Work Text:
After working tirelessly to fund and build a new orphanage in Caldera following the war, Zuko and Katara plan visits at least once a week to help with any sicknesses, basic needs, and bonding with the children by playing with them, reading them stories, or even tucking them into bed at night.
One day in particular, when they leave the orphanage, they get halfway back to the palace before they realize they’re being followed. Both of them whirl around, prepared to face whatever comes their way, only they’re not met with an enemy, they’re met with a child. A doe eyed, messy haired, shyly and toothy smiling child.
He step out of the shadows, his curly hair falling into his eyes when he takes another hesitant step towards them. Almost immediately, they drop their stances, and Katara steps towards the little boy first, kneeling in front of him before he looks into her eyes with his own, gleaming and hopeful.
“Are you lost?”
The little boy nods that he is not, though his expression reads that he is not really telling the truth.
“Do you have a name?” She smiles easily, trying to keep her tone gentle before reaching for his arms. Her hands grasp his forearms, sliding down to his wrists before clasping his hands into her own, tugging them to her chest. “My name is Katara. What’s yours?”
The little boy look from her, to where Zuko stands behind her, now having stepped closer. When Katara looks over her shoulder to peer up at him, she watches him kneel beside her in the same position. With both of them lowered to the boy’s height, she gives her husband a warm smile, watching as the sunlight glints against his crown before turning back towards the little boy.
“Are you lost?” She tries again, her voice light and airy, watching the boy’s golden brown eyes slant with perceptible hesitation. He’d seemed so playful before, but now he looked choked up and scared. “Where are your parents?”
Again, the boy stays silent, but he shrugs his shoulders in a way that seizes her heart inside of her chest. She sneaks a glance back at Zuko again, his eyes reflecting that of the same thoughts inside of her own: he had no parents.
Katara looks over the boy’s shoulder, down near the bay where the new orphanage resides, before sliding her gaze back to her husband, who was looking at her with an equal amount of emotion.
They’d both seen how crowded it was, how many children still remained homeless, even after so many years after the war had passed. Each and every time they visited, pieces of their hearts tore in two because of the way the children would cling to them, cry for them, beg them not to go.
So before she changes her mind, Katara turns back towards the little boy and says, “Have you ever been inside a palace?”
At that, the boy’s eyes glimmer, and she knows she has began peeling back the layers of doubt and fear. “A real palace?”
Katara nods, grinning from ear to ear at the hopefulness in his voice. “Mhm, a real palace.”
The child gasps, pulling his hands away from her own until they’re pulled into his chest with excitement. “Does it got a swimming pool?”
Then, the boy looks from her, to Zuko, who bumps his shoulder into her own. And without having to look at him to know what he was going to say, she is not surprised that he says just what she was thinking, solidifying their silent agreement.
“Well, I don’t know… would you like to find out?”
The elation, the acceptance, the total and complete solace that spreads across the boy’s cheeks is one that Katara thinks she will never forget.
They have three children of their own, but that palace remains awful empty. She doesn’t think either of them would ever think it was full enough.