strides briskly away, throwing him one last taunting little smirk over her shoulder.
Balance, apparently, has been restored.
But Zuko, left standing there with his mouth hanging open, only feels very unsteady on his feet as he watches her disappear into the trees.