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“There’s a place in the Spirit World.” Iroh’s face is so sad that Katara wants to reach out and touch his hand, make him smile a little, anything – but there’s a stillness about him that suggests a deep, deep grief, something that deserves the utmost respect. “It is called the Fog of Lost Souls. It’s a… prison, of sorts. A place where you relive your greatest failures, over and over.”
“It sounds… terrible,” Zuko says, and his voice is so calm and measured that Katara wants to flinch.
“It is,” Iroh says, simply. “I strayed too close to it when I went wandering, after…” he takes a sip of tea that Katara is sure is just a cover for his feelings. “After the death of my son.”
Katara feels like an intruder. This is a family matter. “Iroh…”
But he keeps talking: “I think it must be hard to be young, and burdened with duty, and feel all the same that you are directionless. I wonder sometimes if it feels like wandering in that fog.” And then he turns a piercing gaze on Zuko.
Zuko doesn’t even blink. He sets his teacup down. “Thank you for your concern, uncle. When I am struggling, you’re the first person I will come to. But now, I’m afraid, I have to prepare to host delegates from Ember Island. I trust I’ll see you for dinner?” He inclines his head, and Katara’s sure that he doesn’t see the sadness that flits across Iroh’s face.
“I hope it’s roast duck this time,” Iroh smiles as Zuko looks up again. Zuko’s mouth curls up on one side, just a little.
“I’ll order it just for you,” he says. He flashes a quick smile Katara’s way, and then he’s gone.
Iroh sighs, hugely, into his tea.
Katara sips hers – it’s excellent, as always – and wonders what to make of the exchange. “Uncle,” she asks, tentatively. “Why did you invite me here?”
Iroh looks up, and in his eyes she can see he’s coming back from somewhere very far away. “My nephew is young, Katara, but he carries an old man’s burden. He’s the leader of a nation, but, like all young men, he thinks he needs to prove himself.”
Katara nods. “He certainly seems a lot more… distant, these days.”
Iroh snorts. “He’s wandering as badly as the souls in that fog. Katara... I fear that Zuko is losing himself in the duties of the Fire Lord.”
“My brother is exactly the same,” Katara sighs. “He has to do everything himself, to prove he’s not a child any longer. It’s a good thing he has Suki to stop him when he gets too bad. And…” she stops, and swallows, because that’s part of what she didn’t want to be for Aang, and she’s a little upset with herself that she’s relegated Suki in her mind to ‘Sokka’s keeper’. She clears her throat. “Aang was just as bad, too. That’s why…” she shrugs. “Well, that’s why I’m here.”
Iroh just looks at her, and for a moment she thinks he’s seeing all the things that are bubbling under her surface tension. “Is it?”
“Well, that and your tea.” She tries to smile, but it’s hard, hard, when she thought that the world after the war would be a better place, but now she finds herself missing her friends, wanting a purpose – missing a simpler existence. “I’m feeling lost, too,” she says, softly, closing her hands around her cup. “We won the war. We did it. Life should be… good. But I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t want to just restore the Air Temples or rebuild the South Pole or reconnect the nations in their proper places. Not that they’re not all good and worthy things,” she adds, hurriedly. “They’re just not for me. I didn’t want to just be Ambassador Katara, always standing in Aang’s shadow,” she says, fiercely, meeting Iroh’s eyes, and he nods.
“I understand all of these things,” Iroh says, and the weight that this lifts off her shoulders is wonderful. “You want to find something of your own – to continue setting the path of your own destiny.”
“I do,” she sighs, but it’s with happiness. She’s been denying herself this for so long, worried that what she wants just isn’t right. And she looks up at Iroh as a thought strikes her. “This is what’s wrong with Zuko, isn’t it? This sort of… hopelessness about your choices?”
Iroh nods, sadly. “Yes.” He sips his tea again.
“Maybe I could talk to him?” she offers.
Iroh beams at her. “What an excellent idea! I have worried that, coming from me, any advice would sound like criticism. But you understand Zuko. I think he will listen to you.”
She smiles back, feeling like she can at least do something that matters. “I suppose there’s no time like the present.” Katara finishes her tea, kisses Iroh on the cheek, and leaves.
She doesn’t hear Iroh chuckle, or congratulate himself on a job well done, because this is what he wanted all along. “Oh, yes. Yes, I think he will definitely listen to you.”
*
When Katara finds Zuko, he’s not in his office, or his senate chamber, or in fact doing anything related to hosting delegates from Ember Island at all.
He’s sitting in the middle of his mother’s garden, staring at a pond full of turtle ducks. His fists are gripping the grass, which is starting to smoulder.
“Zuko?” she’s a little hesitant to approach, until he looks up at smiles at her. “Are you okay?”
A cloud crosses his face again as she sits down next to him. “My uncle thinks I’m a failure.”
“Zuko,” she scolds. “Of course he doesn’t. He thinks you’re amazing.”
Zuko snorts. “He thinks I’m too young to be Fire Lord.”
She rolls her eyes. “As I recall, he said you were the only one who could be Fire Lord.”
Zuko blinks at her. “Well, yeah, but…”
She tugs a water whip from the pond and flicks it at him. “Well, yeah, but don’t be stupid.” And then she blushes, intensely, because she isn’t sure what it is about Zuko that reduces her to a six-year-old’s logic, and that probably wasn’t very nice when Zuko’s obviously upset.
He splutters at her. “Don’t be stupid? I’m leading a nation and I can’t even manage to hold down a – ” he clamps his teeth shut and takes a breath. “Sorry,” he says, and she’s impressed, but also a bit sad.
“You can get cross with me, Zuko, I did flick water at you,” she says – and apologises by bending it out of his wet clothes, catching it in her hand, and sprinkling it back into the pond, like raindrops.
“Mai didn’t like it when I yelled at her,” Zuko shrugs, awkwardly, and Katara realises that that’s what this is all about. “Mind you… Mai didn’t like a lot of things.” His mouth twists. “Which I guess is why she isn’t here.”
Katara can’t help herself. She reaches out and touches his arm – and he looks up at her, startled, as she says, “Hey. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. And… now I’m really sorry that I hit you with that water whip.”
He barks a laugh. “Oh, Katara.” He squeezes her hand for a moment, and then shifts away – lying back to stare up at the sky. “I just…” He closes his eyes, and she bites her lip at the pain that flashes across his face.
“It’s okay, Zuko,” she says, softly. “I think I understand. It’s really hard to talk about these things when you aren’t sure if the person you’re talking to is going to judge you, or tell you you’re wrong somehow.”
He opens his eyes. “Yeah.” Then he peers at her. “Wait, who did that to you?”
She laughs, and it’s more bitter than she’d like. “Well… that would be the reason I broke up with Aang. I mean, he’s lovely and everything, but… he thinks that the right way to be is so self-evident that he’s always so shocked when I don’t do things his way. And he gets really pig-headed about being right. And about respecting his culture. Which I know is important!” she holds up her hands. “But frustrating, all the same. I think what he sees when he looks at me is how he thinks of me… not who I really am.”
“The Southern Raiders,” Zuko says, and it wouldn’t have made sense to anyone else, but oh, her heart beats a little faster because it does to her.
“Yes.” She shakes her head. “And I didn’t choose to spare Yon Rha for reasons Aang could understand, Zuko. For the good, kind reasons of everyone deserving a second chance, or of violence not being the answer. I spared him because I wanted him to live a long life alone with his cowardice. I didn’t want to give him… peace.”
“I’m just glad you didn’t sully your hands with his death,” Zuko shrugs. “He wasn’t worth you, Katara. And no, he definitely didn’t deserve for his suffering to end.”
She smiles at him, and tries not to show how close to tears she is. “It’s very nice to have someone understand. Aang is… well, he’s just so young.”
Silence falls for a minute.
“Mai said she didn’t really love me for who I am,” Zuko says, suddenly. “That she’d had this idea in her head from when we were kids, of who I would be when we were together. But I’m not the same person as I was back then, and nor is she. We’ve… changed. Which would be fine, except that she loved the idea she had. And that idea wasn’t really me. And didn’t involve becoming Fire Lady,” he adds, with a snap of rage. “She said that she didn’t like what being Fire Lord was doing to me. But who’s supposed to rule, Katara? My uncle won’t. I can’t let my sister anywhere near the throne – and anyway, she’s going to be tried for war crimes.” He stops, and shrugs, and sounds exhausted. “So here I am.”
“Zuko… you’re probably the best person in the whole world to be Fire Lord right now. You’ve seen real suffering and the way that war affects people. You understand how you can make the world better for everyone, not just your rich friends and generals. And... I suppose you might not want to hear this… but it’s probably better that Mai left, if that’s how she feels.” Katara shrugs, awkwardly. “I’ve been trying to live up to someone else’s expectations for so long, and… it’s really, really hard. Everyone in the world is already going to be judging your abilities as Fire Lord, at least for the next few years. Do you really want to come home to someone who’s going to do exactly the same, except against some image of yourself that isn’t really who you are? You don’t want to feel like you’re constantly letting down someone you care about.” She pauses for a second, and then adds, quietly, painfully, “You really don’t. It’s awful.”
Zuko sits up and stares at her, and she sees a glint of gold in his eyes. “Does Aang have any idea how much he hurt you?” It’s a demand, and it’s not a friendly one.
Katara swallows, and waves her hands. “Not really. He’s… so idealistic. And very, very young.”
“He’s an idiot,” Zuko says flatly. “You’re amazing. Why can’t he see that? You’re kind, and clever, and determined, and patient. You became one of the most powerful waterbenders in the world with less than a year of training! That’s unbelievable!”
She’s blushing so hard that it feels like firebending in her face. “You’re too kind.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m not kind at all, Katara, you know that. I mean, you’re here with me when everyone else was just leaving me to wrestle with my problems alone because I yell at people when I’m upset. I drive them away.”
“You’re not driving me away,” she says, and she isn’t sure whether she means that as a comment on his behaviour or as a statement of how much she isn’t going to move from this spot, not for anything, because Zuko hasn’t looked this alive in months.
“Yes, but that’s because you go out of your way to help people,” he says, leaning forward and gazing intently at her face. “You changed an entire culture so that you could learn waterbending. You saved all our lives and kept us fed and sane while, by the way, saving the world. I didn’t defeat my sister to get this throne, Katara, you did. You’re incredible.” Then he blinks, and blushes. “And, uh. Don’t you forget it.”
And now, she’s speechless. “You’re, um. You’re not too bad yourself.” She’s staring at him, stupidly, wondering what the hell you say to that – and then she blinks. “And, seriously, I can’t believe Mai couldn’t see that. I mean. That’s why I was so angry with you after Ba Sing Se. Because you showed that you’re clever, and sensitive, and you think deeply about things… and I wanted to know that person. But then you turned away from me – from us,” she corrects herself, hastily, and looks away over the garden.
“I was lost,” he shrugs. “I found something in you, and then… I thought what I wanted was to go home. But that didn’t work out the way I thought it would.” He blinks at her, and then says, “Have you… have you found something worth staying for?”
And she realises how mad someone would be not to like him, and how easy it would be to fall in love with him, and it makes her a little light-headed. “Yes,” she says, and she’s pleased to see a shy half-smile tugging on his face. And then she thumps him. “You’re worth everything, you idiot.”
“Oh, good,” he says, and he takes her hand. “Because I’d like it if we went for dinner sometime. Not just as friends.”
“Now that’s a self-confidence you didn’t have before you were Fire Lord,” she teases, enjoying, in this moment, the warmth of his hand in hers. “So I guess some things turn out well after all.”