Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Right as the sun set, Aang kissed Katara.

And if his eyes weren't deceiving him, Katara kissed him back.

Zuko took a breath and slid back behind the pillar. It's okay. It's okay. He was Fire Lord, as of about two hours ago. His family had fallen apart. His psycho dad tried to kill his former-enemy-now-friend, a literal sixteen-year-old pacifist monk. His sister had tried to murder him, he'd almost died, oh, his nation had just been defeated in war, and his best friends almost died in the fighting... Yeah. He probably had more to deal with right now than the fact that his major super crush just got kissed by someone else.

But damn that kid had rizz. A kiss at sunset? In a flower garden? And Katara looked beautiful, too, still in her robes from the crowning ceremony. It was the perfect happily ever after for them, after everything they'd been through together.

He could see what she saw in him. He was good. Good in the way that Zuko had never been, and goodness was effortless to him. He was so good, he'd used avatar powers that no one knew existed, saved the day, and brought peace to all the nations. Punk. Aang was also sincere. He didn't lie about his past, didn't lie about his plans for the future. Didn't lie about what he wanted.

And Katara was good. And Katara didn't lie. And Katara needed someone who was safe. For her. 

It seemed like the monk had gotten everything he hoped for. Zuko's heart sank, twisting with that all-too-familiar feeling of never being enough.

Things happened. For Zuko, the days of training with his friends and dreaming of redemption had turned into a whirlwind of politicking. Azula had always been better at this; her confident strategy of convincing people that her ideas were obvious, even if they weren't in everyone's best interest, was one of the qualities that made her a smart choice of heir for the throne.

Now, Zuko followed behind Uncle Iroh like a baby turtleduck in a grand palace, trying to catch up on years of dancing through delicate social interactions that were lost to him while he was chasing the Avatar.

But he had to admit, people seemed happier.

His father had been an obstinate, imposing--and cruel, Zuko added to himself--ruler. To have the kingdom ruled by Zuko (but mostly by Uncle Iroh), was a breath of fresh air for his court and his people. They quickly rolled out infrastructure projects to keep retiring soldiers occupied, military funds were redirected to schools and cultural programs, and industry flourished.

Conflict in the Fire Nation was like flint sparks: bright and passionate, and quickly snuffing out. Very few issues required the Firelord's personal interference.

And between councils and meetings and personal tutoring by Uncle Iroh, Zuko often had odd hours, which he tried to fill with his friends.

"So anyway, fat face, what I was SAYING is that even AFTER I became the first metal-bender in the entire world, my stupid parents still had the audacity to tell ME that I need to be married to a 'fine gentleman' before they'd give me my inheritance!"

"And all I'M saying is that maybe being married would do you some good!"

"Are you serious, Sokka? Marriage shouldn't change people like that."

"Well, maybe we should put that to the test. How about you marry me, Suki, and we'll see what changes happen to you," Sokka waggles his eyebrows. Zuko was surprised to note that Suki actually blushed.

"Or to you, you misogynist loser!" Toph retorted. "Maybe you'll finally learn how to wear a dress and kick butt like the rest of the girls on Kyoshi Island."

"Hey! I kick butt!!"

"Debatable. ANYWAY, I told them that they can stuff my inheritance AND their stupid marriage idea up their a--"

"Interesting. So what will you do now, Toph?" Katara asked diplomatically. Zuko had been trying not to look at her. Aang's arm had been casually laced around her shoulder since they had arrived together.

"Thanks for asking, Sugar Princess, since it seems you care," Toph shot a dirty look in the direction of Sokka, "I actually have no idea what to do now, and I was kinda hoping you all would help me figure that out."

It was bold of Toph to lay it all out like this, because everybody had been skirting around the same ideas.

They had come together as rejects: Southern Water Tribe refugees, kid trapped in ice, girl from weird island, underground fight club leader. They were united by the war, but without a secret vigilante agenda, what were they? Who were they?

Zuko recognized that he was the only one with a clear path in front of him. He felt like it stared down at him from the flame tapestries that decorated every hall: Firelord, Firelord, Firelord.

"Why not go back to the ring?" Suki said finally. "You made good money, and people liked watching you fight."

"Fighting like that is dangerous," Katara interjected.

"And immoral," Aang added, brushing his fingers along Katara's shoulder and nuzzling into her. Zuko's stomach flipped in disgust.

"Did we forget who we are talking to? Dangerous and immoral are not issues here," Toph said, gesturing to herself. "Bu-ut, I think without metal-bending, street fights are going to get boring real fast."

"You could work at the tea shop," Zuko suggested. "My uncle hopes to settle down there in the earth kingdom when I'm ready to run things on my own."

"Um, Zuko. How would I pour tea?" Toph shook her hand in front of her eyes.

Zuko flushed. "Oh, right."

"So you want to stay in the Earth Kingdom? You could always come back to the Southern Water Tribe with us," Sokka said.

"You're going back? When?" The words blurted out of Zuko's mouth before he could think twice. His eyes darted quickly to Katara, who was now wrapped in both of Aang's arms, in his lap.

"Of course," Katara said, and Zuko hated how condescending it felt coming from her. "My dad is finally back! We can rebuild everything!" Aang looked at her in what Zuko determined to be his sweet (er, romantic?) face. It looked punchable to him. 

"Yeah, me and Suki have a house to build and children to raise," Sokka said proudly. Suki punched his arm.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, cowboy," she said with a smile.

"Yeah, I'm sure with my Avatar powers and your waterbending, we'll have a whole city constructed in no time," Aang said, looking to Katara.

"And my boomerang! AND my leadership abilities AND my uncanny eye for planning and strategy," Sokka added.

"Right," Katara rolled her eyes.

"Wait, so ALL of you are going, except me and Firepants?" Toph said.

"Well I guess I hadn't thought about it like that," Katara said.

Toph pouted. "The Southern Water Tribe is all ice. I wouldn't be able to see anything there. Plus my feet would freeze off. Can't you guys rendezvous somewhere more comfortable?"

Zuko's mind raced through a million different imaginary scenarios. Aang and Katara, back to back, building giant walls of ice. Aang and Katara, laughing together around a fire after a long day of bending. Aang and Katara, kissing in their gross way under furs or blankets or whatever they had there. Aang and Katara, feeding each other seal blubber bites and slobbering. Katara, and how she looked at him, and held his head in her lap while she healed him from a lightning bolt...

"Hey, it's home for us. And you guys are welcome whenever you want!" Sokka said loudly.

"We're leaving in two days," Suki said. "It should give us enough time to get everything together for the trip."

Toph groaned. "Two days?! That's hardly long enough for a game of pai cho!" She slapped her forehead. "And now I sound like Grandpa!"

"You said it," Sokka replied.

When Zuko bumped into Katara after the International Council of Energy and Sustainability Meeting, she seemed like a totally different person.

"Oops, sorry, Zuko," she said, rubbing her shoulder where they had collided.

"No problem," Zuko said nonchalantly. He tried not to meet her eyes. All of his feelings were twisted up now. When he jumped in front of her in the face of Azula, it was a manifestation of something he had known for a long time. And for a moment, when she looked at him, and everything around them was burning, he thought she felt it too.

But he was deluded, obviously, because she kissed Aang literally the same day. And now they were happily together, in a way that totally made sense, and also made this interaction totally awkward.

Now that they were alone together for the first time since, there was a weird electricity in the air. It made Zuko want to say everything and say nothing at the same time.

"Well, um, I hope--" Zuko began.

"I was wondering how your lightning wound is doing?" Katara said at the same time. There was a certain tone to her voice, Zuko thought, but maybe he didn't.

"Oh, um, I can show you..." he said, but when his fingers touched the silk of his Firelord's robes, he remembered his wound was not as accessible as it might have been in his traveling tunic. "Maybe a little later?"

"Oh, it's okay, I just wanted to see if it was healing on its own now, or..."

"Yeah, yeah. It's getting better. I feel fine."

"Good," Katara said.

"Yep," Zuko said. There was a pause.

"I, um, hope you find what you're looking for, in the Southern Water Tribe."

"Thank you," Katara said, and her eyes cast down.

Zuko waited, because it seemed like she was going to say something else.

"Hey Zuko, can I tell you something?"

"Um, sure," Zuko said. He tried to pretend that his heart wasn't pounding at the idea that she would tell him something. She still trusted him, and that reminded him of all the times he'd seen her at her most vulnerable.

"I don't know how I feel about going home."

Zuko waited, though his next Firelord meeting was calling him. He knew there was more she would say.

"I just--I feel like a little girl again. My dad is bossing me around telling me what I should or shouldn't bring back on the boat, and because he's bossing me, Sokka feels like he gets to boss me because he's older. And Aang keeps telling me how lucky I am to have a home to go back to, and how I should treasure it.

"I do want to be home, and see my GranGran, and my old school friends. And since I'm the last waterbender, I have to go and teach what I know to my people. I know I'm lucky to have had the opportunity to see the world, you know? But now that I'm going back everything feels...small."

In his mind, Zuko agreed. And knowing what he knew of the Southern Water Tribe, he couldn't imagine her being happy there. It was a frigid wasteland. The Katara he knew thrived on people, and adventure, and it didn't seem like either of those resources were abundant in the South Pole.

But she stood there, and tucked her hair loop a little further behind her ear, and looked a little right of him. And he couldn't bring himself to be honest.

"I'm sure you'll love it, when you get there," Zuko said stiffly.

Katara looked at him strangely, and he suddenly worried that she could see right through him. But she just sighed, and her shoulders sunk.

"I know it's selfish to wish for war, but...I just kind of wish things would go back to how they used to be."

It felt like the time in the conversation that people would comfort each other. He remembered what it felt like to hug her, but feared it might be too intimate of a response, coming from him.

"Me too," he said finally. "What do you miss?"

"You know, me, you, Toph, Suki, everybody--" Zuko noticed the obvious omission of Sokka and Aang--"sitting around, talking, eating melons, and that nasty jerky we bought, do you remember?" Katara laughed and Zuko admired how beautiful she was. "And bending every day, and making plans," she sighed again. "I didn't realize what we had until it was over."

Zuko would invite her to stay with him, but she'd never accept. He knew that her duty was there, just like his was here, and those facts were irrefutable. And even if she did stay, would she be happy? Zuko thought, with some pride, that *he* could make her happy, but that feeling was quickly swallowed by his common sense.

She was right, of course. He felt it too. The closed walls felt very...enclosed, after the free air and travel and no one telling them what to do.

"It's like, being a regular person, or being my old self--" Katara began.

"It kind of chafes," Zuko finished.

Katara smiled in relief. "Yeah, it does."

"Oh there you are! Oh, hey Zuko!" Aang called.

Katara's smile fell, ever so slightly, as she turned toward Aang. His footsteps sounded light, like a brush on the obsidian floor of the palace. His staff made a quiet clunk in between.

"Hey," Zuko said.

As usual, Aang just started talking. "So Katara, I was wondering. Appa probably won't love being on the ship or anything, so I was thinking we could fly over the ship, just me and you on Appa. What do you think?" Aang said, casually throwing his staff from hand to hand.

"Oh, yeah, well, that would be fun some of the time, but I kind of wanted to catch up with my dad. We haven't had so much time to talk, even after everything," Katara said.

"I'm sure you guys will have all the time in the world to talk once we get to the Southern Water Tribe!" Aang said. "Come on, Katara! Ple-ease?"

Zuko watched Katara's reaction carefully. Her shoulders seemed to deflate, just slightly, and a soft smile tugged her lips. "Okay," she said.

"Great!" Aang said. "Oh, Zuko, your uncle was looking for you."

"Where did you see him?"

"Dining room? Around there somewhere," Aang smiled and absent-mindedly zoomed a little back and forth with his bending, holding himself to the floor with his staff. Zuko was going to try a joke about Aang's whizzing air seat being inappropriate for the Capitol of the fire nation, but ultimately decided that it wasn't worth the risk.

Katara nudged Aang and gestured for him to get off, then gave Zuko another sad, private smile.

"Thanks for talking, anyway," she said.

"Any time," Zuko said, and he meant it. "I'll see you guys around."

Toph's decision about her future was quickly made for her, as King Bumi invited her to join the Earth Kingdom defense force as a captain and trainer almost 24 hours after their conversation.

Toph's parents were acquiesced because of the high status of the appointment, and put the marriage requirement on the back burner, much to Toph's satisfaction.

The group saw her off with well-wishes and tight hugs, and promises to see her whenever the opportunity was presented.

When it was Zuko's turn to say goodbye, he was surprised by how tightly Toph hugged him. But after everything they had been through together, he was grateful for the moment. Until Toph whispered aggressively in his ear: "Don't miss your chance, Firepants."

"What?" Zuko asked, but Toph just waved to everybody again and Katara shouted "Good luck!" and Suki shouted "See you soon!" and then she was gone.

"I'm starving!" Sokka said, when she was out of view. "Zuko, think we can rustle up some grubs from your fancy kitchen?"

Zuko asked for the meal to be brought out to the patio, he wasn't sure why. Maybe just chasing the "old time's sake" feeling Katara had mentioned yesterday. And he'd be lying if he said it wasn't the most comfortable meal he'd had since being crowned Firelord, a happy mix of flavors from his childhood blended with the company of his teenage friendships.

He was so happy, he was willing to ignore that he was the odd one out now, without Toph to balance the group. Sokka tried to play it cool, but everyone could see his hand on Suki's thigh, and Aang kept trying to feed Katara bites of fruit, which she ate with a visible blush every time he offered.

Zuko watched the clouds and savored his food more than he had in a long time.

"Well Zuko, thanks for putting us up here for the last few weeks," Sokka stretched, moving his hand from Suki's thighs to her waist.

"Oh, yeah, of course," Zuko said.

"You've done a great job settling everything down," Suki said, and Zuko took that as a high compliment.

"Well, thanks to you guys as well, for helping with the crowning ceremony and the clean up," Zuko said, and then added, "It will feel pretty lonely when you guys are gone."

Everybody looked at each other. Zuko was embarrassed when he realized he had drawn his eyes to Katara.

"But I'm sure you and Toph will meet up all the time. It's not far to the Earth Kingdom from here," Katara said. No one mentioned that it was, in fact, quite far.

"Right," Zuko said.

"While we're rebuilding the Southern Water Tribe, what are your big plans?" Suki asked kindly.

"I've got to train more with my uncle. There's a lot of traditions that I've forgotten, and I have to get a new council elected, since my father's was...dissolved." He tried to step around the face that many of them abdicated when Ozai was imprisoned. "And I've got to figure out some family stuff too. If I get around to it."

"Are you going to figure out what happened to your mother?" Katara's eyes were piercing.

"I hope so. I mostly just want to find out the truth."

Katara nodded.

"Well, that sounds really great, Zuko, I hope it all works out," Aang said. "You know, without your murderous dad around, the Fire Nation is actually a really nice place."

"Oh my God, Aang," Suki said. Sokka cackled, and Suki covered his mouth with the back of her hand.

"You can't *say* stuff like that," Katara reprimanded, and looked apologetically at Zuko.

Aang spluttered, "I just meant, I meant, like, it's nice here! I didn't mean anything bad about it!"

Zuko shrugged. "No, he's right." And he served himself another bowl of komodo chicken. 

"Hey, Zuko, can I bother you a minute?" Katara asked.

The evening had grown dark, and Zuko sat in his private study, looking over the paperwork that Iroh had left him in the flickering candlelight. He was supposed to be comparing infrastructure plans and budgets, but the longer he looked at the plans, the more confused he got.

Katara's interruption was a welcome distraction, but when their eyes connected, Zuko regretted it instantly. Everything was so complicated with her.

Still. "Yes, please. If I look at this any more my eyes are going to melt."

The candles danced as Katara entered the room and found a seat opposite him. 

“Look, I wanted to say sorry for what Aang said earlier,” Katara began. 

Zuko looked at her, confused. 

“What he said about the Fire Nation, and your dad, I think he just wasn’t thinking straight. It’s been a lot lately,” Katara said. 

Zuko’s mind flipped through everything Aang said that day, wondering what she was talking about. 

“At dinner,” Katara clarified. 

“Oh!” Zuko laughed. “No, Katara, it wasn’t a big deal to me. Seriously.” There were a lot of other things Aang had done that bothered him, but that comment wasn’t one of them.

“If you’re sure,” she said. 

“Yeah, I’m sure.” 

Katara’s eyes pierced him again, as if trying to determine if he was hiding something. He was, of course, but he was pretty sure she wouldn’t find it. 

“Well, while I’m here, should I take one more look at your stomach? Boat leaves early tomorrow.”

“Oh, um, sure,” Zuko said. “Shut the door, will you?” 

Katara blushed, and the door shut with a gentle click. 

Zuko’s Firelord robes were a bit of a hassle, and Zuko felt Katara’s eyes on him as he struggled with the clasp on the mantle, behind his neck. When the clasp finally gave, it felt like taking a deep breath for the first time. He untied his belt, and shimmied out of the silk over-robes rather quickly after that. 

“Sorry,” Zuko said, because it felt like the only appropriate thing to say. 

“No, no, not a problem.” 

Left in just a short red dressing robe, Zuko carefully loosed the front ties to expose his chest and ribs to Katara. And even though he knew she had seen his bare chest thousands of times, from morning baths, to sparring, to the day she first healed this wound, it seemed more embarrassing and intimate now. 

“Oo-kay,” she said, steeling herself. Zuko could practically see the transition in her face from friend to healer. With delicate hands, she traced over the raw skin from the blast. Every so often she pushed in the skin, prodded it, looked at his face for expressions indicating pain. 

During this process, Zuko tried to focus on the roundness of Katara’s mother’s necklace, which hung at her throat, and tried to clear his mind of literally anything else. He could hardly breathe. 

“Well, I don’t mean to brag or anything, but it looks like I did a pretty great job with the healing,” Katara said. “There’s no pus, no blood, no weeping, and the skin is growing nicely…It will be a pretty significant scar, though,” she said, taking a step back and spanning her hand across the wound. “In fact, this part here will probably always be disfigured and bumpy like that,” she said, running her fingers across the contact point of the lightning bolt. 

“I’m used to scars,” Zuko said primly. 

Katara looked at him, and Zuko knew she had something more to say, but she bit her lip and things stayed quiet. The candles burned a little brighter. 

“Thanks, Katara. You saved my life, again,” Zuko said. “I’d rather keep a scar than lose my life.” 

“You wouldn’t even have this scar if it weren’t for me,” Katara said quietly. 

“You’re right. I’d be dead,” Zuko said, “And it wouldn’t matter anyway.” 

Katara made a noise in the back of her throat. “Well, um, keep it clean, bathe a lot, and keep putting salve on it in the mornings so that the new skin stays protected. I’m sorry there’s not more I can do.” She paused. “It can’t be comfortable for you wearing the Firelord robes like that,”--she turned her hands to the mantle he had discarded—”The point of this must rub right on the new skin.” 

“It’s fine,” Zuko said. “My uncle says that optics matter.” 

“Well, so does your health,” Katara countered. “Maybe ask someone to sew you something equally royal but a little more comfortable? There’s no reason why you should stick to antiquated styles anyway.” 

“I’ll think about—”

“Hey guys! Katara I was just looking for—” The door swung open, but Aang stopped cold. “What are you doing?” 

“Have you ever heard of knocking, Aang?” Katara rolled her eyes. 

Zuko drew his robe closed. 

“What are you guys doing?” Aang asked again. 

“I was checking his wound before we leave in the morning,” Katara said. “I wanted to make sure the healing was holding up.”

“And you decided to do this…in the candlelight? Alone? With Zuko?” Zuko knew the expression on Aang’s face all too well. 

“Considering this is the Fire Nation, and considering that Zuko is the one who was blasted with Azula’s lightning, yes,” Katara said. 

Aang pursed his lips, and Zuko was surprised to see his eyes fill with anger. “Zuko, I really respect all you’ve done for us, but I think now you’ve done enough.” 

“Aang, you really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Katara said tightly. 

“We’re leaving in the morning, and I think it will be good for all of us–” he looked pointedly at Zuko—”to get some space,” Aang said. “Let’s go, Katara.” 

Zuko looked at Katara, bewildered. Weren’t they all friends? And hadn’t Aang clearly indicated that Katara belonged to him, ever since Zuko was crowned? He hadn’t done anything wrong, he didn’t think. In fact, this was only the second conversation he’d had with Katara since everything. Katara’s eyes reached his, the same sad kind of look she’d passed him earlier. 

“Feel better, Zuko,” was all she said, and she followed Aang out. She shut the door behind them. 

But Zuko could hear them talking at volumes down the hall. The clearest line was Katara’s voice, filled with the fiery passion Zuko remembered from his first meeting with her in their camp: “I’m a healer, Aang! What do you want me to do?”

Chapter Text

That night, Zuko dreamed of his mother. She was gentle, just like he remembered her. She touched his scar, and her face was full of regret. "I should have done more to protect you," she said.

"Don't cry, mom," he murmured. "It wasn't your fault."

His mother's tears rolled over her cheeks, and as they fell, her face twisted into the face of the blue dragon.

In horror, or surprise, he wasn't sure which, Zuko took a step back, and felt his foot slip off solid ground. He looked back, and instead of his childhood room, he was standing on the edge of a very high cliff, and the sea rolled and crashed in heavy waves thousands of miles below.

The dragon's mouth moved, but Zuko heard his mother's voice. "All things are one, Zuko."

A hot desert wind whipped around him, pushing him back toward the cliff edge, drying and tightening his skin.

"Remember that even a few desires can be powerful. The rotten can be transformed into the valuable, and the valuable can be transformed into the rotten. What is good is not always what is right."

The dragon jumped into the sky, swimming into flames of a thousand colors. When Zuko looked back, his mother stood before him again.

"Find me, Zuko."

A wave crashed over his mother's head, and Zuko woke up in the darkness.

Just three weeks ago, somebody would have commented on the dark circles under Zuko's eyes, maybe would have tossed him an orange from a nearby tree. They would have laughed, and Zuko would have grumbled, and they would have started bending together.

Zuko remembered how his flames felt in his hands, torrents of his power. He stretched his hand reflexively.

But today it was just him, watching his friends disappear on the horizon.

Sokka had grabbed him in a tight bear hug. Suki had kissed him on the cheek. Aang had hugged him too, but with a tight smile, that didn't quite reach his eyes.

And Katara hadn't hugged him at all. "I'll write," she said. And that was all.

And Zuko tried not to make a big deal out of it, it wasn't like there were rules for saying goodbye. But she looked at him, and he looked at her, and her blue eyes were full of things that neither of them said.

Now, watching Appa's shadow streak over the tiny boat in ocean, Zuko felt lonelier than ever.

No more joking around in the palace. No more wild chases from his demented sister. No more fighting. Just him, the kingdom he owned, and his last few months with his uncle.

And then it would be him alone.

But wasn't that how it always was? Since he was small, wasn't he always alone? And how many years, chasing the Avatar alone? Wasn't he used to sleeping alone, waking alone, giving orders? So this was really just him going back to what had always been. The life he'd always had. And part of him knew he deserved it.

So now it was time to settle in. If he was going to be alone, he had things to do. First, becoming a good Firelord. A truly honorable Firelord, to return his ancestor's honor. And after that, find his mom.

Both tasks felt overwhelming.

Zuko steadied himself. No more distractions. He was ready.

Zuko felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. "My son, shall we start the day with tea?" His uncle's eyes crinkled with a tender smile. Zuko nodded. Time to begin.

"Your mother was exiled," Iroh said, "as far as I am aware."

A month after the boat left for the Southern Water Tribe, Zuko asked for all records relating to Ursa, including private and classified correspondence, to be delivered to him personally. But as he sat in his private office, surrounded by scraps of paper, it seemed most everything his father possessed relative to his mother had been burned.

It was a surprise so much was left at Ember Island.

"But is there a chance he killed her?"

"I suppose there is always a chance, but at some point your father loved your mother. It would be unbelievable if he had killed her."

"More unbelievable than permanently scarring his son?" Zuko asked harshly.

Iroh sat back, placing his teacup on the table. "Perhaps not. I have wanted to wish the best of my brother, but you are right, Zuko. His temper was untenable, and she was the closest to him." He stroked his beard.

"Don't get me wrong, Uncle. I want to believe she was exiled. I want to believe we can find her again. But my father refuses to give more information, and there's no record of where she was sent. Even Azula believes she's dead."

"You spoke with Azula?"

"She's my sister."

"She's dangerous."

"She won't be in there forever," Zuko sighed, rubbing his head with the palm of his hands. "But it's beside the point. The point being, I don't know where else to look."

"You're tired, Firelord Zuko," his uncle said, and Zuko felt the warmth of the statement.

"Yeah, I am," Zuko said, tracing the embroidery of the tablecloth. "But when I sleep, she's always there."

"Then do not despair," Iroh responded. "If the spirits are visiting you, it is because they trust that you will learn what you need to learn."

Katara was a liar, Zuko thought, as he drafted what must have been his fifteenth letter to Toph. Toph was the first to write, and her first letter had arrived just four days after she'd left. King Bumi greeted her with a bending battle, and neither of them stopped until they both had cracked ribs. Apparently they laughed it off and healed up in the Earth Kingdom's best hospital together.

Since then, Zuko heard all about Toph's day-to-day: about how she'd been contested at first for her age and physique, how she pummeled the whole military single-handedly, and how they had all become good friends. He heard about Ling, Fai-lo, and Benio, another tough girl that had caught Toph's eye.

And he wouldn't believe any of it, but he knew Toph.

In turn, he'd written her back about the embarrassment of etiquette coaching, and about the failures of his first public press conference, and about judiciary council and how it never felt fair. He told her when Iroh retired. And he told her about his dreams, the repeating ones. With the dragon, and the ocean, and his mom.

Toph had, through correspondence, become one of his closest confidants.

But Katara never wrote. Not once.

And neither did Aang or Sokka, but the latter wasn't surprising, because Zuko wasn't even sure Sokka was literate.

After sealing his letter with the insignia of the Firelord, he pawned it off to Huan with a mumbled "Thank you."

He could hear them. It was almost like a rushing river, and Zuko blocked the memories that started in his mind. Breathing deeply, he closed the door on his study and adjusted the gold flame over his topknot.

The guards nodded at him, once, and Zuko brushed his fingers across the Firelord's mantle, straightening the fabric. Wide double doors slowly gaped open, revealing a crowd of hundreds, cheering and shouting in the courtyard of the palace.

Zuko held up his hands in a gesture of peace, and the crowd quieted.

"People of the Fire Nation! Today is the first night of the Dongzhi Festival. We gather together to celebrate our families, our community, and the arrival of a new season. Though this will be the darkest night of the year, let your fires shine brightly! Our light in the dark, a reminder of what we accomplish together. Forging new paths is our way!"

A roar of applause thunders through the square.

"Enjoy your night!" Zuko bowed, a new custom to show deference to his people, and he was happy to see them bow and cheer in response.

The first fireworks crack overhead, raining down gold and yellow sparks. Lanterns glow against stalls and people parade from stall to stall, hands full of rice balls and fried dough. It smelled like spice, and sunmelons, and smoke.

He could have joined them, wandering among the people with his guard. But he  was separate from them. He was comfortable with the emptiness of things. It's the way he had always been.

He watched from the balcony, and let his thoughts wander. The moon shone brightly overhead.

His mother appeared that night, wading in clear water that barely covered her toes. She was wearing white silk, her hair draping in dark waves like a veil down her back. Each step sent out thousands of silver ripples. The sky was dark, and heavy clouds grumbled above them.

"My son."

"Mom."

Worry creased her face. "Something is not right here. Something's not balanced."

This wasn't her usual script. Zuko's stomach tightened. This dream was not right. Lightning struck in the distance, startling him.

"Be prepared. Something is happening, and I see it will come for you."

"What's happening, mom? What is coming?" Zuko asked.

"All things are one, Zuko. There is something you need to do."

Lightning crashed again, and Zuko felt the familiar burning through his chest, straight to his heart.

Chapter Text

"Are you okay, your majesty?" Huan asked, and Zuko heard him, but distantly.

"Um, your majesty?" A gentle prodding was enough to pull Zuko from reliving his dream for the umpteenth time.

It had been three days of festival, two days of rest and resetting, and another three of business as usual, and still, every time he had a quiet moment, his mother's face haunted his mind. And tried as he could to focus on being the Firelord, he found his mind wandering back to chew on every detail of the scene. It's not like it was getting him anywhere; there wasn't much detail to begin with.

The storm was rolling on the horizon, what did storms mean? Sometimes they meant to prepare for the worst, like the summer monsoons in the Fire Nation that washed away carts in the street and flooded homes downsteeam. Sometimes they were a celebration, like the first storm that fuels the crops in the spring.

"All things are one."

Zuko felt like there must be more, some detail he must have missed. But days of thinking about it had gotten him nowhere.

He rubbed his head with his palm, trying to bring himself back to the present. "Yes, thank you, Huan."

"Can I bring you some of your uncle's tea? Something to clear your mind?"

Zuko was grateful for the suggestion. "That would be great, if you don't mind."

"And a bath, maybe, to settle the nerves?"

"You're probably right. Thank you."

Zuko sipped hot chamomile and listened to the water fill the tub in the room next door. "Something's not balanced..." her voice echoed. "There's something you need to do."

What did she mean?

Things were balanced in the Fire Nation, at least as far as he could tell. The new council members were fair and gave good judgment. The festival had provoked industry and cultural heritage. They were remaking the flag, a new insignia to represent a new age of sovereignty...

"There's something you need to do."

Could she have been any more vague?

Perhaps his uncle would know. Or perhaps his uncle would know where to start. He picked up a brush to write to him, but he startled at the sudden bang of the door. Ink splattered across the page.

"Your majesty," Huan said, holding the doorknob. His eyes were wide. "You have guests."

Zuko rushed out of his quarters and down the hall. It was late now, around 9 or 10 o clock, and the fiery red of the palace banners was only illuminated under the flickering sconces; the stretches in between were dark and blue from the moon.

As he rounded the corner on the entrance hall, a new light had colored the space: a pale blue. His heart skipped a beat. Katara.

And, floating beside her, some kind of human body.

"Zuko, I'm so sorry, I didn't know where else to go," Katara said.

At first, Zuko thought it was a corpse. The body hung lifelessly, suspended as if without gravity, in a sort of womb of clear water Katara must be bending, to keep it a few inches off the ground. Delicate fingers splayed from the limp wrists. But from Zuko's place at the top of the stairs, the face was hidden.

He approached it slowly, driven by that grotesque human curiosity, afraid of what he might see. In the corner of his eye, he saw Katara step back, as if allowing him access into a private space.

As he studied the face, Zuko gasped in immediate recognition. It was Aang. Aang, wearing a yellow parka, head shaved, the arrow on his head hardly visible through the water. His eyes were open, but instead of glassy pupils, his eyes shone pure, white-blue light, light that reflected through the cocoon, creating an otherworldly glow. His jaw hung slack, and the same light shone from his throat.

The Avatar State.

"What the hell?" Zuko said under his breath.

"Something is wrong," Katara's voice was strained. "He went into the Avatar State on the night of the solstice. But this time, he's paralyzed. He hasn't eaten anything, he hasn't moved at all. So far, I've been checking his breathing, but his heart rate is so slow. I swear, Zuko, we tried everything. I've tried Tribe medicine, healing, bloodbending! I can't get him to wake up!"

Zuko turned to Katara. "I can call the best healers in the Fire Nation, and I can have the best from the Earth Kingdom here too, if he can manage a few more days." Katara gasped in relief. "But I don't know if healing is the answer here. I'll have someone look for records and see if we have anything on the Avatar."

"Anything you can do. Anything," Katara said.

"What happened on the night of the solstice?"

"We had a moon ceremony, like we always do, in the Tribes. Aang and I, we...went off to discuss some things, and while I was talking to him, he collapsed. His eyes rolled back in his head and he went into the Avatar State. I took him back to our house, and we thought he would come out of it. But three days later, he still hadn't moved or had water or anything.

"So I've been trying to bend water to keep him alive, but when I realized...well, I knew you might be able to help him. I took Appa and we got here as fast as we could."

For the first time since she arrived, Zuko really looked at Katara. In the five or so months since he'd seen her, she'd changed only slightly. She seemed paler and somewhat thinner, and her eyes were puffy from stress or crying. Her hair was braided back in a tight bun.

Her fur-lined jacket and leather boots were stained from use, and they must have flown high enough or far enough for snow, because her hair and shoulders were damp. She kept one hand extended, holding Aang's bubble, and Zuko realized she might have been bending for hours--no, days--with no rest to protect Aang.

Zuko tried to reign in his expressions. She didn't need a lecture or his pity. He tuned in to months of being Firelord: solving problems and employing resources.

"Huan?"

"Yes, your majesty?"

"It's late, but I'll need some help. Find Shuye and tell her to set up one of the guest rooms for Katara. She'll need clothes and something to eat. And a second guest room for the Avatar. When that's done, call Healer Tzu and come find me."

Huan nodded, once, and Zuko was again grateful for his service and quick thinking. He turned back to Katara.

"Don't worry. We'll do what we can."

Katara attempted a smile.  "Thanks, Zuko."

It was quiet while they waited. Zuko wanted to ask what happened. Why she didn't write. What happened with Aang, after she left. What happened with her dad. But it was late, and she was exhausted. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, tried to look places that weren't the weird near-dead form of the Avatar or the eyes of a girl he once thought he loved.

Finally, two palace staff let Zuko know the Avatar's room was ready. Zuko gestured to Katara, and they followed the two women down the grand hallway. Katara laid Aang to rest on the bed, letting the water caress his head and lay it gently on the pillow, and then twisting the liquid channels back into her water skin.

It was a strangely intimate presentation of bending, Zuko thought.

"Will he need something else?" Zuko asked her, ready to petition his staff.

Katara half-laughed, a noise which caught Zuko off guard, and shrugged. "If he stays like this he won't." She looked at Aang again. Suddenly her eyes filled with tears.

Zuko didn't know what to do. Half of him felt like Katara had never left. Like she was still his close friend, the girl who helped him against Azula, who stood up for him, who trusted him enough to see her in front of her mother's killer and forgive him.

The girl who put her cool hand on his scar in the caves. The first. He felt drawn to her, even after everything.

The other half recognized the space grown between them. It had been five months since they had even exchanged words, five months of time for her to do things and be someone he did not know. The last time he saw her, she was snuggled up to Aang, and he could only assume a deep intimacy existed between them now, a boundary that Zuko could not cross.

Would not cross. Out of respect for her.

So instead of offering comfort to her, this time, he offered what he could: his power and his resources. At least he could make her comfortable and offer a plan. He could help her feel safe here.

He turned to the older of the two women, who had straightened the sheets for Aang and was presently pulling out an additional set of blankets from the closet, and said quietly, "Please make sure that Katara has the key and easy passage to this room. She needs to be close to him."

The woman nodded, and when Aang was as comfortable as they could assume him to be, the women led Katara to her room, just a door or two down.

Zuko accompanied them halfway, before leaving her for her privacy. "Katara--" he said.

"Yes?"

He looked at her again, wilted from travel, heavy with the weight of the situation. He was being selfish. Her blue eyes were as piercing as ever.

"In the morning, I'll eat with you and we'll figure out a plan. Until then...try to get some sleep." He meant it kindly, and hoped she received it that way.

She nodded once, thanked him, and headed down the hall.

Zuko couldn't sleep that night. For the first time, the elusive woman in his dreams was not his mom. When he woke, guilt sat like a rock in chest. How could he dream like this, with Aang lying catatonic just a wing away?

Zuko went to Aang's room and spoke with the royal healer in the early morning, and after a fruitless conversation, asked him to come back after breakfast to speak with Katara. Katara knew more about this business than him, would understand the nuance of the conversation.

Aang was just as odd and corpse-looking in the morning light as he was the night before, but someone had removed his parka and settled him under the lavish covers. The curtains were open, letting lazy sunlight through, which somewhat dimmer the white-blue light streaming from his face. Zuko had made it clear that the Avatar was to be treated with the utmost respect as an honored guest, and by the abundance of warding charms and flowers that had appeared overnight, it seemed that word had gotten around.

Huan sent a council member to brief Zuko on the Firelord's affairs for the day, and Zuko listened while the council member stuttered through the news and stared at Aang's body, obviously unsettled.

Zuko asked Huan to bring breakfast for Katara to Aang's room, and he did: soybean milk and steamed buns. Huan also informed him of Appa's lodging, a significant detail which Zuko had neglected the night before. Zuko was appropriately grateful for the news.

When Katara finally entered, it was late morning.

She was ravishing. Her hair, tied in a Fire Nation style, was pulled back from her face but left long and curling in the back. She wore a red dress, maybe an old outfit of Azula's, Zuko thought. Her blue eyes were rimmed by dark lashes, and her mother's necklace was, as usual, her first and last accessory.

"They got you ready," Zuko said, as greeting and also as a stupid statement of fact.

Katara smiled out of courtesy. "Yes, and a massage and a bath," she said. "I feel a bit better."

"Let me know if you're not comfortable," Zuko said.

Katara hummed in agreement. "Breakfast?"

Zuko made a welcoming gesture with his hand. "All yours. I figured you'd want to eat in here, to be close to him." He hated how the words sounded in his mouth.

If it were odd, Katara didn't notice, and immediately helped herself to some food. "How is he?" she asked between bites.

Zuko shrugged. "You'll know more than me. My healer came to look at him during the night, but I told him he'd need to give his update to you."

Katara nodded. "I guess I owe you an explanation," she said.

"You don't owe me anything," Zuko said. "We were friends."

"Were?" Katara asked.

Chapter Text

Zuko blushed. “Are. I mean–”

Katara sat back and studied his face. “No, I deserve that,” she said slowly. She pulled a bun apart absent-mindedly, looking around the room. Then she sighed. “Well, things were…busy. When we got back, we got straight to work. We built schools, roads, houses. My dad, he, um, he got married again. Aang and I went on a few trips, went back for things he thought he might be left at the Air Temples. After awhile, Sokka and Suki went back to Kyoshi Island. We built all this stuff, but we didn’t have people. I kind of thought everything would be like how I remembered it before. But it wasn’t. It was different.”

Zuko recognized a note from her story. She was wistful, yes, wishing, yes, but her voice sounded lonely most of all.

Her eyes met his, and he tried to ignore the tug in his stomach. “I started getting dreams,” Katara said in a low voice. “Weird dreams, dreams about–”

“Your majesty,” a rich woman's voice interrupted. The Fire Nation Healer stood at the door. 

Zuko snapped to attention. “Oh, right. Um, Katara, would you like to speak to Healer Tzu?”

“Yes, please.”

“Your report, please,” Zuko said, nodding to the woman.

“The Avatar is not physically ill, as far as I can tell. His heart rate is, perhaps, concerningly slow, but with the conservation of energy, including pausing of digestion processes, it does not seem to be negatively affecting him.” 

Katara nodded. She must have come to a similar conclusion.

“And despite what Master Katara said, about the Avatar not taking food or water, it seems the Avatar is stable. He has survived thus far with no change in his condition.” The doctor rubbed her wrist. “It might be due to his powers, which may provide something to the body that we don’t understand.” 

“Is there anyone who might know? Any person in the Fire Nation?” Katara interrupted. 

The healer hesitated. 

“Speak freely,” Zuko said. He could hear the Firelord’s command in his own voice. 

“Well, the uniqueness of the corporeal Avatar is not something well-studied. Their bodies are able to wield four types of bending; there must be fundamental differences to their biology that we don’t understand. Doctors? There are none alive who treated with the last Avatar. There may be some historical records, but you would have to consult a master record-keeper,” the healer said, and she pinched her fingers together, “but even so, I don’t think that pursuing physical treatments will offer anything to the Avatar.”

Katara nodded again, solemnly. “What do you suggest?” she asked. 

“Wait,” the healer said. “Wait and see if he can conquer it.” 

“There must be something more you can do,” Katara said boldly.

The healer nodded apologetically. “We’ll keep a vigil on him at all times. We’ll monitor for any changes.” 

Zuko heard the unspoken message: It’s out of our hands. 

He could feel Katara tensing next to him. It wasn’t the news she wanted to hear. 

“Thank you,” Zuko nodded once at the healer—a dismissal. She bowed and closed the door behind her. 

Katara adjusted in her seat, and her eyes flashed. “We’ve got to do something,” she said. She looked over at Aang, though his face was not visible from this side of the room. “Can you call your record-keepers? Maybe we can find something about past Avatars, some kind of information that would help us.”

Zuko looked at her skeptically. “Of course, I can have them here as soon as possible,” he said. “But Katara, didn’t you say this happened the night of the solstice?” 

“Yes,” Katara said.

“So that was over a week ago. And you’ve said that nothing you’ve done has had any effect on him?”

Katara opened her mouth to argue, but changed her mind. “Not really,” she said. 

“Well which is it, ‘not really’ or ‘no’?” Zuko asked. 

“I don’t know, what’s the difference?” she asked hotly. “Not really, no, he hasn’t really responded to anything.” 

“There is a difference,” Zuko responded, feeling the heat rise to his hands. “Because we need to know if we should keep trying something, or if he’s a lost cause.” 

Katara spluttered. “A–a lost cause ? How can you say that? He barely got here and you’re already giving up!” She was really shouting now. Katara’s frustration should have bothered Zuko, but it felt kind of like a pleasant shock of familiarity. How long had it been since he had been appropriately chastised by Katara? He resisted the urge to hug her tightly. 

“I don’t mean it like that, Katara,” he said. “You know I would never give up on Aang.” 

“I watched him, day and night, for a week straight. I flew him on Appa’s back through a winter storm for three days by myself, ” she paused to catch her breath, eyes hard as flint, “He's been in your care for less than a day and you want to call him a lost cause ?”

“ You've been in my palace for less than a day and you're already putting words in my mouth,” Zuko retorted. He knew he was letting himself get riled up, but it felt almost indulgent.

“So what are you saying, then, Firelord Zuko?” Katara put a mocking emphasis on his title. “Because unless I misunderstand you, you're willing to let the literal Avatar and your best friend lay comatose for, I don't know, as long as it takes for him to ‘conquer it,'” she put the words in imaginary quotations with her hands.

“Aren't you the one who said she tried ‘everything?’” Zuko said. “If you, the greatest waterbender of our generation, master healer and bloodbender –”

She hushed him, looking at the door. As she did, Zuko's attention was brought directly to her lips. He clung desperately to his train of thought.

Zuko lowered his voice. “If you can't do it, I'm not sure why you thought ‘The Firelord’ could do any better than you. I'm going to go find the record-keepers, and I'll come find you when I learn something else.” 

Zuko pushed himself back from the table in a huff, and stalked out the door. 

Once the door shut, he relaxed slightly. She got under his skin. She was so stubborn. She was so…intoxicating. He could feel his flames rippling in his hands, ready to bend columns of fire. 

She ignited something in him. 

He had to ignore it. There was a line here. Katara didn't want him, in fact, she probably hated him at this point. He’d said everything wrong. He didn't say what he meant at all. Of course he wanted to help Aang. Of course he was going to exhaust every resource for Aang. What he meant to do was ask where to put their resources. If healing was a no go, he wanted to work a different angle. He shook his head a little. The banners of the Fire Nation swayed back and forth.

He'd have to explain himself to Katara again later.

“I've got it,” he said, swinging the door open. The sun had just set, and Aang's Avatar light made the whole room a sick purplish color. Zuko didn't know how Katara could stand it. With one fist, he lit every candle in the room. The result was only mildly improved.

“You've been gone a long time,” Katara said, her voice pinched.

“Yeah, well, the Firelord has a lot of responsibilities. I have stuff I have to do.”

“Aang's in a coma,” Katara said pointedly.

“I realize that, funnily enough, which is why I cancelled four very important meetings today. Instead, I found and interviewed a master record-keeper so I could come back to spend the evening with you.” Zuko cleared his throat. “ Planning with you.”

Katara’s self-righteous airs were somewhat dissipated at that. She looked at her hands. “Thank you,” she said finally. 

Zuko just inclined his head. “Now, do you want to know what I learned?” He looked over at Aang. “I talked to the master record-keeper. He said that Fire Nation records from Avatar Roku might have more information about the rogue Avatar State.”

“So where are the records? Did you bring them?”

“No. The records were moved when my father declared war. The record-keepers were worried that the city would be destroyed, so they had them moved to a remote location.”

Katara let out a slow breath. “Where?” 

“Are you sure you can leave the Fire Nation?” Katara asked again. 

“It's just a day or two journey. I have a council for that,” Zuko rubbed his head with his hand. He would be drowned in work when they got back, but he didn't want to think about that.

It was actually a really smart move on behalf of the record-keepers. Worried about the volatile nature of Ozai, and understanding the records of previous Avatars to be invaluable to the world as a whole, they moved whole sections of the royal library to an unmarked storehouse on the edge of their boundary with the Earth Kingdom. 

This safe house was kept as private knowledge and withheld from the previous regime, including his father. 

How they transported it all, right under his nose, was a mystery, and one that Zuko felt distinctly proud of. 

It was a high honor to be trusted in a way his father never was. The record-keepers maintained that they divulged the location in allegiance to the Avatar, but Zuko knew that even that allegiance would only go so far. They trusted that Zuko was not a tyrant, a fact that comforted him deeply. 

He vowed not to violate their trust, and they packed for the journey immediately. They'd be flying overnight, but Appa was well-fed and well-rested, and they planned to arrive to the hidden library early the following morning. 

Huan was overseeing Aang while they were gone. 

To be honest, Huan was not happy about the optics of this trip, and worried aloud about how people would respond to their Firelord leaving on a journey with the young and beautiful Master Katara. 

“They would worry about it, Huan, if they knew it was happening at all,” Zuko had said, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Yes, your majesty,” Huan nodded. And that was the end of it…for now.

“Okay,” Katara said. There was a steadiness to her now. She always was good with a plan.

Appa rumbled, a noise which both Katara and Zuko interpreted to mean he was ready. “Yip yip!” Katara called, and the bison launched into the sky. 

Zuko's stomach churned. He forgot the unsettling feeling of an ascent on Appa. He held on tightly, wrapping his fingers deep into Appa's coarse fur. 

Once they were high in the sky, the cold thin air gave Zuko goosebumps. Next to him, Katara seemed unphased. Two hands on the reins, she stared straight ahead into the dark night.

Zuko was trying to think on what to say, but she broke the silence before he could. 

“You know, this is the first time I've been without Aang since…since before we fought Azula.”

“Really?” Zuko tried to keep his tone even. He should have come up with something to talk about before she did, because he did not want to have a conversation about how much she missed her boyfriend.

“Yeah. I feel so…” she trailed off, like she didn't want to jinx herself. 

“You miss him,” Zuko supplied.

“No,” she shook her head. “That's not it. I feel…free.” Her chest lifted as she said it, as if a physical weight lifted from her. Suddenly she turned to Zuko, horrified. “I don't mean it. It's not that I wish he weren't around or anything. You must think I'm horrible. It's just that–”

Zuko put his hand on her arm. “Katara.” 

She looked at him, and he looked back. She was here. Katara. He wanted to know everything about her, every secret, every detail. He looked at her, and tried to show her he was no threat.

She took a deep breath. “Ever since I broke Aang out of the ice, he's been a job for me. I had to protect him, then I had to teach him, then I had to fight for him, and when it was all over, I thought that I had to love him, too. And I do, I really do. I love him. But not…not how he wants me to. Not how I should.

“He's–” Zuko watched her struggle with the words– “Thoughtless? Impulsive? He has an idea and he wants to do it, regardless of what else is going on. I have to clean up after him a lot, in that way. And what I want is less important to him. Always.” Zuko saw her expression harden.

“Do you swear you won't tell anyone what I'm telling you?” Katara asked, and her gaze sent electric shock through him.

He nodded.

“I've tried to tell Aang what I'm telling you. I've told him a bunch of times. But it seems like as soon as I tell him I'm not happy, he wants to make everything perfect again. He acts different for awhile, and then it goes off in the same old way. 

My dad said I should be so honored, because he's the Avatar of our generation. ‘Show him your respect, Katara,’ he said. As if everything I've ever done for him doesn't count as respect,” she scoffed.

“But then everything happened, and I,” she bit her lip, “I felt so guilty . I tried everything but it wasn't enough.”

Zuko raised his eyebrows. He saw an image of Katara, frustrated and responsible for her tribe, her traditions, and the Avatar's whims. He remembered how they would joke around the fire about “Katara, the mom of the group,” and he realized suddenly how much pressure that must have put on her. 

She was the first to take responsibility, the first to trust, the first to plan. He couldn't imagine what Aang could have said to make her believe her efforts weren't enough.

It was late, and the darkness made them both more comfortable, Zuko thought, which is why Katara felt safe enough to continue. 

“I never wrote you, and I'm sorry. You're just…You're the one person that I felt like really understood me, the person who I was always honest with. And with everything, I felt like I couldn't tell the truth.” She looked at her hands, and Zuko felt the weight of what she said. It made him shiver. Katara’s voice went soft. “I know it's a sorry excuse, but–” 

Zuko looked at her again. “It's okay, Katara.”

Her eyes filled with relief. She put her hand on his leg, so gently he probably wouldn't have felt it if he weren't looking.

The line, he thought. Stick to the line. 

“Thanks, Zuko.”

When Katara's eyes got too heavy, Zuko offered to fly while she slept on the saddle. Appa didn't really need Zuko's directions, of course, but Zuko could not imagine the awkwardness that would ensue if they both settled down for a nap together. 

She took the offer, and fell asleep rather quickly. Zuko tried not to look at how her face softened as she fell asleep. They were friends. She trusted him.

So as he looked over the ocean, he let his mind wander to everything that had happened. It felt like ages since he'd ditched his chamomile tea, just to come face-to-face with coma Aang.

Some things still weren't adding up. Katara said she took Aang out to “talk” when he went into the Avatar State. But in all her talking, she never mentioned what they were talking about. 

Maybe they weren't talking, he thought, and blushed in spite of himself. Why else would she leave out that information?

And even more interestingly, she said she saw dreams. But they'd been interrupted before she could explain them. Zuko wondered, were they like his dreams? Did her mom appear in the night too? She did seem willing to tell him about them, but he would have to remember to ask at an appropriate time…

If they both had dreams, what did it mean? Was it connected to the thing his mom told him he had to do?

Zuko’s mind flipped over idea over idea, until sleep swallowed him too. 

His mom stood before him again in the shallow water. 

“Mom!” 

The storm collected overhead, rolling in from the horizon.

Zuko believed they were rain clouds, before. Weren't they? But now the clouds looked unnatural. Thick, black clouds. It was the blackness that startled him. He had never seen real clouds that black. 

His mom looked like she was waiting for something.

“Mom! I wanted to ask you, what do I have to do?”

His mother looked at him, but no words came from her mouth.

“You said I had to do something to bring balance! My friend–my friends, Katara and Aang, they came to the Fire Nation. Aang is sick, kind of. I was wondering if I have to do something to bring balance to them.”

He waited, but his mother said nothing.

“Mom, I need your help.”

The clouds rolled closer, and the water pushed in thousands of tiny waves toward him.

“Mom, can you answer me?” The lightning cracked overhead. “Mom, I need your help!”

The words were still on his lips when he woke up. 

Chapter Text

Appa lowed to inform them they were close to landing. 

After an uncomfortable descent, Zuko was eager to get on solid ground, and quickly slid off Appa’s back. He offered a hand to Katara. 

She took it, and when she hopped to the ground in front of him, Zuko saw a smile peek out from her face. “So this is it, huh?” she said, surveying the land in front of them. 

“I guess so,” he replied. The record-keeper told him to look for a fish shack near the beach, and sure enough, Zuko could see a small shack about 500 feet from where they’d landed, half-hidden by the sand dunes and beach grass. The air was much more humid here than at the capital, and a cool, salty breeze made the plants bow and bob their heads. 

“That way,” he said, pointing. 

A red wooden fish decorated the roof of the tiny shack, a rushed paint job: the scales dripped dry red paint in thick streaks. A small wraparound porch protected the door, which fit so tightly in the wall that one might not even notice it was a door at all. 

“Are you sure…” Katara trailed off. 

“Pretty sure,” Zuko said. 

“Do we knock?”

“He didn’t say.”

Zuko twisted the iron knob with some effort, and pushed the door open. “Hello? Firelord Zuko here,” he called into the shack. 

“Well, that’s one way to announce your presence,” Katara muttered. 

There was no answer from inside the building, and Zuko ducked his head and entered. He felt Katara follow behind him. 

Inside, everything was pretty dark. Particles of dust and sand caught the limited light through the windows, drawing bright lines across the room. A few chairs were staged around a small table. Otherwise, there wasn’t much of anything. 

Zuko’s brow furrowed. “This has to be it,” he said. “It has to be.” 

“What’s that?” Katara asked. Zuko followed Katara’s outstretched arm to a candelabra in the corner of the room. 

“What?” Zuko asked. 

“That’s a Fire Nation candelabra.”

“Yeah?” Zuko said. 

“Why would there be a candelabra in a beach house?” Katara asked, approaching it. 

“Because it’s dark in here?” Zuko asked. 

Katara ignored him, bending down to look at the pattern on the floor. She traced her fingers there, brushing away sand that must have blown in. “Zuko, it’s marking a trap door.” She scraped away the outline of four corners and a latch.

Zuko lifted the candelabra and put it to the side, allowing Katara to pull up the latch. The door was about two feet by two feet, Zuko thought, and he worried Katara wouldn’t be able to open it with brute strength. But, there was a creak of friction, and the door popped open, revealing a small concrete staircase underneath. Katara set the door carefully on the floor, leaving the passageway exposed.

“Smart,” Zuko said. 

Katara smirked and took the first steps down to the second level, hands on her waterskin. 

It turned out she didn’t need it, though, as the room underneath was just shelves and shelves full of scrolls. With a wave of his hand, Zuko illuminated the room and lit a handful of half-melted candles, stuck at various intervals from the last visitors. In the dim light, Zuko counted ten shelves, with each shelf loaded front and back with scrolls and papers. Without a record-keeper there, there was no indication of how they were organized. 

“What did the record-keeper say we were looking for?” Katara asked.

“He said our records of Avatar Roku are kept here. And he thought there might be stories or journals he wrote about the Avatar State, what it is, and maybe even how to stop it. If there’s anything like that, we could find a way to help Aang.” 

“Did he say which scrolls are the ones from Avatar Roku?”

Zuko paused. He hadn’t even thought to ask. “Um, no,” he said. 

“Great,” Katara said sarcastically. “I guess we start from one.” 

Zuko started on the top of the upper left shelf, and Katara started at the top of the upper right. Zuko pulled out the first scroll, shook it free of sand, and scanned the first line: “On the unbiased traditions and history of the Fire Nation, as written by Xiao Bing.” Nope. He pulled out the next scroll: “Culture and Linguistics in the Fire Nation from 1000 AD to the Present Day.” He sighed. This was going to be a long process. 

Katara moved on to the next shelf when she realized that her entire row was on agrarian practices of the Fire Nation. The next was military history and strategy, which she also skipped, save a small portion that mentioned Avatar Roku’s role in the last war. “They definitely organized these,” she said, “It’s just a matter of figuring out what they put where.” 

Chatting was difficult, because talking interfered somewhat with the rapid reading of scrolls. In between titles, though, Zuko stole looks at Katara. Her eyebrows scrunched together a bit as she read, and her lashes created shadows on her cheeks in the dim light.

Hours passed, and Zuko was starting to get hungry. He pulled open another scroll, this time from the back side of the third shelf. He couldn’t believe it when he read the name “Avatar Roku” in the title. “Katara!” he shouted. “Katara! I think I found the Avatar stuff!” 

He leaned back to look at her. “Come over here!” he said, but his voice lost its energy when he saw that Katara’s eyes were full of tears as she clutched a particular scroll with two hands. 

“Katara? What are you reading?” Zuko asked. 

“Zuko, read this,” she said, offering it to him. 

Confused, Zuko read the title: “A Confession from the Diary of Wei Jun, Servant to the Firelord.” 

He looked at Katara. Katara looked at the scroll again, an indication to keep reading. 

“As retribution for his lack of empathy toward Crown Prince Iroh and the loss of the young Lu Ten, Firelord Azulon commanded Prince Ozai to kill his son, Zuko.” Zuko met Katara’s eyes, then kept reading. “Prince Ozai agreed. I attended to Prince Ozai that night, and overheard many of his plans for how he might kill his son. Some were excessively cruel. 

“The young Zuko was, in my eyes, innocent to the conflict of older men, being only ten years old. I confess that I met privately with Lady Ursa to tell her of the plot.” 

Zuko’s heart was racing, but he could not stop reading. The truth. The truth about what happened to his mother. 

“Lady Ursa met with Prince Ozai, and convinced him to let her kill Firelord Azulon. It was a strategy to allow Prince Ozai to take the throne. Lady Ursa sourced a poison from a private brewer. She administered it to Firelord Azulon, who died painlessly in his sleep that night.

Prince Ozai moved to take the birthright from Crown Prince Iroh, but the Crown Prince was not well after the death of his son and pled no contest. Prince Ozai was then crowned Firelord Ozai. 

“After he had been crowned, Firelord Ozai declared that Lady Ursa was a traitor to the throne, and outed her as Azulon’s killer. This revelation greatly displeased the public, who asked to have her banished. And publicly, this is what Firelord Ozai promised to do. 

“I found Lady Ursa’s body in Firelord Ozai’s chamber not two days later. Her wounds indicated suffocation. It is my testimony and confession that Firelord Ozai,” Zuko paused and took a heavy breath, “...killed Lady Ursa himself.” 

A sob sounded in Katara’s throat. “I’m so sorry Zuko,” she whispered. 

Zuko stared at the page. He read the words again and again. The rest of the account continued the testimony of this Wei Jun, who was also killed by his father after he was allegedly charged as a blood traitor to the Fire Nation. 

“Find me,” his mother had said. Why would she say that if she were dead? 

“This can’t be true,” Zuko said. 

He suddenly remembered the words of his uncle: “If the spirits are visiting you, it is because they trust that you will learn what you need to learn.”

The spirits. 

Peace, the most unlikely of feelings, rushed over Zuko. She was dead. She had been dead, all this time. She never came for him, not because she didn’t love him, but because she was dead. She was not hidden somewhere, like a forbidden treasure just out of his reach. She was dead. Azula was right. It wasn’t that she had run away. She was dead. 

The day his father had called for the Agni Kai, Zuko had built a fantasy in his thirteen-year-old mind that perhaps his mother would come and intervene. That she would escape wherever she was and protect him. And after he was burned, he sat with the healers and called for her, begged for her to come for him. To help him get away, or even to hold him through the pain. And she never came. He thought she abandoned him. Left him to his father, too weak-willed to come back and save her son. 

His mother didn’t abandon him. His mother died for him. She died in his place, to protect him from his father. 

Many feelings, so many that Zuko could not name them all, bubbled up inside him. Odd mixes of loneliness, grief, gratitude, anger, relief, and pre-eminently, guilt. 

How could he have let this happen? She should be alive, it was Zuko who should be dead. Zuko, whose father had hated him so much that he wanted to finish the job when Zuko was only ten. All for what? Power? The same power that Aang would pull from him before he could celebrate any of his achievements. He would have killed his own son.

He could have him killed, Zuko thought. He was the Firelord now, and wouldn’t fair be fair? A life for a life? Ozai had murdered his mother in cold blood, had felt the life drain from his wife, and now he rotted in a cell that Zuko controlled. Zuko could have him executed privately too, could write his witness in a journal and seal it up for years to come. No one would miss the bastard. No one would miss him. 

“Zuko, your bending!” Katara said suddenly. 

Zuko realized he had conjured red hot flames up his arms that were getting dangerously close to the shelves full of old paper. 

“Let’s go upstairs,” Katara said hurriedly, and Zuko was hardly aware of her hands on him, pulling him out of the shack and into the bright afternoon sun. 

“My father…” Zuko said, and the words were a growl, “He killed her.” 

“I know,” Katara said softly. 

Zuko felt like he would drown in this inferno of feelings. “She’s dead!” 

Katara threw her arms around him, holding Zuko tight against her. Her touch felt grating, and Zuko was about to push her away. But she breathed slowly against him, and then she became a raft in the ocean, something to ground him. He leaned into her, and cried. 

Zuko was aware of the passage of time, and he knew he had cried for way too long. 

Eventually, his hug with Katara had dissolved to sitting on the sand. Katara kept her hand on Zuko's back, trying to bolster or calm him, he wasn't sure which. Zuko drew mindless designs in the sand. 

“I kind of already knew she was dead,” he said finally, and he could hear how empty the words sounded. After crying so long, everything he had left was hollow. “I've always wondered why she never came back. Why me and Azula never heard anything. She was dead all along.”

Katara's hand drew winding circles on his back.

“I've…I've been having dreams of her. Dreams where she speaks to me. But the last time I saw her, she didn't say a word to me. Maybe she knew that I would find out the truth.”

“What kind of dreams?” Katara asked, some curiosity piqued in her expression.

“I don't know. Dreams about an ocean, and a cliff, and a storm. And sometimes a dragon. It seems stupid, but when I wake up I can't stop thinking about them.”

Katara's eyes widened. “When is the last time you dreamed about her?”

“Last night,” Zuko said lamely. “That's the first one when she didn't talk to me.”

“Zuko! Why didn't you tell me?” Katara asked.

“What's to tell? I've had these dreams for months. Since my…” Dad, he thought, but he couldn't bring himself to say the word. It felt like poison to him now. “Since the war.”

“Zuko, I've had them too!” Katara said.

“Dreams about my mom?” Zuko asked.

“No,” Katara laughed a little, and Zuko thought it would bother him, but it didn't. “Dreams about my mom. And a little girl. They stand in this shallow water. And a storm is coming in.”

“That's how mine is too.” Zuko said, eyebrows raised.

“And the storm is black, like really black. I don't even know how to describe it. It's not like smoke, it's heavier.”

Zuko nodded. “Does your mother talk to you?”

“Sometimes,” Katara said, and in her eagerness her sentences sped up. “She says odd things, sometimes. It sounds like her, it looks like her, but she says things like ‘Be warned,’ and ‘There's something you–’

“Must do.” Zuko said, repeating the phrase. 

Katara put her other hand on his knee. “Zuko, our dreams are identical.”

“Not exactly. I've never seen a little girl.” 

“The little girl isn't in yours? She's small, and she has brown hair and blue eyes, and she wears a parka.”

“No, she's not there for me.” 

Katara set back, drew her hand back to her face. “I wonder why.”

Zuko still felt disconnected from everything, but he let himself ask anyway. “Do you see the dragon?”

Katara nodded. “A blue dragon.” 

“So it's almost the same,” he said. “I'm just missing the little girl.”

Katara's eyes flicked back and forth, searching his gaze. He knew he shouldn't. Because there was a line. But he looked back, looked deeper into hers. 

Her eyes were so blue, and so kind. And for some reason, the dreams, or fate, or even Aang, she came back across the ocean for him. 

He was very aware of her hand on his back, the closeness of her face. It would be so easy…

“I want to tell you,” Katara said, suddenly breaking away, “I know how it feels to have your mother die. And I want you to know that you don't have to be okay about it. I still…I think of my mother all the time.” Her hands traveled idly to her necklace. “You can grieve openly,” she breathed, “at least when we're together.”

He felt his heart stop at the words “we're together.” Surely she knew what that meant to him. Couldn't she see how he felt about her?

A surge of annoyance shocked his system. 

“Let's go back,” he said abruptly, standing up in the sand. “We still need to find out how to fix Aang.”

Chapter Text

“The Avatar State is a protective mechanism to allow the Avatar to access their full power,” Katara read.

“Yeah, we know that,” Zuko said, skimming through another scroll.

“The Avatar State channels all of the past Avatars, giving the current user access to generations of knowledge, power, and bending,” Katara continued. She looked up. “Aang has talked with past Avatars before. So that must be true. Remember when he channeled Avatar Roku in the temple?”

Zuko remembered, but vaguely. He had been preoccupied with saving his own skin that day.

“But doesn't Aang only use the Avatar State when he's in danger?” Zuko asked. He thought of the many times Katara and Aang had been close to death or capture, most times at his doing. “Er, more danger? Than usual?”  

“Aang still can't control the Avatar State,” Katara said. “At least, not that I know. He mostly gets pulled into it.” 

“Was Aang in danger when he went to the Avatar State in the Southern Water Tribe?”

Katara blushed. “Well, no, not in danger.”

Zuko looked at her quizzically. “You said you were talking.”

“Well…we were. I was,” Katara said.

“Why are you being dicey about it?” Zuko asked. 

“I'm not being dicey! It was the solstice. We went away from the group to have some privacy and to talk.” She looked off to the left, then back to him.

“Did you try to kill him ? Or what did you say, exactly, that triggered the Avatar State?”

“Why are you blaming me? It's not like I can trigger the Avatar State!”

“You did before! In the caves, remember? He was trying to protect you.”

“Well how about this?” Katara said defensively, “I can promise you that I was not in any danger and I was. Not. Trying. To kill him!”

“Why won't you tell the truth?” Zuko shouted.

“What does it matter, anyway! It wasn't my fault that Aang went into the Avatar State and I stand by that!” Katara crossed her arms and turned away. 

“You are so frustrating,” Zuko said, his heat melting away. 

“You're frustrating,” Katara snapped back. 

“But whatever!” Zuko put his hands out, palms facing the floor. “Is there anything else in here that is actually useful?”

“The only other thing it says is that the Avatar State is connected to qi,” Katara sniffed. 

“Qi?” Zuko asked. 

“Yeah, qi, you know, like the living energy of the universe?” Katara said mockingly.

“I know what qi is!” Zuko said. “But Aang's the Avatar. He would never struggle with qi. The Avatar is, like, the embodiment of balanced qi.”

“That's not true,” Katara laughed. “Aang could never balance his qi.”

Zuko looked at her in surprise. “But he's the Avatar!”

“He's also, like, sixteen,” Katara said. 

“You're eighteen,” Zuko said, “and you can bloodbend.”

“Why do you keep bringing that up?” Katara rolled her eyes. 

“I'm just saying, what's more likely: that the Avatar has balanced qi or that a random eighteen-year-old girl is the only living person that can bend people's blood?”

“It's beside the point. If Aang's not in danger, maybe the Avatar State was triggered by an issue with qi. The solstice can be a very powerful time for benders, so it could be that his qi got out of whack,” Katara said matter-of-factly.

“So what, we have to find, like, a qi chiropractor?” Zuko said.

Katara shrugged. “Or something?” she said hopefully. 

“Well we better find it soon, because this scroll says if he dies in the Avatar State…there's no more Avatar.”

After scouring the rest of Avatar Roku’s records, they still hadn't come up with more information. A close association with the Avatar gave them much more insight into the Avatar’s abilities and conditions than Roku had offered in his writings, which were intended for the layman. 

On the stairs out, Zuko ran back for the testimony of Wei Jun, and stuffed it in his traveling tunic. “Azula should know, too,” he murmured, and Katara nodded.

They closed the door and replaced the candelabra. Katara even brushed some sand over the edges to conceal the imprint.

Appa had wandered to find something decent to eat, so they called for him and waited for him to find his way back. The sun was setting now, and their provisions were secured in the saddle. They hadn't eaten all day.

Zuko rubbed his his hand against his head again, trying to make sense of it all. Maybe it was just the lack of food or the tiredness, but a sadness had settled deep in his soul. He wasn't looking forward to another journey home, and all the Firelord stuff he was sure piled on his desk in his study.

Appa returned, and they climbed up his back and into the air before opening their packs. After a quick dinner of fruit and sandwiches, they settled in for the rest of the flight back to the capital.  

It was getting cold, and Zuko could tell Katara was anxious to check on Aang. And if he was being honest with himself, he was too. Aang was safer with Katara there.

“Get some sleep,” Katara said. “I'm going to stay up to think anyway.”

“Are you sure?” Zuko asked. His eyelids were heavy and swollen, but he was ready to resist the exhaustion. 

“You've had a rough day. Get some sleep,” Katara insisted.

Zuko adjusted his shoulders in the saddle, but before he could look at the stars, he slipped into a dreamless sleep.

–

“Zuko. Hey, we're back.” 

Zuko woke in a panic, and he was only slightly comforted when he locked eyes with Katara. 

He looked around, disoriented, at the cherry trees and the imposing columns. Home. 

His heart slowly returned to a normal cadence as the stable hands took care of Appa and he led Katara back into the palace. 

Huan was there to greet them. Zuko could see the questions in his eyes, but Huan was always tactful. He would get the information in his way, without being nosy. 

“How is he?” Zuko asked him.

“The Avatar's vitals are only slightly weaker, your majesty,” Huan bowed. “Healer Tzu believes the lack of food may be the culprit. Otherwise, he remains in the same condition.” 

“Thank you, Huan. I assume I have a lot to catch up on?”

Huan smiled wanly. “Your responsibilities have been noted in a document in your study, along with the associated paperwork and required documentation. Some are rather urgent.”

Zuko sighed. 

“Will Master Katara be needing an escort to her room?” Huan asked. 

“If you could take me to Aang,” Katara said. “I have some theories I'd like to test.”

Huan lifted his eyebrows. “Your trip was a successful one, then?”

“Well, kind of,” Zuko said. “I'll tell you about it later.”

Huan smiled then, eager to be included. 

Zuko turned to Katara. “I know you're going to be with Aang, but would you mind if I caught up on some things first?”

Katara looked confused. “Of course.”

Zuko inclined his head and left Katara in Huan’s capable hands. 

In his study, Huan had placed Toph's weekly letter on the top of the pile. 

Zuko ripped open the seal, half-expecting her weekly update to be filled with odd visits and crushing revelations too. But Toph seemed happy; her letter detailed her usual complaints: the quality of military food and her never-ending boredom. 

Zuko penned a letter to her, trying as he went to be succinct. He finished his letter talking about misaligned qi and asked her if she knew of any qi chiropractors. He half-smiled at his own joke, and set aside the letter for delivery. 

The rest of the paperwork was pedantic at best. He signed on the sale of land, gave budget authorization for the next festival, and signed his council’s next bill, which was part of their conservation efforts in the remote lands of the Fire Nation. 

It was mid-afternoon before he'd finished, but he asked his staff to set up his lunch in Aang's room.

He knocked once before entering, just in time to see Katara spring back from her chair at Aang's bedside. He saw her drop Aang's hand. 

“Should I come back later?” Zuko asked mildly. 

“No, it's fine,” Katara said. 

Zuko wondered desperately where Katara’s mind was. First, she forgave him, something he never thought he would have deserved. But five months ago, she was snuggled under Aang’s arm. Two nights ago, she said leaving him behind made her feel free. Yesterday, she said that Zuko could grieve “when they were together.” But now she sat at Aang’s bedside in what appeared to be an intimate moment. And all of these vague hints didn't give Zuko a clue. 

But she had seemed so close to him on the beach. Was he so deluded into thinking she might want him, too?

“Aang seems pretty much stable,” she said lamely.

“Great,” Zuko said.

“Did you get things done like you needed to?”

“The responsibilities are constant, but yeah, things are under control,” he said. “Did you eat? Or get a shower?” He hoped she didn't think it was weird he asked.

“Um, no, I haven't changed or anything. They did bring me a late breakfast a bit ago.”

“I just asked Huan to bring lunch in here,” Zuko said. “You could go bathe–” he cringed again, telling her to take a bath–”and I'll watch Aang, you know. Make sure things are okay.”

She nodded once, and walked across the room, pausing at the door. But when she looked back, it wasn’t for Aang. “Hey Zuko?” 

“Mm?” 

“You’re a really good Firelord. And a good friend.”

Zuko allowed himself a half-smile. She smiled back. Then she was gone. 

Chapter Text

Zuko wandered around the room for awhile; he created little fireballs in his hand and extinguished them over and over again. 

“Hey buddy,” Zuko said, wandering over to Aang’s bedside. Aang still looked so…odd. The glowing eyes and the open mouth forced Zuko to comfort himself. He’s not dead. He’s alive in there somewhere. 

“Can I talk to you?” Zuko asked. He felt kind of stupid, talking to Aang in a coma. But who knows? Maybe he could hear him. Maybe. 

“Um, look, I’m sorry about what happened with me and Katara before you guys left. I swear to you, there was nothing private about what we were doing, I just didn’t want everybody in my palace to see me with my shirt off, you know.” He sighed. 

“But, um, listen. Because…I need to talk to you about something.” Zuko massaged his palms, and the words tumbled out. “I–I think I like Katara. No, I don’t think, I–I really like Katara. I’ve liked her for a really long time. When Azula turned to blast her, I really had to face it. I’d rather protect Katara and die than live without her. And I’m not trying to be a hero or anything, it’s just—” he tried to put this feeling into words, but it was new, and the words didn’t fit. “The world needs Katara. She’s a good person. She’s really caring, but she’s really powerful. She doesn’t give up on people. Even with me, I–I was so horrible to her. I took her mother’s necklace, I went to war against her people, I tried to kill you—sorry about all that. 

“But she let me move on, and yesterday we found out my mother died. Was killed. Murdered, actually. And she could have been mad, or she could have held it over me, like ‘My mother was killed and it’s the Fire Nation’s fault’ which is true. But she didn’t. She just…she kind of held me. I don’t deserve it.” 

Zuko looked places that weren’t Aang’s face, at his arms and ears, and tried to imagine that he was really talking to his friend. 

“I know you asked her first. And she told me she loves you already… But she’s it for me.” Zuko intended to be honest, but he was almost surprised by how vehemently he felt the words as he said them.

“I have to take my chance with her, or I’ll regret it,” he realized aloud. Again, guilt shot through him. Was he really going to confess to Katara while her boyfriend was in a coma? “You’ve gotta wake up, buddy,” he murmured, pushing Aang gently on the shoulder. “You’ve gotta wake up.”

But how to get him to wake up? A qi master? Someone who could help him find inner balance? But how could they do that without being able to communicate with him? Zuko snorted at the idea of warping Avatar State Aang into yoga poses, his face like a beacon on a lighthouse. 

A deeper, quieter part of him thought that this might all be for nothing. Aang was the most powerful bender in the world. If he couldn't get out of the Avatar State, well, Zuko wondered what a few kids could do about it.

Over the next day, Katara and Zuko tried everything to get Aang’s qi balanced. Katara offered a water massage, trying to hit key chakras in the process. Zuko called every spirituality master available in the capital; they read Aang psalms from the Tao Te Ching, stuck him with acupuncture needles, and lit a variety of (in Zuko’s opinion) nauseating incense. Aang stayed ever corpse-like. 

“What else do we do?” Katara grumbled, throwing her hands in the air. “Wake! Up! Aang!” she shoved his lifeless body, which, through gravity, rolled right back to his original position on the bed. 

“Maybe if we punch him, he’ll wake up.” Zuko said. 

From the way Katara looked at him, he knew she was considering it. 

“Seriously,” Zuko said. “The Avatar State is triggered by danger, right? Maybe he got stuck in transition. Maybe if he’s in danger, he’ll wake up.”

“Would punching him count as danger?” Katara asked. “He’s been hit worse without entering the Avatar State.” 

“Maybe if you really mean it,” Zuko shrugged. “Or I could go get Azula from jail. I bet her proximity to him would snap him out of it in no time.” 

“NO!” Katara bit her lip. “I mean, we don’t need to go that far. If he needs to get punched, I should be the one to do it.” 

“You said you loved him. It probably won’t work coming from you.” 

“I-” Katara stuttered, and a blush rose to her cheeks. “Okay. I said I love him. That’s true. I do love him. But my love for Aang, specifically, comes with a heavy dose of tolerance and annoyance.” She avoided Zuko’s gaze, wringing her hands. “And frustration.” she added. “It’s not like regular love,” she said. 

Zuko smirked. “So you think you can punch him hard enough to make him feel like he’s in danger?” 

Katara’s eyes flashed playfully, and Zuko wondered what she was remembering. “I know I can punch him that hard.” 

She approached Aang’s bedside and breathed deeply, centering herself. Zuko realized rapidly what she was going to do, and shouted “Katara! No!” At that exact moment, Katara’s fist made a solid connection with Aang’s unconscious face. They watched with bated breath, but the only difference was that Aang’s face was now shining light on the opposite side of the room.

“Wha-aat!” Katara shouted. “You told me to punch him!”

Zuko couldn’t help it. He laughed, and loudly. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed so hard. 

Katara turned bright red. “Zuko!! You told me to punch him!” 

“I was joking , Katara! You said yourself he’s been hit harder than that without the Avatar State!” Zuko’s belly hurt from laughing.

“Well!” Katara huffed. “Well! It was worth a shot anyway!” Her face betrayed an abashed grin.

Zuko could only nod soundlessly as he gasped for breath. 

Katara pulled out her waterskin. Zuko watched Aang’s face glow a different kind of blue, and whatever evidence that might have remained of Katara’s actions was swiftly washed away. 

Zuko decided to take his morning meal alone while he attended to work. He signed more documents, read reports, and sent information back to his council. At around 9am, breakfast arrived, and with it, another letter from Toph. “Urgent” was scrawled on the front. Nodding his thanks to the palace staff, he cracked the wax seal.

“Prince Firepants,

I think I wrote to you about my friend Benio. She is in the guard with me. She says she knows someone who can help Aang, someone who learned from a lion turtle. 

Benio says there’s no way the lady will come out of her house, because she’s a rotten hermit living in a secret house on Kyoshi Island. I’ve already written to Suki. Can you meet us there within two days?

Toph”

Zuko reread the letter two more times to make sure he understood it right. A hermit on Kyoshi Island? Who learned from a lion turtle? As far as Zuko knew, lion turtles didn’t even exist. They were a legend, just like anything else. 

But he remembered the Sun People, and his dance with Aang and the dragons. That was real, why not this?

He ran to Aang’s room. “Katara!” he called. When he didn’t hear anything, he rushed out to the hall again and knocked on her door. “Katara!”

Katara opened the door, still in her sleepwear. Zuko couldn’t help his eyes from wandering up and down her body. Why was she so beautiful? “Sorry, I was just so exhausted,” she said. “I meant to be up early to watch Aang, but I had another dream last night—did you?” 

“No, I didn’t.” This information side-tracked him from his original message. “What did you dream?” 

“Funnily enough, I dreamed you and I were on a lion turtle. It probably doesn’t mean anything.” 

Zuko’s jaw dropped. He handed her the letter from Toph. 

He watched her blue eyes scan back and forth as she read. Finally, her eyes met his. “I’ll get ready,” she said, and she shut the door. 

Chapter Text

It was a little tricky, getting things in order. Zuko spent a large part of the morning attending meetings and delegating responsibilities. Two days there, two days back, and an unclear duration of the actual trip…for the Firelord, it was a lot. Zuko thought Huan was going to go bald with stress, or maybe spontaneously combust. 

“It’s the Avatar,” he assured him. “I wouldn’t go unless it were vital for all four nations.”

Huan could only manage a weak smile. “Of course, your majesty.”

Katara was trying to figure out how to best transport Aang. Once the palace staff carried him out on a stretcher, she lifted the stretcher in her water bubble onto Appa's back, and affixed Aang to the saddle with ties. It seemed way too much like carrying a body for burial, but it worked. 

The palace staff offered both the Firelord and his traveling companion large packs with food, water, and a selection of clothing, for which they were very grateful. 

By the time they got into the air, it was mid-afternoon, and they opened one bag in search of lunch less than twenty minutes after they left the capital. 

“Mm, Fire Nation food is so good,” Katara moaned.

Zuko chuckled. “What do you like about it?”

“All your food is so colorful! You have red and yellow and green fruit, purple cabbage! And everything is so spicy! It's like a very present food. It makes me feel alive.” She wiggled her butt in the saddle, a little dance to prove her point.

Zuko cracked a smile. “What's food like in the Southern Water Tribe? Like, your family's food.”

“Sea prunes are so good, don't get me wrong. Also, whalefish blubber is great and it can be made in a million ways. It's…like, chewy, and nutty, and oily,” she counted her fingers as she talked. “Someday I'll take you back with me and we'll make you all the good stuff. You'll be an honored guest,” she said proudly.

“I don't know about that,” Zuko said. “I think your people hate me. And they should.”

Katara's eyes widened with hurt. “My people don't hate you,” she said. “My dad understands everything you did.”

“I was terrible to your Tribe, Katara. Even if they forgave me, there's nothing I can do to take that back.”

“I forgave you,” Katara said softly. 

“I can never deserve that, Katara,” Zuko replied. 

“We can't live forever in the past,” Katara said firmly. “Hope means looking to the future. It means accepting that things and people change.”

“Do you really believe that?” Zuko asked.

Katara thought for a minute, looking out over the horizon. The sun was sinking lower in the sky, giving the world below an orange glow. She spoke slowly: “I do. I'm different now, why shouldn't anyone else be?”

Her ideas of the future drew him in. Katara believed so fiercely in hope, that things could be better. Zuko lived his whole life trying to survive in a broken world, to make broken things suit him. Katara believed in actually fixing them.

He wanted it. He wanted her. He remembered what he told Aang…he had to take his chance.

“Katara, I want things to be different,” Zuko said.

She must have sensed the change in his tone, because while she half-laughed, her eyes were serious: “What do you mean?”

“For us. For me and you.” He looked at her desperately, hoping she would understand what he was trying to say. Hoping she felt the same way. “Katara, I really, really like you. I know things are complicated…” 

“I can't,” she said quickly.

Zuko couldn't hide the pain that crossed his face and settled deep in his chest. “Why?” 

“For so many reasons, Zuko.”

Another gut punch.

She laced her fingers together. “There's just a lot. You're the Firelord. I live on the other side of the world. I'm my father's only daughter. I'm…weirdly tied up with Aang.”

“But you're not with Aang, are you?” Zuko meant to ask her, but it came out more as a statement of fact.

“No,” Katara admitted. “At least, I don't think.”

Zuko arched a brow. 

“I haven't been totally honest with you,” she said, resting her fingers on her brow. 

Zuko waited. 

“I told you before that Aang and I really have not seen eye-to-eye. What I didn't really say is how much we tried to work things out. Every time we fought, we would apologize and everything would go back to normal. 

“On the day of the solstice, he was angry with me because I made a joke that embarrassed him.”

Zuko's brow arched higher. 

Katara sighed. “Fine. What I said was that Firelord Ozai would have never expected to be beaten by someone so immature.”

She spread her hands defensively. “I said it in front of everyone. And I shouldn't have. It was rude and not necessary, and I understand it completely. But I meant it as a joke, because everyone else had been joking around too.”

If she expected a physical reaction from Zuko, she didn't get one. 

“Anyway, Aang was furious. I've never seen him so mad. He and I went outside the feast tent and he shouted at me. I embarrassed him, I was his girlfriend, what would people think if I treated him that way, all of this stuff. 

“So I got mad, because he was always so touchy about stupid stuff, but only when it affected him, not when people said mean things about me. And I told him we were one hundred percent done. I told him I didn't want to see him around anymore, and I told him to leave the Tribe and go find somewhere else to stay for awhile.”

“And then he went in the Avatar State?” Zuko asked. 

“Well,” Katara said, her voice pitched up a notch higher. “Then he tried to kiss me, so I pushed him back on the ice with my bending. And then he went into the Avatar State.”

“You pushed him? Did you knock him out or something?” Zuko asked incredulously.

“I don't think so. I know my bending pretty well. I wasn't intending to hurt him, really.  I was just trying to get away. He fell, but he didn't get up after that.”

“Oh my god.”

“And that's kind of why I came by myself. Everybody at home knows that me and Aang were on-and-off, but most of them, including my dad, think that my ‘explosive reaction’”--she put the words in air quotations–”made Aang like that .” She gestured behind them on the saddle. 

“So they're pissed,” Zuko said shortly. 

Katara nodded. “Yeah,” she said, suddenly subdued. “He's the Avatar, you know? He's our salvation . At home, everybody loves him. And I'm just some girl that waterbends,” she finished. 

“Katara, you're so much more than that,” Zuko said. 

Katara shrugged, her throat tight. 

Zuko said the words he wished someone had said to him all those years ago: “It's not your fault.”

“It is, though,” Katara said. “If I hadn't made the joke, if I hadn't riled him up like that…”

“Katara,” Zuko said, putting his hands on her two shoulders to face her directly, “That was not your fault. Do you hear me?” 

Katara nodded, but her face betrayed a mix of emotions. Something was niggling at the back of Zuko’s mind. “Wait, he tried to kiss you?” he asked. 

“Yeah, like boyfriends do,” Katara said. “I just didn’t want to.” 

“No no no, help me understand. You said, ‘Get away from me forever,’ and he tried to kiss you, at that point?”

“Basically,” Katara said nonchalantly. 

“What the hell?” Zuko scrunched his nose in disgust.

“What? Should I have kissed him?” Katara asked defensively. 

“Hell no!!” Zuko turned over his shoulder to Aang and shouted at him, “You deserved that punch! And when you wake up, you might get another one!” 

Appa grumbled at them. They were about to descend into a cloud. 

“Wait, wait, wait.” The details of Katara’s story were settling in Zuko’s mind now. “You made a stupid joke, Aang got pissed, you told him to go away, he tried to kiss you, you made him back off, and he went into a coma,” he said it more for his benefit than for hers, “And then you watched him day and night, trying to heal him, for an entire week before you came to the Fire Nation by yourself?” 

“Yep.” 

“The guy you never wanted to see again.” 

“Well, it’s complicated.” 

“Right,” Zuko said sarcastically. “The guy you love, but not in a ‘normal’ type of love. Because normal type of guys don’t kiss girls when they tell them to go away forever.”

Katara blushed. “Don’t be mean to him, he’s just thoughtless sometimes.” 

Zuko felt his flames flicker in his fingers. “Thoughtless would be an understatement. Because you also said he’s done shit like this before.” 

Katara shifted in the saddle, as if she didn’t want to reveal anything else.

“He has, hasn’t he?” 

“He doesn’t mean to be rude like that. He just literally doesn’t think about what he’s doing.”

“He doesn’t think about you, in other words,” Zuko said acridly. “How many times have you had to defend him like this? Has your whole life for the last five months just been taking Aang’s shit and making excuses for him?” 

“I make mistakes too!” Katara said. “And don’t get mad at me for giving people second chances, because if I didn’t give you a second chance we wouldn’t be here,” she said haughtily. 

“Yeah, thank you for that, but the difference between me and Aang is I’ve tried to be worthy of your forgiveness!” Zuko’s voice sounded raw. He didn’t understand exactly why his feelings were boiling like this, but he was getting angrier by the second. “You forgave me, and I told you I will never deserve it. But I’ve done my best to do good by you since. I would never—” he scoffed. “I could never treat a girl like that. Especially not you.” 

They stared each other down, each breathing hard, arms crossed over their chests. Zuko tried to read her expression, but he couldn’t. She was inscrutable to him. “Especially not you,” he repeated. Her eyes were trained on him, she didn’t look away even for a second. 

Without warning, she closed the space between them, crushing her lips to his. She surrounded him, her arms heavy on his shoulders, her fingers pressing him closer. 

He kissed her back with a ferocity. She was everything he had imagined. Soft brown skin, hot breath. He parted his lips, and let his hands wrap up and around her back. Being kissed by her was something else entirely. He felt a heat rise up inside him, like he could bend for hours. She felt like his personal fire under his hands: hot and barely controlled, an inferno that could take him at any second. She was a force, and he had to have more. He pulled her tighter against him, moving his lips in ways that felt both foreign and comfortable. She gasped. 

Zuko pulled back, leaving his face just inches from hers. “Are you okay?” he asked breathlessly. He studied her eyes, chest heaving. 

She nodded ‘yes’ and her eyes were endlessly tender. Had she ever looked at him like that before? Her hand slid to his cheek, gently skimming his scar. She lowered her lashes to look at his lips again, bringing them to hers.

When the inferno was getting too much for Zuko to contain, he broke the kiss again. Night had settled now, and stars were twinkling in between swaths of dark clouds. “Katara…” he said, tasting her name on his lips. 

“Mmm?” she replied. 

Zuko was fascinated by her. She was a sure threat, ready to call a tidal wave at any second. She was a caretaker, watching those around her with a sure vigilance and steady hands. But this was a new side to her, something that Zuko had never seen. It was more than just sweetness, it was more .  

She was tucked against him now, snuggled into his chest. 

And he was more. With her head on his chest, he perceived a deep, almost animal instinct to protect her at all costs. It was the lightning blast times a thousand. He let his hands brush into her hair, let his fingertips trail down her back. Feelings flooded through him again, some he was too scared to name. He swore he had felt more emotions in the last few days with her than he had in cumulative months without her.

“Is being with you always like this?”

Chapter Text

Katara laughed. “Probably,” she said. She looked at Zuko’s smile again. “Is that okay with you?” 

“Um, yeah, sure,” Zuko said. His mind was going a million miles a minute, trying to process everything that had just happened—was happening, as Katara traced shapes in his forearm. Every sensation was heightened. 

“You’re so different than I imagined,” Katara murmured. “It’s…easy. With you.” 

Zuko nodded. He understood what she meant. They flowed together, somehow. But it was all so new, and he was terrified he’d break it. 

“Are you cold? Or hungry again?” Zuko asked. 

Katara brought a hand to her arm. “Is it bad if we have two dinners?” she asked apologetically. 

“Honestly, I’m starving,” Zuko said, reaching back for the pack. As he turned, he saw Aang. He felt sick to his stomach when he looked at him. He passed the pack to Katara. “Grab something for yourself, I gotta check on Aang.” 

Katara opened the bag, but he could feel her eyes on him as he scooted over to where Aang was fastened. Zuko put his hands on the Avatar’s forehead, and when he determined Aang was at a normal temperature, he checked his pulse. Aang’s heartbeat was scarily slow.

Kyoshi Island was about a day and a half’s journey from the capital, Zuko thought, and they’d left in the afternoon…so another full day’s journey to go. They’d probably have to take a quick stop or two near the southern air temple for Appa to graze. They’d probably get to Kyoshi Island two mornings from now. Could Aang manage that long? He was already weeks without food. 

It was funny, he thought, that a full day alone with Katara after their first kiss, far away from his responsibilities at the palace, should have been heaven. But now it was tainted with the worry that everything they’d done may be in vain after all. 

“Hang in there, buddy,” he said softly. 

Zuko shimmied back over to Katara, trying to stay low to avoid the wind. 

“How is he?” she asked, a worry line creased in her forehead. 

“He’s basically the same. I hope we make it in time,” Zuko said honestly. 

“And I hope Toph’s friend knows what she’s talking about,” Katara muttered. 

Zuko made a noise of assent. He hoped so too.

When the night got too late, Katara proposed to stay up with Appa and Aang while Zuko got some sleep, and then they’d switch. 

Zuko wanted to ask her to sleep with him, but he bit his tongue. 

Still, as he lay down, Katara reached for his hand. Surprised, Zuko took it, and fell asleep reliving moments over and over in his mind. 

The black clouds rolled in on the horizon. Zuko stood barefoot in the shallow water; it lapped against the top of his feet. But his mother was nowhere to be found. 

“Mom!” Zuko shouted. “Mom!” 

Wait, wasn’t his last dream further from the clouds? Toxic, billowing, coal smoke clouds, nearly upon him, nearly grasping at him. It was air, but for the terror he felt, they could have been obsidian mouths, or hands, seeking to devour him whole. 

“Mom! Where are you?” Zuko shouted. He could run, but where? The clouds were everywhere. 

“Zuko!” 

Someone had called him, someone he knew. Zuko whipped his head back and forth, but the blackness was closing in on him, obscuring his vision. 

“Mom?” he shouted again. 

“Zuko!” 

It wasn’t his mother’s voice.

He woke up.

Katara rushed to him as he woke, said that he was thrashing. When he saw her, Zuko felt more settled, but he quickly related his dream to Katara. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, ready to swap with her, no matter how long it’d been. He didn’t want to go back to the black clouds.

“I don’t want to sleep now,” Katara said plaintively. “I’m going to have weird dreams like you.”

“Maybe yours will be different.” He said it to comfort her, but even he knew that there wasn’t a high likelihood of it. “You have the girl in the parka.” 

Katara seemed to believe him, though, and she agreed to go lie down.

Zuko offered her the same courtesy she had: he slid his open palm toward her, an invitation. 

She smiled, and wrapped her fingers in his. It was a long time before she fell asleep. 

After a few hours, Zuko heard a gasp. His head snapped around, his immediate thought being Aang’s final breaths. But Aang was fine. It was Katara who was shuddering, gasping. A nightmare, Zuko thought. She’s probably stuck in the clouds. 

Gently, he tucked Appa’s reins under the seat and slid down the few feet to where she lay. Would this be okay with her? He didn’t know. Her eyes were closed, but her face was twisted up in fear. He had to help somehow. 

Softly, gingerly, Zuko touched her cheek. He warmed his palm, like he was going to heat some tea, and stroked his thumb over her skin. He felt silly; what did he know? But it seemed like something his mother would do. Instinctively, he hushed Katara like he might hush a baby, whispering platitudes over and over again. 

She seemed to settle; her face relaxed. He could have gone back to the front, he should have, probably. But he worried about what might happen if he left her, so he stayed a long, long time. 

To no one’s surprise, Katara’s dreams were almost word-for-word copies of Zuko’s. “The voice sounded like Aang,” Katara said. 

“Aang? Mine wasn’t Aang,” Zuko refuted. 

“I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure mine was him.” 

They had a quick breakfast, and Zuko couldn’t help but notice that things felt distinctly new between them. Sure, she worried fiercely about Aang, running her healer’s diagnostics and coming up with nothing but grim news every few hours. But otherwise, Katara was less-guarded, laughed easier, and joked more. They talked about everything. 

Zuko found her intoxicating. He had been thinking all day about her kiss, and when they talked, he spent a fair amount of time looking at her lips. There was an invisible boundary between them, and now that it had been breached once, he fantasized about ways he might breach it again. 

Tonight, dusk had turned the mountain islands pink, a vibrant gradient that was slowly transitioning to its natural deep blue as the sun sunk lower into the sea. They took a quick break, Appa had gotten something to eat, and they were back in the air. So, in his estimation, it was about twenty-four hours from their first kiss that Zuko decided he simply couldn’t take it anymore. She was talking about something, but he honestly hadn’t been able to focus on much beyond her for at least ten minutes. 

“Katara, I–” he interrupted her, reached for her. He didn’t know how to finish his sentence. He wanted her, and he didn’t want to have to spell it out. He cupped his hand behind her head, bringing her close to him. He met her eyes, asking. 

When she closed her eyes and moved into him, he knew the answer was yes. 

Their second kiss was more hesitant than the first. It was slow and soft. Zuko tried to memorize the way her lips moved against his, tried to gauge what she liked. He let his arms fall to her waist, feeling her curves in his hands. He was doing okay until she put both hands on his chest. Her fingers dragged down his pectorals to his ribs. 

Trying to control himself, trying to control the intensity that she lit in him, he had to break away. 

“Did I do something wrong?” she asked. “Does your chest still hurt from before?” 

“Uh, no,” Zuko said. “The opposite, actually.” 

Katara looked at him, and a blush colored her cheeks and nose. “Sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“Katara, it feels good,” he said, and shame shot through him at how honest he was being. Where was his Firelord’s decorum? He kissed her a third time, a swift peck on the lips. “You’re beautiful. And I want this,” he brushed her hair over her shoulder. “I just have boundaries to keep to, especially when we’re on top of a bison next to your glowing ex-boyfriend.”

Katara blushed harder. “Okay,” she squeaked. 

“You’re kind of cute when you’re embarrassed,” Zuko said. 

“I’m not embarrassed!” Katara said. 

“Kind of looks like you are.”

“Well, I’m not.” 

“Not yet.” 

“What do y–” The rest of her phrase was cut off by another show of Zuko’s affection.

Between his fierce draw to her, and the drumbeat chant of “the line, the line, the line” that echoed in his mind when she was close to him, he didn’t have the capacity to worry about much of anything else. 

Chapter Text

By late morning of the next day, Kyoshi Island was visible, and Zuko could only assume Katara was burying the same mix of fear and anticipation that he was. As they descended, the island’s evergreen trees came into focus, blanketed in snow. 

“Zuko, look!” Katara shouted. Right outside the tiny palisade, two tiny figures were waving excitedly. “It’s gotta be Sokka and Suki!”

Appa landed with a thwump on the winter soil, and Katara rushed back to untie Aang. Zuko grabbed their packs.

“Katara!!” Sokka shouted, approaching the bison, “And Zuko!” 

Zuko slid off Appa’s back first, dumping the packs on the ground. Out of habit at this point, he offered a hand to Katara, who took it and landed lightly next to him.  

After her feet hit the ground, Zuko dropped her hand. Did he hold her hand too long? Should he have offered it at all? Was it immediately obvious to Sokka what had transpired between him and his sister on their two day journey? 

Sokka approached and offered a fist bump. “Wow, dude, I forgot how Firelord-y you look these days! Nice hair!” he said. Sokka himself looked much older than Zuko had remembered him, just five months ago. His wolf-tail had grown out, and he sported pointed black eyeliner similar to Suki’s, though, Zuko noted, he was missing the facepaint and the lipstick. 

Zuko smiled and ran his hands through his own shoulder-length hair awkwardly. “Thanks, it’s tradition, that’s all,” he mumbled. 

“Hey, little sis,” Sokka said. Katara smiled, and they embraced tightly. The war had made them closer, and being apart must have brought a tenderness to that relationship Zuko was not accustomed to. 

“Hi guys,” Suki waved. “How was the trip?” Suki was done up in her Kyoshi warrior makeup, and the gold crown she wore was both beautiful and intimidating. 

“Suki!” Katara said, and rushed to embrace her. 

“How’s everything, Katara?” Suki asked, and her tone indicated that Toph had probably informed them of the severity of the situation. 

Katara pulled back from the hug, and shifted uncomfortably. “Well…” She opened her waterskin, and a rope of water reached up to engulf Aang. She lifted him from Appa, who rumbled, and brought him to a water suspension just inches from the ground. 

“So this is it,” Suki said, inspecting the Avatar’s glowing eyes and mouth.

“Toph wrote us a long letter,” Sokka said nonchalantly, “Or rather, Benio did. And while I’m kinda pissed you didn’t think to write your brother about your boyfriend getting stuck in the Avatar State, I’m not holding it against you.” 

Zuko and Katara exchanged glances. “Thanks for understanding,” Katara said sarcastically. 

“No one in the Fire Nation knew how to help, huh?” Suki asked, turning to Zuko. 

“I called all of the spiritual leaders and healers at my disposal, but no one knew what to do,” Zuko said. “We tried a lot of different things–” Zuko ignored Katara’s worried expression; he wasn’t going to share the exact methodology of their attempts–”but he’s stuck like that.” 

“Interesting,” Suki said softly, reaching to lift Aang’s arms, which fell limply to his sides. 

“He looks like a total dweeb with his mouth glowing like that,” Sokka said. “We’d better hope Benio knows what she’s talking about so the Avatar’s pride isn’t hurt for any longer than necessary.” 

Suki rolled her eyes. “Toph and Benio got here a few hours ago, but they’re warming their feet by the fire. Can you bring Aang in like that, Katara? Or should I call some warriors to carry him?” 

“I think I can manage,” Katara said. 

Zuko took note that they did not head to the capital building at the end of the road, but rather, to a private residence that seemed to house Sokka and Suki independently. He wondered idly if Sokka and Suki living together was a big deal in Kyoshi Island, but he hadn’t heard of any other Kyoshi warriors marrying, or finding partners at all, really. So maybe they were carving their own path. 

Regardless, the rooms were simple and lacked much decoration at all. Weapons were everywhere, though. Zuko’s eyes counted at least six in the main room, including Trusty Boomerang, which had a place of honor, hung up on the wall. 

In front of a roaring fireplace, two girls sat with their bare feet up. 

“About time you showed up!” Toph said, a sly smile on her face. 

Zuko grinned. “Hi Toph,” he said, reaching over the chair to embrace her. Maybe Sokka and Katara weren’t the only ones who had experienced absence making hearts grow fonder. 

Toph pat Zuko’s shoulder awkwardly. “Glad you’re here, Firepants.” 

“Um, Suki, where can I…?” Katara asked. 

“Oh, um,” Suki said, realizing the problem. “Sokka, would you go grab a futon?” 

“Anything for you, my angel,” Sokka said, bowing dramatically, and he disappeared into another room. 

“Guys, this is Benio,” Toph said. “Benio, say hi.”

Benio was nothing like Zuko had imagined. She was tall and very tidy, down to her fingernails. Like Toph, she wore an Earth Kingdom guard tunic in deep green, with a large, wide belt, and leg wraps that exposed her bare toes. Her black hair was slicked back into a tight bun that sat precisely on the crown of her head. Even with Toph’s upperclass hairstyle and fancy headband, looking at Benio made Toph look like she’d been run over by a horsebear. 

“Hello,” she said politely. 

Sokka rolled out the futon, and Katara laid Aang to rest there, in the corner of the room. Zuko noticed the same watery caresses from before; his body was laid so gently, he would have hardly felt the ground if he were awake. But Zuko now saw Katara’s act as less of an act of love for Aang, and more a representation of the tender heart that was tied to her character. He smiled inwardly, thinking of her. 

“So, how’s the little twerp?” Toph called. 

“Just comatose,” Sokka called. “His eyes and mouth are glowing like a zombie flashlight.” 

“The sooner we head out to see my friend, the better,” Benio said quickly. 

“How far is it from here?” Katara asked. 

“I’m not sure,” Benio replied. 

“Well, I’ve been thinking about what you said. If she lives by the village at the foot of the mountain, it should only be, at most, a two hour walk.” 

“Ugh,” Toph grumbled. “Can’t we take Appa?” 

“Maybe two years ago, when we were all a little younger, Appa could have taken us all,” Katara said. “But seven adults would probably be a bit much for him.” 

“Toph only counts as half an adult,” Sokka said. “Midget-sized, you know,” he lifted and lowered his hands as if to measure.

“Sokka’s so small he doesn’t count at all,” Toph smirked. “Isn’t that right, Suki?”

Suki looked at the ceiling and tapped her chin. “Funny, that’s not how I remember it.” 

Sokka puffed out his chest proudly. 

“Okay, well that was enough weird banter about the size of my brother,” Katara said. “I’m so sorry, Benio, we just met and you’re already seeing the less civilized side of our company; I’m sure you didn’t travel all this way to hear such crude—” she shot a dirty look at Toph, “and insensitive—” another look at Sokka, “comments.” 

“I used to share a tent with Sokka,” Zuko said thoughtfully. “He has nothing to be ashamed of.” 

“Zuko!” Katara said, aghast. 

“Yeaaaahh-ha-heh!” Sokka said, offering another fistbump. Sokka threw one arm around Zuko’s shoulders. “Just two well-endowed bros, hanging out in the Earth Kingdom.” 

Katara blushed scarlet. Suki slapped Sokka on the back of the head. 

“Good thing Aang’s knocked out…” Toph muttered. “Not that he’d be able to participate in this conversation anyway.”

Benio put a hand to her mouth, in a silent shock. “Is…is the Avatar…castrated?”

“WHAT?” Toph burst into laughter. 

“He’s a monk.” Benio said quietly, as if that explained everything. 

“You could ask Katara,” Sokka said, waggling his eyebrows. 

Katara blushed so red she was purple. 

“Katara’s dating Aang,” Suki supplied. 

Zuko glanced at Katara. Katara looked at the ground. Zuko wondered if she really did know about the size of Aang’s—

“So anyway!” Katara said, and her voice was high enough to hit the rafters. “We should get going.”

Benio nodded seriously. 

Zuko wondered why he’d never thought to ask. 

Getting Aang to a remote village on Kyoshi Island presented a bit of a problem. Sure, Katara could water-womb him all the way there, but she’d be exhausted, and to the party, it didn’t seem fair to have her carry the load herself. Neither earthbending nor firebending offered a similar solution. With the uncertain location and large group, Appa was a no-go. And Toph was frustrated that they’d told their litter and escort to head home and pick them up in a week or so. 

Left with no other option, they did it the Kyoshi Warrior way: to slap Aang on a stretcher, and let four unlucky volunteers carry him on their shoulders. 

Zuko, of course, carried one corner. Sokka carried another. The girls fought a bit over it, but ultimately Toph missed the opportunity because of her height—one corner so low to the ground did not make for efficient transportation, not to mention the high likelihood that Aang might fall. 

Benio was the closest in height to the boys, so she got a corner. It was argued that if someone fell, Katara would be the only one who could bend in time to save Aang from smacking the ground, so the last corner fell to Suki. 

They headed out on the well-worn footpath to the village, and luckily, it had been walked enough that their resident earth-benders didn’t have to trudge through much snow. When it got deep, Katara melted it and cleared the path forward. 

Even with the burden, Sokka was cheerfully marching along. He sighed contentedly. “Isn’t this nice, everybody? Back on the road again, trying to save the world?” 

“Yeah, I gotta be honest, I’ve missed you guys. Aside from Zuko, nobody ever writes,” Toph said. And then, a moment later, “Ooh, I can tell that’s a touchy subject for some of you! Heart rates went wild there for a second. Who wants to confess first?”

“I actually have something to confess,” Katara said, and Zuko’s eyes widened in shock. No way was she going to bring this up now. No way! Of course, not that he didn’t want them to know that he was in love with Katara, or that he’d been smashing his face against hers for the last forty-eight hours—just that there was a correct time and place for things like that, and a muddy trail with the Avatar on a stretcher did not feel like that time. 

He tried to nod surreptitiously, indicating to her that she should shut up. 

“Zuko and I have been having weird dreams,” she finished. 

“Like cactus-juice type dreams?” Suki asked, and when met with surprised glances: “Wha-at? I heard about it.” 

“Or like the type of dream when you murder somebody with your bare hands?” asked Toph.

“What? No,” Katara said. “We’ve been having the same dreams, on the same nights.” She explained about the black clouds, about the shallow lake, about their mothers. As she finished talking about the weird voice, she looked at the group. “Haven’t you guys had any weird dreams?” Zuko heard the hopeful note in her voice, but her question was met with silence. Her shoulders slumped. “Really? Nothing?” 

“I dreamed once that all my teeth fell out and I was standing naked in a room full of Fire Nation soldiers,” Sokka said. 

“Dreams can be communications from the spirit world,” Benio said suddenly. “They can be premonitions of things to come, or they can be indications of a mistake made in the past. Dreaming like this is serious. This is something you’ll want to bring up to my friend.”

“You have the exact same dreams, Zuko?” Suki asked thoughtfully. 

“Nearly identical,” he replied.

“And it started when Pretty Pretty Princess came to the Fire Nation?” Toph asked. 

“No,” Zuko said. “I’ve had dreams like this since my father was defeated.” 

“Mine started after the war, maybe six months ago,” Katara nodded. 

“But you can’t meet up in your dreams?” Suki asked. 

“Meet up?” Katara asked. “What do you mean?”

Suki’s eyes were curious. She approached the problem with the same surgical precision that Zuko had learned to admire in her. “Well if you’re dreaming of the same thing at the same time, don’t you think maybe you’re in the same place in the spirit world? You’ve never tried to look around and find each other?” 

“The dreams are random. I don’t know what night it’s going to happen, and in the last few nights, we’ve been taking turns watching Aang,” Zuko said. 

“Well why don’t you two sleep together tonight and see if you can make it work?” Toph winked, and it was obvious she was leaning into the overtones of what she’d said. Katara turned pink. 

“I’ll do it,” Zuko said quickly. 

“M–me too,” Katara mumbled. “Thanks Suki, it’s a good idea.”

“Be careful,” Benio said ominously. Zuko could not understand why this chick was friends with Toph. “It’s easy to get lost in the spirit world.”

Chapter Text

When they took a rest, Katara sought out Zuko. They'd placed Aang in the cleanest spot they could find. Sokka and Suki had collapsed together on the ground nearby, rubbing their shoulders. Toph and Benio had likewise paired up. It looked like Toph was telling an animated story; Benio was standing next to her at a distance that Zuko was inclined to believe was more than friendly. Even so, Benio’s facial expressions did not offer any insight to what she was thinking. 

So it was only natural for Katara to come to Zuko's side, Zuko thought, and of course no one would think anything odd of it. Zuko tried to remember his training in politics, about keeping a carefully maintained facade. He buried his memories of Katara's lips, which flashed in his mind at the most inappropriate times, back behind his mental wall.

“What did you think of Suki's idea?” Katara said, her tone low enough that Zuko understood the conversation to be private. 

Zuko kept his voice even: “We have to try everything for Aang.”

“To be honest, I didn't really think the dreams were a representation of the actual spirit world until she said that. Did you?”

“I've never really been to the spirit world, but I guess it could make sense.”

“Why would we–you and me–be the only ones seeing the spirit world?”

To this, Zuko sincerely had no answer. It wasn't proximity to Aang; Zuko’d had dreams even while Aang and Katara were a world away. It wasn't unique to firebenders or waterbenders. It wasn't unique to dead moms–Sokka would be getting them too. 

Zuko didn't consider himself particularly spiritual. He only mediated when he really needed to clear his mind, and he didn't know Katara to be in the business of analyzing qi either.

His mom had talked about balance and all things being one. But this wasn't one, it was two. Two people with dreams. To Zuko, there was no pattern or indication of why it was happening at all. And now that he'd gotten over the initial comfort of finding someone who understood, the unknown methods behind the dreams felt deeply unsettling to him. 

“I don't know,” he admitted. 

“What if we don't dream again?” Katara asked. 

Zuko thought the probability of that was unlikely. 

“What if we're somehow connected to Aang? What if we have to get him out?”

“I guess we sleep tog–next to each other and find out,” Zuko said. He was tingling at the repeated use of the word “we.”

Katara nodded, and Zuko saw the face of determination that he knew so well. Her blue eyes glinted. She was resolved to figure this out, and he trusted her. 

“Well, folks, not far to go,” Sokka said loudly, stretching his arms. 

Benio nodded once, a solemn look in her eyes.

They arrived to the village, and it wasn't noteworthy. To Zuko's eyes, it looked like every other village in the Earth Kingdom.  Benio said she believed her friend lived further near the foothills, and at that point, they had to leave the road. Zuko was secretly pleased to be headed into the wilds; the village looked boring. 

Benio swapped with Katara, then, for her spot in Aang's entourage, and took the lead of the group at Toph's side. They traveled beyond the village to a rockier mountainside. It was mostly scrub brush covered in snow, but a few pitiful looking evergreens broke up the monotony. It did not look like the place where any person would live, let alone a place where they would find a qi master trained by a lion turtle.

Zuko didn't know what he was expecting, but it was not whatever Benio was doing. As the leader, she showed no signs of anticipation, nor did she engage with the group.

What she did was stomp once, in the dirt. 

Then it was still. 

She stomped again. 

Benio cocked her head, as if she were listening. 

“That way,” she said flatly. Benio pointed in the direction of…nothing?

Toph nodded enthusiastically at Benio's pronouncement, so most everybody shrugged their shoulders and kept walking.

Another hundred feet or so and Benio stomped. 

It went on this way for about a half an hour.

Finally, Benio said simply, “Found her.”

“Who, exactly?” Sokka said. “There's nobody here.”

Toph grinned, pointing down with her finger.

There was a rumble in the earth, a low, thundering. Stones at their feet began to shake.

Earthquake? Earthbender attack? Out of habit, they sprang into action. Katara snapped a water whip, wrapping it around Aang protectively. Zuko conjured a fireball, stepping forward slightly to cover Katara. 

On the other side of him, Suki had pulled a fan from her sleeve, and she was watching the environment with hunter’s eyes. Sokka had one hand on a concealed weapon in his tunic.

Sand, dirt, and sagebrush vibrated, split, and fell by the wayside as something emerged from the ground. At first he thought it was a forest, great sweeping stalks of spiked plants. Then his eyes adjusted, and he saw that they weren’t plants, but massive hairy legs. Each leg was at least the size of a tree trunk, and was divided in four separate sections. Each leg was splayed across the dirt, reaching and tapping. The legs connected at what must have been the head, but no eyes were visible beyond the two giant furry mandibles, which quivered. 

Zuko tensed again, and the flames in his hand flickered. 

Its abdomen was wrapped up into a huge striped shell, maybe the size of a small Fire Nation boat. The shell was shiny and slightly metallic looking, with the stripes just a shade darker brown. 

“What the hell is that?” Sokka shrieked. 

“It’s a tarantula-snail,” Benio said matter-of-factly. 

“I’m so sorry, Suki, but now that I know that this lives here, I fear we’re going to have to move,” Sokka said. 

From the centermost curve of the shell, a small door opened, and a person stepped gingerly out, on top of one of the legs, and down to meet their party. 

It was a woman, Zuko thought, wearing black robes and a black headcovering. Her robes were lined with thick white embroidery, some kind of pattern or message stitched in the borders. As she moved, necklaces and trinkets around her neck and waist clinked together, a tack tack tack sound. 

“We have little time,” she said, by way of greeting. Her voice was gravelly and aged, like she would lose her voice if she spoke too long. She looked over their group, at Aang on the stretcher. “Bring the Avatar,” she said, and turned back toward the tarantula spider, who lifted a leg and deposited her next to the shell door. 

Benio nodded sagely, and gripped Toph’s arm. Together, they followed her, standing next to the leg and waiting to be lifted up. Once at the door, Benio helped Toph over the lip of the shell, and they went inside. 

Zuko lifted an eyebrow at Katara, and she looked back, shrugging. 

“Are we doing this?” Sokka’s voice edged on panic. “You guys are cool with this? Why am I the only one talking? We’re literally going to carry the Avatar up the legs of a giant tarantula and go inside its shell with the crazy lady?” 

Katara’s brows lowered, her face of determination. “We don’t have a choice.” She opened her water skin, enveloping Aang in water, and carried him off the stretcher. Zuko wasn’t letting her go in there without him. He maneuvered the empty stretcher to the ground, and followed her to one of the giant legs. He tried to avoid looking at the mandibles, which gave him the distinct worry that he would be swallowed whole. 

Katara moved Aang in front of her, and climbed up the first section of the leg, like the woman did. Zuko was somewhat surprised to find that the giant hairs were somewhat soft. Nothing like Appa, but more like the coarse hair of a zebra-horse’s mane. 

Katara wobbled, though, and Zuko realized she was struggling using two hands to bend while balancing on the tarantula-snail’s leg. Without thinking, he came up behind her and settled a hand on her waist. The other hand he left extended, to keep them balanced. The leg lifted up, and Zuko held Katara steady as they approached the shell. 

Peering into the shell, they saw a glimpse of white path leading to the left. The smell of herbs wafted down from whatever was inside. 

Zuko kept his hands on her waist as Katara pushed Aang’s body forward, through the hole. His face immediately illuminated the tunnel. Katara ducked in afterward, and Zuko followed suit. Upon entering, Zuko was aware of how tight the tunnel was, and how close his body was to Katara’s. He could hear her breathing, the sound amplified by the low ceilings of the shell. 

They went forward, slowly, and the tunnel quickly inclined upward; the floor became the ceiling as they ascended one of the coils in the shell. After about six steps, they jumped to the ceiling-turned-floor and were met with an unexpected space. 

The shell had been carved out, somewhat, creating an open space for about two camping tents. The sides of the shell were covered in hanging, dried herbs and flowers. Near the back of the space, a little flap in the shell was propped open, releasing smoke from a small fire, which warmed a cast iron pot. 

A staff of some kind leaned its head in the opposite corner, and the white shell floor was covered with rugs boasting intricate patterns. Toph and Benio were already sitting cross-legged on the floor, the woman with the head covering beside them. The woman inclined her head toward a small bundle and a blanket laid out. 

Katara rested Aang there. Poor guy, Zuko thought. They’d have so much to tell him when he woke up. 

Katara and Zuko sat down next to Toph, and Zuko realized with some embarrassment that he hadn’t ever taken his hand off Katara’s waist. Why was it so natural to be close to her? He did, then, and tried to settle himself naturally before Sokka and Suki came in. Luckily, Toph was blind. 

Suki came in next, Sokka behind her. Neither looked pleased, their lips pressed in tight lines and their eyes taking in the details of the space. 

When they all sat together, they were in the approximation of a circle. With hardly enough space for anyone to move, their knees and elbows were all touching in some way or another. Zuko’s hands were just centimeters from Katara’s, and Katara’s legs were touching Aang’s feet. Sokka and Suki gripped hands. 

As soon as Sokka’s behind hit the floor, the woman began. “All things roll along as they should. The way has been set, and we are merely journeying in the way. We must work.” She sighed, a labored noise. Zuko noticed the plump bags under her eyes, the lines in her face. She looked as if she had lived an eternity. 

“The Avatar fights for us in the spirit world. He has awoken a great evil. The fifth bending, the ability to bend energy itself, is a power greatly coveted in the spirit world. Those of us who can wield it are targets for the demons that live beyond. But the Avatar has gone much further than demons. He has awoken Hundun.”

Katara opened her mouth to ask questions, but the woman spoke before she had a chance. 

“Hundun is chaos. Hundun is everything that existed before Order existed. Hundun is necessary, but only when kept within the bounds of yin and yang.

“Hundun is a formidable foe, and ancient, since before time itself. The Avatar holds the gate alone, for now. I aid him when I can, but–” she sighed again. “Hundun must be kept to its confines in the spirit world. If it breaches our reality through the Avatar, it will destroy our world.”

Chapter Text

Zuko felt Katara shift next to him. He stole a glance at her; her hand clamped over her mouth. 

“Well that’s all great…soooo how do we fix it?” Toph said flatly. Zuko was impressed at Toph’s ability to be rude in every circumstance. 

“You’ve been to the spirit world?” Suki asked, clearly curious. 

Katara exchanged looks with Zuko and chewed her lip. Zuko wondered what she was thinking. 

“Yeah, and who are you, anyway?” Sokka asked. 

The woman stood, stepped carefully toward Aang. Her necklaces tack-tack-tack ed. As she moved, she spoke. “I am Darah. The particulars of my personal history are unimportant, but I have been granted the same abilities offered to the Avatar by the lion turtles. For this reason, I am able to travel in and out of the spirit world. But unlike the Avatar, creating my own astral projection requires a steep price of power and focus.”

“How did you meet this lady?” Sokka stage-whispered to Benio. 

Benio didn’t answer. 

“Benio and I crossed paths once under unexpected circumstances,” Darah said, and it sounded like they were in on some kind of private joke. “The rest of that story will be hers to divulge.” 

“Would you like to divulge ?” Toph asked, her eyebrows arched and her head bobbed. 

“No,” Benio replied, the tiniest of smiles on her face. 

“Well okay–” Sokka began. 

“You’re not an elemental bender,” Katara cut in. “You don’t bend earth, or fire, or water.” 

“No,” Darah agreed, kneeling at Aang’s feet.

“So you’re like Aang? You can take away people’s bending?” 

“It is possible,” Darah said. “But the Avatar has a hundred generations of power to use toward energybending. My resources are finite, and therefore the expression of my abilities is much reduced.” 

Katara’s eyes widened. “Energybending,” she repeated softly. 

“The Avatar’s tattoos are not glowing,” Darah noted as she inspected Aang’s body.

“His arrows?” Katara asked, scrambling next to her. “I guess I never noticed that,” she admitted. She turned over her shoulder. “Zuko, were his arrows glowing before?”

Zuko racked his brain, trying to review the last few weeks without thinking of her hair, and her eyes when she was about to kiss him, the lids closing softly, her lashes on her cheek…

“No, I don’t think his arrows have glowed at all since you brought him to my–the palace.”

“Do they normally?” Katara asked, looking around at the group. 

“I’m pretty sure the arrows glow,” Sokka replied. 

“Tattoos are an important connection to the spirit world, especially for those of the Air Nomads. They are a representation of culture and a physical manifestation of the qi. For these tattoos to be separated from his Avatar State, this indicates he is not connected completely to his qi.”

“Qi was what we thought after we went to the Fire Nation library,” Zuko added.

Darah seemed deeply troubled by this, and she paused to look and mull over the idea. “We need to get to the spirit world. The Avatar’s missing qi…” She paused again, as if putting pieces together in her mind. Finally she said, “Being disconnected from his qi is like fighting with his hands tied behind his back. I can see now why he has fought for so long with Hundun.” 

Katara looked down guiltily. 

“Right, so, about that. How do we get to the spirit world, exactly? And how do we fix his qi? Or fight Who-Done or whatever?” Toph asked again.

“There is a way to enter the spirit world. But we’ll need to wait until the moon is high. Thank the spirits, it’s a new moon,” Darah said. When she saw Katara’s curious look, she elaborated, “A new moon gives power to the spirit world. It will be easier for us to access their plane tonight.” She stood, looking now at the particular swirls of the incense that burned nearby. “But, of course, all things roll along as they should. The way has been set, and we are merely journeying in the way.”

Darah provided tea, fruit, and some bread. They ate while they waited for the sun to make way for the moon. 

“Are you sure you don’t need any non-benders?” Sokka said, an edge to his voice.

“It’s not that I don’t need you,” Darah replied sagely. “I physically cannot send non-benders into the spirit world. Energy-bending and element bending have an intimate relationship; this is why the Avatar is able to protect both worlds.”

Sokka grumbled. Suki patted his knee consolingly. 

“I’ll stay here,” Benio said quietly. “I prefer to have my feet on earth.” 

“Benio! That’s not fair, don’t make me go without you!” Toph complained. 

“You must go, Toph,” Benio said. “The Avatar needs you.” Zuko saw her brush her fingers on the top of Toph’s arm. 

Toph acquiesced, but she crossed her arms over her chest to prove she wasn’t happy about it. 

Both Katara and Zuko were eager to go. Katara wanted to save Aang. Zuko hoped to see his mother. 

So much had happened, Zuko felt he had been successful in outrunning his grief. But it felt like it was just behind him, a looming shadow. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Darah said when they told her about their dreams:

“Spirits of the dead will communicate to the living when they have a specific message to bring. Though, to hear the same message from two spirits is unusual. In fact, for two people to have dreams that similar is unusual.” 

“Unusual bad, or unusual good?” Katara asked hesitantly.

Darah shrugged, the movement clacking her necklaces and talismans together. “The spirit world does not operate in terms of good and bad. It operates in balance.”

“Could we find them, somewhere in the spirit world?” Zuko asked. 

Darah hummed. “I suppose it could be possible, once you enter the spirit world—” 

Darah said more, but Zuko’s heart pounded. His mom was dead, but she was alive in the spirit world. Or, rather, some presentation of her was alive. He remembered how she had soothed his scar the first night he saw her. Just one more hug, just a few minutes to talk to her, he thought it might heal him somehow. 

But maybe he was asking for too much. After all that was going on, he needed to focus on the Avatar. Not just because Aang was his friend, but because Aang had the ability to bring peace to Zuko’s war-torn world. Zuko had a responsibility toward him and toward his people. It was a lot to think about. In fact, when he got home to the Fire Nation, he planned to spend a straight week just thinking about everything that had happened. 

But for now, he cleared his head. For now: Aang. 

The sun was dipping below the horizon. It wouldn’t be long before Darah opened a passage to the spirit world. Next to him, Katara broke off a piece of bread and offered it to him. He took it, and he could see the hidden messages in her eyes as their hands touched. They hadn’t gotten a moment to themselves since they arrived on Kyoshi Island in the early morning. 

They were keeping so much hidden. Two days of freedom, of kisses, of exploring how things could be.

Would it mean anything? If Aang woke up, what would Katara do? And where would that leave him? He steadied himself. He was used to being alone. It’s how he operated. And if Katara chose Aang…

He couldn’t think about it right now. 

“Zuko,” Katara leaned toward him, almost whispering. “Do you think Aang’s qi has anything to do with what happened with me?”

Zuko felt conflicted, but ultimately decided on the honest answer: “What you did, or his response to it. From what my uncle’s told me, qi can be influenced a lot by your mental state. You have to find peace. Maybe what happened made Aang lose peace with himself.” 

“Or with me,” Katara said glumly. 

“It’ll be okay, Katara. We’ll find him in the spirit world, you guys can talk, and we’ll fix it. Then he can defeat Hundun and we’ll all come back together.” 

Katara’s eyes narrowed. “Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”

“Peace of mind will improve your qi,” Zuko said wisely. 

Katara rolled her eyes. 

“It is nearly time,” Darah said. For the last few hours, she had been bustling around the shell, setting them tasks. Sokka and Suki went for water. Benio and Katara crushed herbs with a mortar and pestle. Zuko kept the fire a perfect temperature for an unknown, glossy-looking liquid in the pot. Now, with many ingredients prepared, and all returned to their tight circle, the air felt tense between them. 

“Lie here.” Toph, Katara, and Zuko laid alongside Aang on the shell floor. It was surprisingly warm, probably from the tarantula-snail’s body heat underneath them. Darah placed protective talismans on their heads.

Sokka held back a snigger. 

“Heading to the spirit world can feel a lot like falling asleep,” Darah said, ignoring him. 

“See, I was right! You’re supposed to meet up in your dreams,” Suki’s triumph was expressed quietly. Somehow anything louder than a whisper didn’t feel right.  

Darah nodded. “That’s the best way to describe it. Your talismans will leave the channel open so you can return to your bodies when it is time. I will lead you in a brief meditation, and then I will use my bending to send your astral projections to the spirit world. I will warn you: the spirit world is not like our present reality. It is not bound by the rules we are bound to. 

“You should find the Avatar. See if you can find any insight on balancing his qi. Aid him, if you can, against Hundun. You will not have long. I will keep your projections as long as I can, but when it becomes too difficult for my skill, you will have to return. I think it will be an hour of our time, but how the time will translate to the spirit world, it varies.” 

Katara nodded alongside Zuko, her face set. Toph screwed up her face, too, whether by anticipation or nerves, Zuko couldn’t tell which. 

“You may find it easier to find each other if you hold hands,” Darah said. 

Katara reached over to hold Aang’s lifeless one with her right hand. With her left, she laced her fingers through Zuko’s, squeezing tightly. Zuko reached for Toph. Toph turned her head toward Zuko, clearly letting him read the words on her lips: “I’m scared.” 

He squeezed her hand tightly in response.

As Darah started humming and chanting, her gravelly voice filled the room with full-bodied sound. The shell resonated. Zuko shut his eyes, praying they wouldn’t be separated, praying he’d find them in the spirit world. 

It was like falling asleep. 

Chapter Text

When Zuko woke up, he wasn’t in the tarantula-snail’s shell, but rather, was in the dry, pine-strewn place they had walked through to get to there. He wondered at first if they’d been tricked; did Darah hypnotize them just to throw them out into the wilds?

His outfit was the same, though, and he flipped his hands over. They looked normal, too. He looked around, hoping to see remnants of their camp, or spider tracks, or Aang’s stretcher. Where was everyone?

“Hello?” he shouted into the wild. “Katara?” 

A voice called to him from not far away. “Zuko?” 

“Toph?” 

From the denser part of the pine trees, Toph emerged, her face expressing wild delight. She ran toward him, dodging trees and jumping over large rocks. 

“Zuko! Is it you? Is this what you look like?”

He looked down at himself again. “I think so. Why, do I look weird or something?” 

“Zuko! Oh my god, your scar,” Toph said gently. She reached up to Zuko, running her fingers over the side of his face. After she analyzed the red skin for a moment, her voice reverted to her usual mouthy tone: “Wow, your dad is a real ass.”

Suddenly understanding dawned on Zuko. “Toph–” a broad smile broke out across his face, one that matched hers exactly– “Can you see ?”

“Turns out the spirit world is full of surprises!” she said, giggling. Zuko had hardly ever heard Toph giggle. Laugh at someone, yes, laugh with someone, also yes. Laugh at her own jokes? Yes. But giggle?

“Zuko, you look so different than what I imagined! Your hair is so long! And your eyes are so…is it yellow? Yellow, right? I mean, Katara said you were sexy but I didn’t imagine you’d filled out like this !”

Zuko nodded and blushed. He was inclined to ask about the sexy comment, but decided it was better if he didn’t know. 

“Is this the Fire Nation crown thingy? It looks stupid!” Toph said. “You guys tried to take over the world and you couldn’t pick a cooler crown? It’s not even a flame, it looks more like a misshapen bush! And I can say that because I know what a bush looks like now!” 

“Toph! This is amazing!”

“I know. I wish Benio would have come. I’d have been able to see her face,” she said, and Zuko could see disappointment cross her face, but just for a moment, before it was replaced with more looking. 

“Okay, okay. So the sky is blue, right? Of course everyone knows the sky is blue. And trees are green, and trunks are brown, and rocks are grey. But look at this rock! It isn’t grey! It’s like, a hundred different colors, I’m not sure which are which, to be honest. And look at all these trees! I can feel they’re there with my feet, but look at them! The leaves kind of…” she made a flickering gesture with her hand.

“It’s—It’s…” Toph breathed in, a sudden shuddering breath, and burst into tears. 

For once in his life, Zuko felt he knew the perfect response in this situation, and he pulled Toph into a bear hug. She breathed deep and cried harder. 

“I just can’t believe...you guys get to see this all the time…and if Aang weren’t…in a stupid coma…I never would have seen it…at all!” Zuko rubbed her back awkwardly, not knowing if there was a right thing to say. “And…And…I only…get an hour to see it…and I’m wasting it…crying!” 

She stomped her foot, and Zuko moved, instinctively, fearing impalement on a certain boulder. But nothing happened. 

Toph kept crying, but Zuko’s curiosity piqued. He opened his hand behind Toph’s back, tried to create a fireball. Nothing happened. No prickles, no heat. Nothing. 

Toph released Zuko’s hug, and was trying to wipe her tears with her eyes wide open, supposedly to not “waste” anything, when Zuko asked, “Hey, Toph, can you bend?” 

Toph looked at him quizzically, but stomped her foot again. 

Nothing happened. 

She growled and pressed her hands together as if crushing a rock between them. 

Nothing. 

“I can’t bend,” Toph said incredulously. “Can you?”

“Nope,” Zuko replied, turning his hands over and over to prove his point. 

“Great. Just great. I can see, but I can’t bend. It can never be perfect for the little blind girl!” Toph said sarcastically. 

“The spirit world seems to work differently than ours,” Zuko said. “And we still need to find Katara and Aang.” 

“Right,” Toph wiped her nose roughly with the back of her arm. “We’re here to save the world.” 

They called for Katara a few times, but when there was no response, they decided to start exploring. Since the desert led straight to the foothills of the mountains, they opted to head back through the pine trees instead, walking as if they were headed to the main village on Kyoshi Island. But as they walked through the forest, the landscape slowly morphed into something totally different. 

Pine trees made way for a stone path, thick, grey stone, carved in straight blocks. 

“This was definitely not here before,” Toph said. “I would have felt it.”

“Nope, this is new,” Zuko agreed. But it was the spirit world. “If a path appears here, do you think we follow it?”

Toph shrugged. They followed it. 

The stone blocks changed from a path to a bridge, with stone blocks built up on either side, separating itself from the wilds around it. Within a few steps, they didn’t see trees anymore. Just one long stone bridge, leading somewhere forward. 

“Katara!” Toph called. “Aang! Somebody!” 

They followed the bridge for awhile, both tense with the worry of losing time. If they only had an hour, they must have spent at least half of it, and they hadn’t even seen Aang, let alone helped him with his qi or the chaos monster Darah talked about. 

“Maybe we can look down, maybe the bridge is too high up,” Toph suggested. 

Zuko shrugged. They looked over the edge of the bridge. 

On the left side, the foot of the mountain stared them in the face again, somehow. Zuko was sure they would have seen that they were walking alongside a giant mountain, but it just appeared there when they started looking. Reality was not constant in the spirit world, apparently. But the mountain was all jagged rock and no vegetation; the cliff face was only a few feet from the bridge. 

On the right side, however, a plain stretched before them, endless and featureless, or it would have been, except for the dense black clouds that covered the entire expanse. Like a void, they obscured everything they covered from view. No light could penetrate them; they were endlessly dark. And though they were far distant, or seemed to be, looking at them made Zuko’s heart pound in his chest. He had to consciously control his breathing to keep from panicking. “Those are from my dream,” Zuko said. “The black clouds.” 

“It’s moving weirdly, like it’s breathing or something,” Toph said. “I can see why it gave you guys the heebie jeebies.”

“That is an understatement,” Zuko said. “That cloud tried to suffocate me.” 

“Then remind me not to go near it,” Toph said. She pointed to something below them. “But look over there!”  

A half-mile down from where they were, the bridge was a little wider, opening almost like a stone courtyard in a castle. And…people?

“There’s somebody there, Zuko! It’s probably Katara and Aang!” 

Or my mom? Zuko wondered. “That’s this bridge, right? If we keep walking, we’ll end up there?” he asked, trying to puzzle out what was concrete in this world. 

“Who said anything about walking?” Toph asked, rolling her shoulders. “Race yah!” 

She was fast when she was blind, but she seemed even faster when she could see. Zuko raced after her, sprinting across the stone. His footfalls didn’t make a sound. 

When Zuko finally made it to the stone courtyard, in a solid second place, his chest was heaving. He rested for a moment, hands on his knees, before looking to see who they’d run into. But he didn’t have to look up. Katara slammed into him.

“Toph! Zuko!” 

Her voice sounded like home to him. Even in this, the oddest of places. 

“Katara.” He wrapped his arms around her, returning her frantic embrace. “Why were you so far separated from us? Did you find Aang?”

“I don’t know, I just woke up here,” she said. “I know where Aang is, but I’m not sure how to get there.” She waved her hand, indicating for them to follow her. 

“I beat you,” Toph said under her breath. 

“I never agreed to race,” Zuko replied, elbowing her in the ribs. 

At the edge of the courtyard, they leaned against the stone walls and looked down over the plain again. The black clouds were roiling, seeming to expand across all the land they touched. A tiny figure stood boldly in front of them, far, far below. 

The figure launched into the air—they must have been thirty or forty feet above the ground, and still not even half as tall as the cloud. They twisted midair, inflicting an axe kick, then a roundhouse. Zuko saw them swoop through the air, double-punch, low kick. Jumps and spins created impetus for a relentless barrage of punches. Zuko thought he recognized the agile, passionate fighting style. When the figure finally backflipped, showing their face for the first time toward Katara, Zuko, and Toph in the courtyard, Zuko caught a flash of familiar whitish blue light. 

They watched for a few minutes, Aang putting on a show of force. Powerful punches and kicks, moves they had seen before and moves they hadn’t. Zuko watched with anticipation, waiting to see Aang beat back the clouds, somehow, with sheer will. 

But the clouds rolled forward, on and on, unbothered by the Avatar’s efforts. 

“Aang!” Katara’s voice echoed off the stone walls of the courtyard, off the bridge and cliffside. “Aang!!” 

Aang’s tiny silhouette seemed to slow, turned toward the noise. 

“Aang!!” 

The figure began a back handspring, but mid-flip, disappeared. 

Until it appeared again, beside them in the courtyard. Aang landed on his feet. 

“Guys?”

Chapter Text

“ This is Aang?” Toph asked. 

“Yep, that’s him,” Zuko said. 

“Aang, you look nothing like what I imagined,” Toph said. 

“Um…thanks?”

Katara turned to her in shock. “You can see ?” 

“It’s a spirit world thing, apparently,” Toph said. “I traded bending for seeing and I’m trying to decide which is more valuable to me. And now that I’ve seen Aang and Zuko’s faces, I’m leaning toward bending.” 

“Well, how do I look?” Katara asked eagerly, momentarily distracted (or deliberately distracted, Zuko thought) from a happy reunion with Aang. 

“Eh, you look like how I thought,” Toph said.

Katara deflated. 

“Guys, how are you even here?” Aang asked, slack-jawed.

Aang had been asleep for a little shy of one month, but he looked deeply changed. Zuko tried to pinpoint what was the difference—but spirit world Aang looked physically identical to regular-world Aang. Same bald head, same blue arrows. He was wearing his traditional Air-Nomad garb, yellow and orange that seemed somehow duller here. 

Zuko thought the difference might be in how he wore his features. His eyes–not glowing now–-were less awake, his head more bowed. The usual, constant energy-torrent that Aang kept around him had dropped, and he seemed less like their friend, and more like the Avatar. 

“Darah sent us here, through astral projection,” Zuko offered. “We can only be here an hour though. Do you know her? She said she knew you.” 

“Darah said you guys would be coming, but she wasn't sure she could do it,” Aang said slowly. “I guess she pulled it off.” 

“Aang, what’s going on?” Katara asked. “You’ve been trapped in here for weeks.”

Aang sighed, a heavy sigh, like Darah’s. Zuko thought that kind of sigh was maybe restricted to people who carried the weight of the spirit world. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Aang admitted. “That is Hundun,” he said, pointing off the edge of the courtyard to the black clouds. 

Katara arched a brow and looked at Zuko. He knew she was thinking what she was: it was Hundun haunting their dreams. 

“Hundun is…nothing. It’s like everything and nothing. It has no body, no eyes, no weak points. It’s just—it’s like, rolling chaos and it’s ruining everything here. Normally the spirit world has a lot of trees, temples, weird little plant things…it’s all getting swallowed up in Hundun,” Aang explained.  

“Aren’t there a bunch of demons in here, though?” Toph asked. 

“Demons, yeah, but also good spirits. They’re all getting trapped. I’ve been fighting it for days and days, but it keeps growing, and I don’t know why. Do you see that door?” Aang pointed again. 

They leaned over the edge of the stone wall to see. At the very bottom of the bridge, there was a bright little arched door in a patch of green grass, surrounded on either side by cherry blossom trees. Whether it had always been there, or whether it appeared because Aang told them to look for it, Zuko wasn’t sure. 

“I’m pretty sure that door leads out to the real world. And Hundun has been heading straight for it all this time. I’m the Avatar. I have to protect both worlds. So I can’t let that happen.” Perhaps feeling the dark mood of his explanation, Aang tried to brighten his countenance. “But now you guys are here. So I’m sure we’ll figure something out.” 

“But we can’t bend, so it’s not like we can go out and fight it,” Toph said. 

“No, but I’m sure we can come up with something,” Katara said. There she went again, thought Zuko, taking care of the group. Taking responsibility for problems she didn’t know how to solve. 

“Aang,” she continued, “at home, your arrows aren’t glowing. You’re stuck in half the Avatar State. Darah says it’s because your qi isn’t balanced, so you can’t access your full power.” 

“Qi and balance, qi and balance,” Aang huffed. “That’s all Darah ever talks about, but I didn’t ask for her help. And in all the time she’s been here, she hasn’t been able to stop Hundun either, so I don’t know what she’s always blaming me for.”

“Nobody’s blaming you, Aang,” Katara said hurriedly. “Darah’s just trying to help—”

“ Nothing’s helped, Katara!” Aang shouted suddenly. “I’ve been in here by myself, fighting this… nothing for days and days! I told you already, I don’t know what to do!”  The clouds behind them rumbled ominously. “I need real answers, Katara! Do you have any actual ideas, beyond balancing my stupid qi?”

Zuko could feel a heat bubbling up in him, but this time, it had nothing to do with throwing fireballs. 

“I get it, Aang, it’s been a lot,” she said, and Zuko could hear how much she was holding back.

The air was tense, almost crackling with energy.

Without warning, the black clouds burst over the side of the courtyard like a tidal wave. The relative peace of the stone disappeared under opaque blackness; it oozed between them, separating them. As the clouds permeated the space, they roared—an incessant thundering that made it hard to focus on anything else.

“Katara! Toph!” Zuko shouted, scrabbling forward, hoping to grab on to anyone. “Aang!” 

He turned and reached every direction fruitlessly. The roar of the clouds pushed against his eardrum. It was like being underwater, but somehow more oppressive, a constant, active push against every part of his body. Was this the might of Hundun? 

 Everywhere was black. It was all around him. It was suffocating. He was alone. 

What happened if you died in the spirit world?

 Zuko's breath came too fast. He could feel the density of the clouds against his chest, his legs, his throat. He couldn't even inflate his chest. His eyes flicked rapidly in every direction, but there wasn't anything to see. He couldn't breathe. Is this what death feels like? Would he know what death feels like?

“Zuko! Be me!” Toph's voice came to him, muffled as it passed through the constricting clouds. 

Be me? What does that mean?

“Zuko!” He felt something grab him and he instinctively flinched. “Zuko, it's me!” Toph shouted over the roar.

Zuko felt a wave of relief rush through him.

“This feels kind of like earthbending, like when you send your body through the ground,” Toph said, or at least, Zuko thought she said; he wished he could read her lips. 

“Bring your body in close. Arms and legs tight!” Toph instructed. “Breathe deeply! It’ll feel like you can't breathe but you actually can!”

Zuko listened, dropped his arms close against his sides. He tried to breathe. He panicked at first, but he found that Toph was right.

“You can't see, so we have to feel with our feet. Don’t step anywhere that doesn’t feel right. Katara is this way!” 

Zuko could only hear about half of each word, but he put his fingers gently on her elbow and let her guide him. He tried to put his focus on his feet, sending his senses to his feeling the curve of each block of stone under his foot. Each step was heavy; everything felt thick around him. The black clouds forced each breath from his lungs. It took all of his attention just to walk and breathe without succumbing to panic. 

“Katara! Katara!” Toph shouted over the rumbling.

How could they ever find her in this swirling mass of chaos?

Zuko grabbed Toph’s arm more tightly. He squeezed his eyes shut. 

This feeling, this feeling. 

It felt like standing in front of his father. That moment when his father’s face had not been one of hesitation, but a steady near-smile of commitment. It was knowing that his father was going to hurt him. 

It felt like reading the words on the page, finally knowing his mother was dead. That she had been killed. That she was never coming back. It was imagining her body in the master suite.

It felt like standing in front of Azula, heart bleeding. Knowing that Azula was just like his father. She was going to hurt him, they were fighting to kill. His baby sister, who, if she were trapped inside this fire-bending monster, was so deep that Zuko couldn’t find her.

Somehow it felt like the Fire Nation palace when Huan went home to his family. Endless responsibility, empty halls. Fire Nation robes that chafed and no letters. 

It felt like falling. 

It felt like being alone. 

It felt like being angry at himself, for everything he’d ever done, for all the times he’d groveled at the feet of a man who would never offer his love to his own son, it felt like turning his back on his uncle, it felt like watching his ponytail float down a river, it felt like the flood of all of Katara’s anger directed straight at him: “I was the first person to trust you!” Her eyes glinted with righteous pride...

“Back in Ba Sing Se, remember?” 

“Zuko, are you with me?” Toph was shaking his arm, and he had never heard her so worried. “Zuko!” 

He tried to shake his head, open his eyes to ground himself, but his eyes opened to nothing. 

“Toph,” he croaked. “I’m trying, but it’s so loud!”

“Focus on your feet! Ground down through your feet! Pull the energy from the earth beneath you!” 

Shut up, memories, he thought. Shut up. 

“Widen your legs so you’re stable against the wind!” Toph pulled him roughly to a horse stance. “Katara! Aang!” she shouted. “Can you hear me? Aang!” 

It was a miracle Toph had found him at all. 

It was like staring in the face of a black hole.

Chapter Text

“Katara! Aang!” Toph stepped steadily, but it was clear that even she was struggling against Hundun’s wild force. 

One breath at a time, Zuko thought. 

The walls were closing in on them. 

One breath.

He couldn’t do it. Toph tried to pull on his arms, but she felt distant.

One breath. 

“Katara!” Toph shouted again. 

“Here!” 

Her voice. Zuko’s body thrilled to hear her; he was suddenly covered in pleasant shivers. Katara . He stood a little straighter, finding new resolve against Hundun’s pressure. That fierce instinct to protect her reawakened inside him. 

Zuko wasn’t sure what happened, but Toph must have reached for Katara, because suddenly the three of them were together, holding each other’s arms. 

“Where’s Aang?” Toph’s voice hardly carried above the roar.

But Katara didn’t have a chance to answer, because Aang materialized above them. He fought in distinct airbender patterns, pushing and pulling invisible gusts, pushing back against Hundun. Zuko had seen Aang fight so many times, he felt he could almost anticipate the next moves the Avatar would try against this impenetrable foe.

For all of Aang’s efforts, he had done little more than push back Hundun’s influence by a few square feet; there was a column of free air from where they now stood to the sky above the clouds. It was a welcome respite from the terror that lived in the clouds. 

Aang’s eyes glowed with the distinct light of the half-Avatar state.Though they shouted for him until they were hoarse, he didn’t seem to recognize their voices at all. Zuko realized something: even in the spirit world, the Avatar state made him numb to his friends’ influence. 

“He can’t hear us!” Zuko said. “He’s still stuck in the Avatar state. He can’t control it.”  

“You have to help him balance his qi!” Toph motioned to Katara. “You have to tell him something!”

Katara’s eyes were filled with shame and worry as she looked up into the sky. Zuko held her arm a little tighter, trying to send her all of his strength. He knew how hard this was for her. In fact, he realized, he was probably the only one who understood the depth of Katara’s feelings in this moment. 

“AANG!” she called, but Aang continued his constant aggressive forms against the Hundun, paying her no mind. 

She was undeterred. “I have to tell you that I’m sorry for everything that happened with us!” Katara tried her best to make her voice carry. “I’m sorry for the joke, for pushing you, and I’m sorry for everything else! We…We aren't a good match—”

“Oh, that’s going to help him find inner peace,” Toph muttered to Zuko. Zuko half-shrugged with one shoulder. 

“Aang, it’s hard for me to be honest, because I feel like I have to protect you. When I broke you out of the ice, when we went to the Air Temple for the first time, I said we were a new family! And I meant that. I really did! And we’ve been through so much, we have to be a family now, you, me, Sokka, and everyone! But ever since we got together, all we do is fight!” Katara’s voice did not echo against the clouds. Her speech sounded odd and muted.

“And with you, I’m not myself. I hold so much back from you. I’m scared of making you upset. But that’s not right or fair for either of us. I'm not asking you for anything, except to let me go and live my life. I miss being friends like we used to. Before everything…But you have to let me go. It’s time to let me go, Aang!” Katara repeated, a full conviction. 

In response, Aang's eyes surged with light. Suddenly his arrows illuminated, a clear track from the top of his head, down his arms to his feet. The light reflected dimly off the clouds that threatened him. Aang’s fists clenched, a show of new power. 

Zuko was shocked by the instant recognition of the complete Avatar State–he tried to push down the habitual fear that rose in him at the thought of the full unbridled power of the Avatar. 

His companions were not influenced in the same way. Visible relief on their faces, both his friends cheered. “You did it!” Toph shouted in glee, “Aang!”

Something wasn't right. 

Aang started to fall.  

It was like watching a flaming comet falling from the sky. 

Everything happened in microseconds. First, Aang dropped out of the air. In horror, they watched his lifeless body accelerate toward the ground. Instinctively, they positioned themselves to save him: Toph with a wide, sturdy stance, as if she were going to liquify the ground beneath him; Katara reaching for her waterskin, which was not on her waist, but still in the shell with Sokka and Suki; Zuko felt his own hands clench, haunted by the sound of Aang thrown against the cave wall in Ba Sing Se.

But altogether, they were powerless. There was no land to protect, no water to warp here. 

Katara screamed. 

Aang’s body was relaxed, his face toward the open sky above. His arms spread like wings, and Zuko was sure Aang would feel the air through his fingers, waking him before accepting his inevitable fate. They waited for him to kick open his staff like he always did. Come on, Aang. Come on, Aang. 

But there was no motion, no response. Just glowing Avatar light, a falling star on its final journey.  Hundun swirled in greedy tendrils, waiting for its final opponent to fall into his open maw, waiting to paint him in pitch…

Aang disappeared. 

As if yanked by an invisible string, his glowing eyes were there and then suddenly…not. 

Zuko couldn’t trust his own judgment. Could he be hallucinating, somehow protecting himself from the gory ending?

He blinked once, twice…But Aang was gone. 

Hundun roared in response. The clouds billowed to twice their previous size, thundering and flashing with the thick obscurity. 

Zuko stepped back, hardly feeling the curve of cobblestone underneath him. 

“Guys, the door!!” Toph bellowed. 

Zuko’s eyes tracked rapidly down, off the courtyard where they stood, down the bridge, to the little door wreathed in cherry blossoms. The door to their world. Or rather, the door out of the spirit world. 

The Avatar was supposed to protect the door. 

The Avatar was gone. 

And Toph was right; Hundun was about to take advantage of it. The clouds, which covered the whole plain before them and the entire courtyard, were surging toward the door, a fog of blackness that was moving at an incredible rate across the distance. Chaos’s plan was obvious. 

There was nothing to stop it now. 

Chapter Text

“We have to get down there!” Katara’s voice rang out over the din. 

Of course they had to get to the door. But how?

If Hundun crossed through that door, chaos and clouds would demolish everything in their world, piece by piece. Zuko braced himself against the mental images of Sokka, Suki, and Benio melting into darkness, of lands and oceans covered with storm clouds, the light of the sun blocked out by horrible memories and dense empty fogs…

Zuko could have just burst a fireball and the hot air would have pushed them through, maybe would have dissipated the clouds behind them, but without bending…His hands were tied behind his back. He estimated the distance sprinting, and even then, it didn’t look like the odds were in their favor. If Aang were here, would he be able to do it? Or were the clouds and the storms of Zuko’s dreams an inevitable future? 

Katara exchanged glances with him. They were out of luck. 

And even as they planned their approach, Hundun’s blackness was encroaching. The clouds must have been at least twenty feet tall, billowing its eerie, lusterless mass ever larger. Zuko couldn’t help but stare in, gauging their chances against the darkness. In so doing, the memory of standing next to a Fire Nation ship was painted on his mind, the memory of fighting General Zhao on the docks, of fearing for his honor…fearing to be found out…

Zuko shook his head. The only way to protect the door was to go through Hundun. They had to run. Maybe if they went fast enough, one of them could make it to the door. 

Toph crossed her arms over her chest and her mouth drew down into a steely line. “Well, Firepants, Sugar Queen…it’s been good knowing you guys.” 

Zuko’s throat was tight. He reached for Katara’s hand, squeezed it once, tightly. 

“So we’re running?” Katara asked, her face filled with the determination he’d seen so many times before. 

Zuko nodded once. 

Toph rolled back her shoulders, cracked her neck. 

Zuko curled one hand into a fist. He put one leg forward. 

“Let’s go,” Katara said, her chin down and her brow furrowed against the threat. “On the count of three. One—” 

“Wait!” Zuko said. Without thinking, he reached back around her neck, forced his lips to hers. If they were going to lose the battle of spirit world, he wanted to tell her how he felt. As his lips crushed hers, he tried to convey how many times she had danced across his thoughts, how he’d dreamed of a life planned with her. If this were their last chance, he wanted her to know.

But time was running out, so he released her. 

When he looked to her eyes, she blinked them open slowly. He could tell she had something to say, but there wasn’t time. He’d already selfishly stolen precious seconds from the world’s last chance. And honestly, if she’d said she didn’t want him, he didn’t know if he could take it. 

“Zuko–” she began. 

“Two,” Zuko said, yanking his eyes away from her perfect face toward the force in front of them. 

“Three!” Toph shouted. 

Mustering their courage, they sprinted into the darkness. 

Zuko was immediately assaulted by the compression of the clouds against him. It was like sprinting through swamp water; every step required extraordinary effort. As he lost his vision, he tried to remember Toph’s advice. Ground through your feet. Stay low. 

He hunched his shoulders, brought his arms up close to his sides. He ran until he was wheezing, and despite his best attempts at endurance, his lungs were pressed, and he felt like he couldn’t get a full breath. His steps got slower and slower until he was stopped, gasping at the air for any kind of breath. 

“It feels like you can’t breathe, but you really can,” Toph’s voice echoed in his mind. 

He braced his hands on his knees, felt sweat drip from his hair into his eyes. 

Straightening to run again, he realized he had no way of knowing where to go. Despite having tried to run straight down the bridge, he realized he had no way to gauge where he was or how far he had left to go. Everything was enshrouded in darkness. 

He clenched his fist again. Oh for the want of a flame. One flame to light the next steps. 

“Katara? Toph?” His call was swallowed up in the clouds; there was no response.

He tried to picture the door to the real world. He tried to picture the arched doorway, the gentle light, the cherry blossoms. And he could picture that door…

The door of his uncle’s tent. When he was sure his uncle would never want him again. The only man who had ever listened to him, the only man who had ever cared for him, the only man who had taught him to be his own man, to listen to his heart.

Forever locked behind a bit of wood and fabric, for he would certainly never accept Zuko again. He would rage, he might shout or burn him. Or, worse, Zuko might walk in, and his uncle would pretend to see nothing at all. 

He remembered the split in his chest, trying to decide whether the Avatar was worth his honor, even when he knew that the Avatar was innocent. How could anything be truly right or wrong? And how would he ever know it?

Scenes of war. His people dead. Airships popped, and people free-falling, knowing they would be met with death when they hit the ground. 

Katara’s voice. 

“You and I both know you’ve struggled doing the right thing in the past.” 

“You turned around and betrayed me, betrayed all of us!” 

He couldn’t breathe, but he wasn’t sure if it was because his lungs couldn’t inflate, or because his heart had stopped. 

His mother was there, dead, before him, he knew it. It wasn’t a memory anymore. Was it? She was dead, strangled, in her own bedroom. It was his father. His father. He’d done it, his mother was gone forever. She was dead, her painted lips smudged in a way Zuko had never seen in real life. 

Everything was dark. 

The door. He had to make it to the door. 

He realized he was on his knees now, surrounded by darkness. With great effort, he lifted one knee, put his foot down in the darkness. He tried to feel the ground in his toes. 

What was real? 

He pulled himself to standing, feeling the burden of Hundun’s clouds. 

His mother’s body lay in front of him, blocking his path. 

He had to grieve her. 

No, he had to get to the door. 

But how could he step over her body? How could he leave her this way? 

Tears choked his throat. 

What was real?

He lifted a foot, it felt like lead.

Hundun’s clouds were straining against him, Zuko could even feel the pressure against his eyes. He could feel it, the pressure in his ears. Everything sounded like oceans, or storms, or bells with no tune, clanging over and over and resonating through his brain. 

What was the point? Zuko tried to think rationally now. He had to hope that Toph or Katara made it, that they could find a way to protect the door. He had wasted so much time. How far did he run, really? More than a few feet? He wasn’t close. They had lost. Hundun was an impenetrable foe, and they were deluded into thinking they could stop it. 

He fell to his knees again. It was all for nothing. 

Suddenly there was a break in the chaos. A dome of light, a tangible barrier, blocking him against Hundun. Zuko gasped for breath, winced against the brightness. He blinked, trying to get his bearings. It was all yellow--no, gold. His ears were ringing in the newfound silence, a whine that filled his head. The dome was barely a few feet, enough to cover him and not much else. The walls had a shimmery kind of texture he had never seen before. It was not the warm light of fire, or the cool light of the Avatar. It was something unique. 

He blinked again, looking around the base of this savior-dome. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up; someone was looking at him. He turned to look over his shoulder—

“Mom?” 

It was Ursa. It was his mom, there, in front of him, as solid and real as she had been in his dreams. Her black hair was loose, her robes replaced with a long white dress, but she was his mother all the same. 

She smiled. 

“Zuko.” 

“Mom!” Zuko ran to his mother. Could he feel her? Was she real this time? He reached for the fabric of her dress. His fingers clutched around the fabric. Real fabric, a fistful of her dress. 

He couldn’t help it. The world around him went blurry. “Mom, is it really you?” he croaked.

She was warm as she embraced him. “My son, my only son. My only son.” She repeated the words over and over, and Zuko couldn’t stop the tears from slipping down his cheeks. She sounded like her. It felt like her. Her chest heaved, and she tightened her arms around him. His mother. She smelled just right, her hug felt just like it did when he was a little boy. Zuko's heart ached inside him. His mom. His mom. 

She had never abandoned him. 

With some effort, his mom pushed him back to look at him, and her hands cradled his face. “Zuko, you don’t have much time. There’s something you must do.” 

“Mom, I don’t know what you want me to do,” Zuko said, his voice trembling. 

“Hundun feeds on chaos. It cannot be conquered with mistrust or terror. The power of Hundun is timeless. It cannot be destroyed, it has to be bridled. You must hold on to goodness.”

Her face softened as she looked at him. “I wish I could save you from everything that has happened. As your mother, it’s my job to protect you,” she said, rubbing her fingers across his face, “But you’ve always been such a strong boy. You were built with fire in you.” 

Zuko’s eyes were suddenly drawn to something else. Behind his mom, he saw a body on the ground. A real one this time, barely dragging along. A person being attacked by Hundun. He focused, and a pit formed in his stomach. Katara. It was Katara. 

He looked rapidly from his mom to Katara, realizing in horror what he had to do. 

“Can you wait for me?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

His mother just smiled, and Zuko knew the answer. 

Zuko’s tears streamed down his cheek, and he wiped them away with a ferocity. He couldn’t be hindered by crying. He had to see Katara. She was struggling, and he had to reach her. She was trembling against the dark clouds. He was certain she was living her own nightmares. Katara was strong, but how long could she last against the total force of Hundun?

He turned away from his mom, dragging his hands gently along the fabric of her dress. With shame he realized he couldn’t bear to say goodbye to her again, nor could he lift his eyes to hers.

He took one last, deep breath. He wasn’t sure what would happen now. His mother had to go, and the dome of light would fall. He didn’t know where the door was or where Toph was. For all he knew, he would step out of his mother’s protection and he would die with Katara in the black clouds. 

Even if it were true, he knew in his heart it was the right choice.

Chapter Text

He hardly felt the suffocation of Hundun as he ran towards Katara. Sure enough, as he stepped out of the ring of light, it was extinguished, and everything was dark again. But he had memorized the distance. She wasn’t far. 

“Katara?” 

If she responded, he couldn’t hear her. He reached out his hands in front of him, fingers splayed, and ran his fingers along the ground until he felt the softness of her clothes. She was warm, still alive, thank God. “Katara, hey, it’s me,” he said, a little too loud.

He thought he heard her mumble a response, but he couldn’t make out the words. In the dark, he wasn’t sure how she was positioned, so he skimmed his fingers along her body, searching for her face or hands or any obvious wounds. 

Katara. Beautiful Katara. His fingers found her slender back, her shoulders, her hair. She was facedown in the dirt. He scooped her head up in one of his hands, feeling her hair cascade over his arms. His other hand pulled her waist, and he awkwardly adjusted her to lay in his lap. 

“Katara, are you okay?” he asked, running his hand down her arm to find her hand. He massaged it gently, half-soothing her, half-soothing himself. 

She mumbled again. He moved his hand to her cheek, wondering if he could interpret her message tactilely. 

Hundun was all around them, and cognitively, Zuko knew that they’d lost. Hundun was already working with advantage. With its speed and ability to devour everything in its path, it certainly made it to the door. It would burst through the gateway, spill out into their world. And though Zuko racked his brain, he couldn’t think of any way to conquer it before it did irreparable damage.

In short, the world was ending, if it hadn’t ended already. 

He felt a new kind of grief rise in him, but it was quickly quashed by a persistent peace. 

The clouds were a vortex of chaos, but here they were. After everything, she was here. And if the world were ending, at least he’d hold her until it was all over.

Katara. He would have stepped in front of lightning a thousand times for her. He remembered the adrenaline when he protected her from Azula. Her smile as she cradled his head was burned in his mind forever, just like he cradled hers now. Well, fair was fair. 

His fingers brushed her hair, quietly, gently. 

Wasn’t it natural to review your life before you died?

He tried to remember the good stuff. Laughing with everybody, the first time he had really belonged somewhere. Fighting side by side. How humbled he felt when Katara embraced him on the docks, how her body felt against his. The spark it lit inside him. 

How she’d kissed him, eyelids lowered to his mouth, the gentle breeze in the air. The heat, the tenderness. She was a tidal wave. 

His heart ached. He’d wanted her to be his, truly. Not just stolen kisses, and not just as a backup plan. He dreamed of making her his Fire Lady. He’d protect her. They’d spar in the mornings, or read, or talk, and he’d make her try all the food the Fire Nation had to offer. She’d smile. She’d always have people, and adventures. He’d take her anywhere. Dreams that were lost now, lost to Hundun’s squeezing, crushing blackness…

No. 

He had to make it to that door. It wasn’t enough. A few days wasn’t long enough with her. He wasn’t going to lie down and die, no matter how sweet the death would be. If he died, he would die fighting for her. Fighting for her chance to fly again, for her chance to hug her brother and eat whatever sea prunes were out there for her. She could dance, she could bend, she could protect people—

And maybe she could be his. Maybe months or years down the line, she’d say yes. 

He wasn’t going to settle for lonely nights anymore. He couldn’t go back to being alone. Maybe it was his way, but this time, he was going to fight for his chance at a life together. 

He felt his strength come back to his shoulders. 

“Katara, Katara, can you move? Can you stand?” He gently guided her with his hands, tried to get her to sit up, braced against his chest. “Katara, I can’t leave you. You have to walk.” 

She moved against him, nodding her head. He knew how hard such a small movement was, how crushing Hundun’s power felt on her body even now.

He had never wished to be a waterbender before, but that moment was the first. He wanted to cure her wounds like she cured his. If he could carry her in a blanket of water, shield her from the clouds, just for a minute…

“Zuko–” 

“I’m here.” 

“The…door…” she managed. 

“We’re going,” he assured her. How could he express that he had no plan, except fight and hope for luck? “I’ll carry you,” was all he said. 

She wasn’t even heavy. And though it wasn’t under the circumstances he imagined, carrying her in his arms felt just as empowering as he thought it might. His arms were tight around her back and under her knees. She reached to hold her hands around his neck and leaned her head against his chest. Now, where to go? He took a single step forward. 

No. It wasn’t possible. 

He could see the door. 

The door to their world, just a hundred feet from them. It glowed, a lovely pinkish glow tremulously shining in the miasma. Pink flowers garnished the doorway, with petals falling like fresh snow. He could see it. Its blessed archway had held somehow. They still had a chance. They could protect their world. 

“Katara, look!”

Without waiting for another sign, Zuko ran toward it. Air rushed down his throat. He pumped his legs, sprinting faster than he’d run in his life. He lifted his feet high, trying not to trip on whatever obstacles were hidden in the path. It felt like running underwater. Chaos lingered at the edges of his mind, trying to distract him from his path. He kept his eyes trained on the door and tried not to blink. 

Fifty feet. Hundun barraged them with dark tendrils. He clutched Katara tighter. 

Twenty feet. His lungs were going to burst. He chanced a glance over his shoulder, saw nothing but a wall of hungry blackness. 

Ten feet. The light of the door cleared their path. 

As they approached the door, Zuko was nearly overwhelmed by the power emanating from it. It felt like qi ran in channels through his body, electrifying all twelve meridians in his body. Channels of force rolled through him. His heart was on fire. At first it jarred him, but within seconds his body was energized.

Katara must have felt it too, because she quickly gained strength in his arms. She blinked her eyes open. 

Hundun rushed behind them, Zuko could feel it right on their heels. 

Just a foot from the door, Zuko saw a stream of water, like a black snake, slithering toward them.

Did she? 

Zuko took half a heartbeat to look down at Katara, her eyes glittering in the dark, her lips set with focus. Her wrists were extended, her fingers curled.

It wasn’t possible. 

As Hundun pressed against them, pressed toward the archway, Katara slipped from Zuko’s arms and stood in a protective stance in front of the door. The cherry trees around them withered as Katara pulled water from the blossoms, from the trunks.  Each blossom turned brown and dull and each branch seemed to collapse in on itself. 

The pink light of the trees weakened to barely a dull glow. But without a moment of hesitation, Katara used her precious resource to bend a water shield at least ten feet tall, a sparkling wave of water that reflected nothing but the deep blackness of the demon Hundun. A barrier between Chaos and its only path to their world. 

Katara alone stood in front of Hundun, a force of resistance that not even the Avatar could produce in weeks of fighting. The water around them created a fresh breeze; Katara’s hair flicked around her as they were sprayed with thousands of tiny droplets. 

Zuko could barely see her in the thick darkness. 

“How did you—” Zuko began. 

But before he had a chance to form a complete thought, Katara’s shield was assaulted by the black clouds. Water absorbed into the blackness, sucked into the chaos and leaving the water shield dangerously thin. 

“NO!” Katara shouted, and she bore down, yanking her fists to pull the water back from the clouds. But she wasn’t strong enough. 

Within seconds, the only water Katara had sourced, their one protection, was gone. Water was siphoned into the clouds. Hundun swallowed her shield whole. 

A rush of air ruffled Katara and Zuko’s damp hair, a sudden cold blast that gave him goosebumps. It was a stark reminder that they were once again left defenseless against pure billowing Chaos. 

Zuko’s heart fell. They had a chance, they’d taken it. It wasn’t enough. He wasn’t enough. 

But something was changing. Hundun rolled and rumbled, but this time it was not its usual all-encompassing roar—it sounded like thunder. 

A natural, booming thunder, the kind that would shake the walls of the palace during monsoon season. Zuko reached for Katara. As they grasped hands, thunder rumbled the ground in front of them. They met each other’s eyes, and found the same resolve mirrored in them. They weren’t leaving that door. 

Hundun was making his final stand. The clouds churned, roiling in what was looking to become some sort of tornado. The first bolt of lightning cracked across the black clouds, shocking everything with a flash of white light. 

As the storm collected, the lightning and thunder quickened. Flashes of light danced through the clouds, some obscured by the darkness, others making contact with the dark plain. Hundun, now a terrifying vortex of storm clouds, was headed straight for the door. 

The black funnel was just feet from their faces, the clouds surged overhead. Zuko stepped back, and his heel met the wood of the door. 

It reminded him of his dream: he was standing on the edge of the cliff. 

And suddenly, Zuko knew what he had to do. 

Releasing Katara’s hand, he pressed his fingertips together at his chest. He breathed once, deeply. 

He extended four fingers toward the sky.

Chapter Text

“All things are one,” his mother had said. 

And she was right. She had given him the strength to fight the chaos in his mind. He had given Katara the strength to fight against Hundun. Katara had pulled her strength from the qi in the trees surrounding the door to reality. And Hundun had pulled its strength from the water it had stolen from Katara—her water creating a change in pressure that had produced storm clouds. 

Water was in the earth, water was in the air, water was in the clouds. 

Fire created steam, fire created light, light created fire. 

When he reached for the sky, his thumb bent, he knew he was looking for that essence. It was the fire inside the water he was looking for; the lightning inside the clouds. His senses were heightened. Meditating was something he had done thousands of times, especially when training with his uncle. He tried to clear his mind, to think of nothing except that thread of light that was sure to burst from the clouds any second now…

When he grasped it, he brought the energy into himself, through his core, and out through the palm of his hand. 

Lightning burst into the clouds, a hot, reddish lightning, the light walking the line between electricity and flame. 

The action wrenched qi from him, knocking the wind from his lungs, but he was pleased to see its trail burn a hole through the clouds, letting the sky shine through. 

The sky. What a relief it was. 

Hundun reeled. 

It started to rain. 

Katara laughed, actually laughed, as droplets peppered their faces. 

She stood up with him, her back to his, as she collected water from the sky. Zuko felt droplets disappear from his cheeks, as she wrapped her water into javelins, piercing the clouds like he did. 

Zuko’s body trembled as he pulled lightning from the clouds, again and again, conducting fiery blasts to the sky. 

With Katara against him, he felt their forms complement each other. His step was in line with hers. When she reached an apex, he’d bend low and pull fire from his roots. When he pointed to the sky, he found her water around him, a safeguard against his vulnerability. Perhaps it was a year of fighting side by side, perhaps it was years of fighting against her. But he knew intuitively, where her body was going next, where her focus was. Even in the heat of battle, even with the stakes as high as they had ever been, they never aimed at the same place. As partners, they were perfectly balanced—and neither of them held back. Fire and lightning, water and blood; their bending created an intricate dance that shot blast after blast, piercing Hundun. 

As the clouds were pushed back from the door, Zuko felt a swell of joy.

They delivered a final blow together, his right arm outstretched, her left arm a perfect reflection of his. Water and lightning fizzled, ribboning around each other in steam and sparks, until they found their home in the heart of a black cloud. 

Hundun did not retreat; rather, the storm had run its course. And, like all storms, the clouds rolled back, disgruntled but not malicious, across the plain. The pouring rain became a drizzle. Seconds lapsed into minutes between lightning strikes. The thunder quieted.

Zuko and Katara faced each other, gasping, smiling, and drenched in sweat and rain. 

But a heartbeat later, Katara’s eyes were drawn to movement at the fringes of Hundun’s clouds.  

Zuko followed her gaze. Toph.

“Toph!”

“Toph!”

Zuko expected the worst, but the earthbender jogged to meet them halfway. 

“You survived! I couldn’t find you anywhere!” Toph said, throwing her arms around them both. 

“How did you make it?” 

Toph shrugged. “Once I discovered that freaking out made it worse, I pretended to be a badger-mole. Stayed close to the ground and thought mostly about the smell of dirt.”

Zuko blushed slightly, thinking of his fatalist mindset during the brunt of attack. 

“You’re amazing,” Katara gushed, hugging her again. “I can’t believe you kept strong all on your own.” 

Toph chewed her lip at the praise. “So, did we do it? Did we save the door?” Toph asked, standing on tiptoe to see behind them. 

“Uh, I think so?” Katara wrung her hands as she responded.

“Hundun isn’t busting the door off the hinges now,” Zuko said, “But I doubt it's gone forever.” 

The three of them walked back to examine the archway. It was a sorrier sight now. The trees were nigh black and decrepit; the once-pink petals created a grey fleece over the stone entryway to the door. 

“I’m sorry,” Katara murmured, running her hands across the bark reverently. “I needed your power, and I didn’t know what else to do.” 

“You did this, Katara? I thought we couldn’t bend in the spirit world?” Toph said, aghast. “You ruined the trees, and these are probably the only ones I’ll ever get to see!” 

“I didn’t think we could bend either. But,” she dropped her head in shame, “I thought about what Hama said, about water being everywhere. And I could feel that there was some sort of powerful qi inside these trees, so I took it with the water. I killed them to protect us.”

“It was incredible, Katara. You saved everyone,” Zuko said with surety. “Whatever you did, it changed Hundun so we could fight it. And all things are one. In time, the trees will grow back.” 

“We? What did you do?” Toph accused. 

“Zuko bent the lightning from Hundun and turned its own strength against it,” Katara’s face glowed with pride. 

“What? Both of you? Why didn’t I get a super cool fight-the-clouds power?” Toph grumbled. “I got lost in the stupid dark crawling around like a stupid badger-mole…”

Before she could say anything else, the door to the spirit world opened soundlessly. 

“Aang?” 

Zuko tensed at the sight of the Avatar. He was still ready to punch the guy for everything that had happened with Katara, and now those feelings were overlaid with a feeling of betrayal and abandonment after the battle with Hundun at the door. 

“Hi guys,” Aang said quietly. Staff in hand, he quickly took inventory of Hundun, which was tossing black clouds in a whirlwind across the plain. Then he looked to each of them. Zuko could only imagine what he was seeing. Katara, soaked with water and bold-looking. Toph, her hair blown at odd angles by Hundun, indignant with her hands on her hips. Maybe he’d even look to Zuko, his chest heaving, flexing his hands in and out of fists at his sides. 

For the first time in a month or two, Aang looked soundly himself. No Avatar-state, no barely-managed greenish lights. He looked refreshingly alive. 

“I have something to say to you all,” he began. “First, I meant to say thank you for coming to the spirit world to find me,” he took a deep breath, “And next, to Katara. Suki and Darah made sure I knew that without you, I probably wouldn’t even be alive. If I would have died in the Avatar State, that would have been it for me. They told me how you carried me and how you took care of me all this time. I didn’t realize that the weeks I’d been here in the spirit world, it was also weeks in the real world. You were by my side for all of that.

“And thanks for, um, for telling me what you did. Before. I didn’t realize how unhappy you were, um, with me,” he said. 

Zuko looked to Katara’s face for any signs of regret—but she just looked exhausted. 

“Thanks, Aang. I hope we can still be friends,” Katara said hesitantly. 

“Yeah, of course,” he replied, but Toph gave Zuko a look that said she wasn’t buying Aang’s conviction. 

Aang lowered his brow and looked out to the plain. 

“When I heard what you said, I felt the full power of the Avatar State. And I guess I was stuck in halves, so I had to find and reconnect with my real body. Once I did, I remembered a lot of things that Monk Gyatso said to me. And I realized I wasn’t really fulfilling my duties as the Avatar. I got so caught up, trying to make things work—” Aang sighed. “I need to bring peace, not the other way around. I need to accept that some things aren’t in my control,” he smiled wryly.  

Zuko was surprised at himself as he put a comforting hand on Aang’s shoulder. “Changing yourself is one of the hardest things to do,” Zuko said. “But you’re the Avatar. You’ll do way better at it than I ever did,” he said. 

Aang looked at him appreciatively, and Zuko thought again how much older he looked. There was a profundity to his expressions that Zuko hadn’t seen before. 

“Now, I’ve got to finish this,” Aang said. “It’s my duty.” He snapped open his glider, and launched himself into the air. As he flew, they saw his eyes glow blue. It wasn’t forced. His transition to the Avatar State wasn’t a reflex, it was a choice. He landed soundly in front of Hundun’s storm, and brought his fists together at his chest. 

Toph, Katara, and Zuko watched in awe as the figures of past Avatars appeared at Aang’s side. Roku, Kyoshi, and hundreds of others they didn’t know assumed unique stances in a straight line across the plain. Earthbenders, waterbenders, firebenders, and airbenders long gone offered Aang their protection, their offense, and their insight against the huge power of chaos.  Each form was perfectly synchronous. With complete balance in their advances, Hundun was dissipated, the clouds dissolving to white streaks in the now-blue sky. 

As Hundun disappeared, Aang opened his arms, and gathered all the Avatars into himself. 

It was an incredible display of power, but watching it, Zuko felt only a melancholy peace. 

Aang began his journey back to the door, but overhead, the silhouette of a dragon grew in their vision. 

“Aang, watch out!” Katara shouted. 

But as the dragon flitted in and out of cirrus clouds, Zuko knew it meant no harm. Its shadow accelerated across the plain. On foot, Aang raced underneath it, laughing. 

Chapter Text

The blue dragon of their nightmares settled against the door like a giant happy cat, and one blow from its breath revived the cherry blossom trees. 

Zuko smiled, watching Toph’s eyes become the size of Momo’s ears as she took in the sight of the two trees unfurling with life. From the corner of his eye, he saw her pick a blossom from one of the branches. 

“It’s done,” Aang said with relief. 

“I think we all need a hug, don’t you?” Katara said. 

The four of them tucked their arms around each other’s shoulders, bowing their heads together. The others laughed a little, realizing they’d won against the odds. But for Zuko, some unwanted tears threatened to spill over. Deep in his heart, he realized he had never really been alone. 

“So where does this door go?” Toph asked. 

“Yeah, how did you get in here, anyway, Aang?” Katara asked. 

Aang rubbed the back of his neck. “Um, Benio and I created a spirit portal.”

“You what?” 

“We offered a tribute to the Lion Turtle and asked to create a portal so I could get back here.” 

“Wow,” Katara said, her eyebrows raised. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Neither did I,” Aang said. “And neither did Benio. We kind of just hoped for the best,” he shrugged.

“That’s kind of how we handled things too,” Zuko said. “The spirits were rooting for us, I think,” he said, thinking back to his mom. 

“Not to break up the party, but, are we getting back, o-or?” Toph said. 

Katara nodded. “Excuse us, Madam Dragon,” she said, turning to the giant creature blocking the door.

“How do you know it’s a girl?” Aang asked. 

“How do you know it’s not?” she shot back. 

“Touche,” Aang replied. 

The dragon stood and sat to the side of the door, extending a claw to the party like a chivalrous butler. 

“You’ll guard the door when we’re gone, right?” Katara asked. The dragon just blinked at her, which Zuko interpreted as a yes. 

“Are you sure you want to go, Toph?” Zuko asked quietly. “You’re going back to being blind.”

“Don’t I know it,” Toph said, and her voice was thick with sadness. “But Benio’s there. And Sokka, and Suki. My parents. I can’t be a spirit forever.” 

Zuko tried to smile at her, realizing he could never really understand the choice she was making. “You can bend my crown when we get back,” he whispered mischievously. 

“Isn’t that like, the one piece of metal you’d probably prefer to keep intact?” Toph asked. “Generations of tradition and blah blah blah?” 

“Blah blah blah,” Zuko replied.

“Oh I see,” Toph said, smirking. “I can say that now, you know.” She nudged him in the ribs. 

Aang opened the door. 

Zuko took a deep breath, and was happy to find that Katara locked her fingers in his as they stepped through the portal together. 

Getting back from the spirit world felt like waking up. At first, it was disorienting, but then it was extremely comforting to find that everything was just how you left it. 

Zuko woke with a start, sitting straight up and looking around. His hand was still linked with Katara’s, who was groaning and holding her head. Toph was rubbing her eyes blearily. Aang was perched next to his staff on the floor of the shell. 

“GUYS! YOU’RE ALIVE!” Sokka shouted. 

Zuko allowed himself a smile as he was nearly bowled over by Sokka and Suki. 

“Well done,” Darah said, emerging from her trance. 

“How long has it been?” Katara asked. “I feel like I’ve been gone for days.” 

“Um, it’s been just over an hour and thirty minutes,” Suki said, looking at the clock. 

Darah smiled, obviously proud of her effort. 

“And that’s a long time when you’re positive all of your friends will die!” Sokka said, wiping tears from his eyes. 

“So how was it?” Suki asked. 

Zuko looked at Katara. When she didn’t say anything, he turned to Suki. “It was a lot,” he said simply. 

“I’m sorry you weren’t there,” Toph said to Benio. “But I brought you a souvenir,” she opened her hand, and a single blossom was revealed. It shimmered like a rainbow, like it wasn’t really there unless you weren’t looking directly at it. 

Benio’s eyes glistened. She looked at the flower in wonder. Toph reached up toward Benio’s face, tracing her fingers along her jawline. As her fingers found Benio’s ear, she tucked the spirit world flower there with her opposite hand. Benio blushed furiously. 

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“Me too,” Toph said. 

And nobody said anything else about it. 

Zuko thought that Darah was probably relieved when they finally left her shell. Having been nearly acquainted with hermitdom, he knew how overwhelming it was to have a full house of company for an entire day and night. 

So a fond farewell was exchanged on all sides, and as soon as they left the shell, the door was shut tight and her tarantula-spider buried itself in the sand again.

Sokka exhaled in relief. 

Walking back to Kyoshi village in the early morning with Aang was a lot easier than carrying him on a stretcher. The full details of their spirit world escapade were shared, and likewise for the experience in the non-spirit world, and they all oohed and ahhed over the incredible fortitude of everyone. Then, they saw a weird-looking squirrel-bird, which prompted so many hardly-appropriate jokes that Zuko couldn’t help but laugh out loud on the way back. And Katara, being the only one who’d really heard his laugh before, was the only one that didn’t razz him about it. 

They spent another day and night exploiting Sokka and Suki’s hospitality, and the morning after the fact, they dragged their feet in knowing that it was time to go back home. 

Toph and Benio were ready to call back their Earth Kingdom litter, and everyone was surprised when Aang said that he’d tag along. 

“Aang, aren’t you going back with Katara?” Sokka asked. 

“Um, well, the Avatar has duties everywhere, not just the Southern Water Tribe,” Aang said in a rush. The details of his relationship with Katara was one thing that had been avoided in the recounting of the fight against Hundun. “And since we built back up the Southern Water Tribe, and everything is going really well, and everybody’s happy, I figure I’d better go check out some other places and see what kind of help they need—”

“They broke up,” Toph said flatly.

“Yeah but—” Sokka began. 

“No, it’s forever this time,” Katara said pointedly.

“Oh,” Sokka said. 

“Well, the Earth Kingdom is great,” Suki said diplomatically. “I’m sure you’ll love it!”

“How do you guys feel about riding to the Earth Kingdom on Appa?” Aang said cheerfully, turning to Benio. 

“It’s really fun,” Toph assured Benio. 

“How will we get back, then?” Katara asked. “We brought Appa here from the Fire Nation.” 

“Oh, um…” Aang scratched his head. 

“I’m the Firelord,” Zuko said. “I’ll take care of it.”

But yeah, it took a little longer that way. Hours after Toph, Benio, and Aang left back to Ba Sing Se, Katara and Zuko were still relaxing with Sokka and Suki while they waited for the Fire Nation ship to show up to Kyoshi Island. 

“Well, are you guys hungry?” Suki asked after a few hours of shooting the breeze. The light was waning now, the light casting longer and longer shadows on the tatami floors.

“I could go for something, yeah,” Katara said, a little embarrassed. 

“Sounds great! Why don’t I make us something?” Suki said, getting up from her seat on the floor.

“Yeah, Suki, if you could make that fish thing that you make sometimes, you know the one?” Sokka said idly, twirling his fingers. 

“Actually, Sokka, if that sounds so good to you, I’d love to have fresh fish,” Suki said, “You know, straight off the reef.” 

“Don’t we have some leftover–” Sokka began. 

“Ah-ah-ah. No leftovers for guests,” Suki smiled sweetly. “So if you don’t mind, I’ll start working on the rice.” 

Sokka slumped. “Anything for you, my angel,” he said finally, getting up from his chair to yank a spear off the wall. “Hopefully the fish are as hungry as I am,” he grumbled on his way out the door. 

Suki shot Katara and Zuko a wink as she ducked into the kitchen. 

Katara’s eyes narrowed and she turned toward Zuko. “Did you say—”

“Nope, no. Absolutely not,” Zuko replied. “I had nothing to do with it.” 

Apparently satisfied, Katara leaned one arm back, lolling her head to the side. She arched an eyebrow. “Well, are you satisfied with your vacation from the palace?” 

Zuko knew it was meant to be a joke, but he thought about it for awhile before responding, “I’ll be ready to go home, I think.” 

Katara looked hurt for a moment before shaking it off. “Really? I thought you would be happy to be free of the to-do lists for once.” She looked down at her nails. “I wonder how things will be at home.” 

“What will you do in the Southern Water Tribe?” 

Without meeting his eyes, she responded, “I guess I’ll explain everything to my dad, and teach waterbending, or whatever else.” 

Zuko knew he was treading dangerous territory, but he leaned into a streak of confidence. “Katara, would you…Would you want to move to the Fire Nation? With me?”

Katara’s eyes flicked rapidly back and forth, searching his face. “ With you?”

“I’m the Firelord. I can find you space in the palace, if you want it. Or if that feels like too much, I can find you a place. You’re an international hero. I can pay for you to buy a place, maybe downtown somewhere so you won’t have to walk too far.” Zuko tried to keep his voice nonchalant, but his heart was pounding in his chest. He knew the magnitude of what he was offering. 

She was quiet for a minute. 

“It doesn’t have to be now, either,” Zuko said quickly. “It’s an open invitation. You could come anytime you want to.” When she just stared, Zuko continued, a little more honestly: “I’m mostly all by myself in the palace. It’s just me and Huan and the council most days, and Huan goes home to his family in the evening. What I’m saying is that after around six, I’m just wandering around by myself. So if you wanted, we could eat dinner together, or spar, or do charity, or whatever you want to do. I’d be cool with it. Or if you’d rather just come for a visit, I could get a ship to come pick you up—” He realized suddenly that she was looking at him differently. He let his voice trail off, and she lowered her gaze to his lips. 

He suddenly felt very hot. He pulled the hair off his neck nervously. The reality of the situation hit him like a ton of bricks. This was Katara he was talking to. His Katara. The one that he’d jumped in front of lightning for. His balance. His motivation. And he had just asked her to move in with him. His pulse raced. 

She leaned forward. He felt the gentle weight of her hand on his shoulder. 

And he wanted her. 

He closed the distance between them. 

Their fourth kiss was a quiet love letter to everything that had happened. His mouth against hers was a symbol of trusting her with his honest self. Her lips were effortlessly soft, and his hands wrapped around her waist. She tasted like fresh rain and dust and evergreen. She smelled like home.

Chapter Text

Their fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth kisses were deliciously enjoyed on the Fire Nation ship, which took a detour, at the Firelord's behest, back to the Southern Water Tribe to collect Katara's things.

Privately, on the ship--it should be mentioned it was Zuko's version of private, which was to be surrounded by soldiers whose opinions on whom he kissed did not matter to him--any pretense of distance between himself and Katara was happily dropped.

He relished her company, and now that he had been acquainted with the possibility of losing her, their closeness tasted even better. He listened attentively to her stories, he leaned in to smell her hair. He played with her fingertips while she talked like it was second nature.

The dance they had shared together in the spirit world had bound his soul to hers. The haunting of his dreams and fears that had been so vigorous and pervasive these last few months had been almost entirely replaced by Katara's awed expression as their bending had melded together in a unified force against Hundun. That moment: her blue eyes, ever captivating, richly alive, her chest heaving, her defined arms outstretched. And maybe it was even more than that. It was years of chasing her, and finally realizing that he wanted her to surrender to her, instead of the other way around.

The cherry on top of all this being that the relationship with Aang had been appropriately clarified, and Zuko didn't have to punch anyone. All things considered, all the details had gone over rather well. Katara herself was visibly lighter. The ties she had with Aang were released, and now she could really spread her wings. Zuko relished in the idea that now, all that laid before him was a lifetime of discovering her.

Below deck, Zuko's arm could not be moved from Katara's side; some odd part of him thought he might lose her if he let go. 

"So, you're sure you just want to pick up your things and go? I can probably take another day or two if you need to arrange things," Zuko said.

"I don't have much to arrange," Katara said, "My waterbending lessons can easily go to my friends, and I can always go back to visit, right?"

"Any time you want to," Zuko said.

"What I'm really scared for--" Katara looked at the ceiling, worrying her lip, "My dad is going to be so mad."

"I'll talk to him," Zuko said. 

Katara's eyes shone with momentary relief  before falling again. "No, I have to tell him," she quietly asserted. "He's my dad. Ugh! What am I even going to say?"

Zuko gently trailed a hand down her arm, and when it didn't seem sufficient comfort for her, he answered, "I don't know, just that you came to my front door desperate to heal the Avatar and ended up standing down a chaos demon alone in the spirit world, saving our entire world from certain death?"

The corners of her mouth lifted. "Somehow I doubt my dad would see it that way."

Katara was only half-right.

The Southern Water Tribe was unrecognizable from the last time Zuko had seen it. The tawdry snowbanks protecting the city had been shored up into a thick snow barrier; the single hut and fire had been multiplied by a hundred. Drying fish laid out on racks. Sleds stocked high with furs and baskets. Javelins stood in a bank near the door. Zuko was surprised to see Earth Kingdom faces here and there among the sea of blue parkas.

Katara's father, Hakoda, and his new wife, Ataksak, greeted them warmly. Ataksak was pretty, Zuko thought, and hospitable.

Soon after the meal, Katara requested to speak with her father privately. Zuko looked to Ataksak, whose face revealed her frosty relationship with Katara as she watched the door flap swing shut.

Zuko and Ataksak tried to make friendly conversation and tried to ignore the shouting that came from the room next door for a solid hour.

When Hakoda and his daughter finally exited the room, Katara's eyes were puffy. It was just a short time later that Katara hauled a leather bag with her clothes and affects and indicated to Zuko that she was ready to go. Zuko wasn't about to question her.

"Thank you, Chief Hakoda, for your generosity," Zuko said in farewell. He layered all the charm of his Firelord training, "And thank you, Ataksak, for your hospitality. I enjoyed our conversation."

Both nodded in acceptance of his thanks. Hakoda gave him a steely look, but said nothing.

"Be wise, Katara," her father said, embracing her a final time. "We love you."

"Love you guys too," Katara mumbled.

And that was that.

Back on the ship, Katara settled back into herself. When Zuko felt the waters were safe, he asked Katara about the conversation with her dad. 

"Sounded intense," he said.

"I told him you were my boyfriend," Katara said. "And that I was moving into the Fire Nation palace."

Zuko's jaw dropped. "You did?"

At his response, Katara was equally shocked, and spluttered for a second before Zuko could deduce what she was saying: "Didn't you offer?"

"I offered for you to move into the palace," Zuko said slowly, feeling heat rise to his cheeks.

"Isn't moving in together something you do after being boyfriend and girlfriend?"

Zuko pulled at his hair. "Uh, I mean, yes, but I gave you a lot of different options but, um, you, um, you kissed me and never really specified."

Katara blushed and looked at the floor. "Doesn't kissing mean ‘yes’ to you?" she squeaked.

"It could be and it could not be! I'm not in a position where I can make assumptions like that!"

"Well, do you want to be my boyfriend or not?" Katara asked, perching her hands on her hips. She was obviously trying to ignore that her face was a pleasant beet red.

Zuko again, was aghast at how honest he made her. His response was out of his mouth before he could quality check it. "Of course I do! I've wanted to be your boyfriend for like a year now!"

Katara, realizing she now had a leg up in the conversation, adjusted her body language from embarrassed to flirty. She brushed her hair behind her ear. "Oh have you?" she said, her voice low and playful.

Zuko threw up his hands in annoyance. "You drive me crazy!" On impulse, he grabbed her waist too tightly and pulled her against him. He breathed against her neck, invading her space in a way that might have been payback for how she toyed with him, or might have been simply his own indulgence.

She melted slightly in his arms as he kissed along her neck and slid a hand up her spine.

"So, are you my boyfriend now?" she asked, barely breathing.

Katara was right. Kissing did count as a 'yes.'

—

Weeks later, Katara cracked the seal on a letter addressed to her. "From my dad," she said.

Her eyes flicked rapidly across the page. Approaching the bottom of the page, she said finally, "My mom was pregnant when she died."

Without a second thought, Zuko stood up from his desk to hold her. Grief was something they shared. "So you were right," he said.

Katara hummed, "Yes… I suppose the girl in the parka must have been my little sister."

"I'm so sorry," Zuko said. He knew there was nothing more to say in this situation.

"It's okay,” Katara said. “I kind of...it's weird, but I feel happy that they're together out there. At least my mom isn't alone."

Zuko nodded and rubbed slow circles on her back.

"My dad told me they didn't want to tell anyone until she started to really show. But she, um, she didn't make it that far," Katara said.

"Your mom must have wanted you to know," Zuko said. "The spirits only show us what they think we can learn."

His mother appeared for the first time in ages. They faced each other, standing in water that barely covered the tips of his toes. 

Words were not exchanged, but Zuko was humbled by the radiant, proud expression that adorned her face. 

There was no sound, just the gently lapping of the waves and the whistling of the breeze in his ears. 

He blinked his eyes open, but the room was still blanketed in the darkness of the early morning. He propped himself up on one elbow, and the cool morning air on his skin gave him goosebumps. He shuffled closer to her, settling his arm around her waist. At night, she was just as warm as he was. He let his fingers caress her, gently enough not to wake her. She breathed deeply, lulling him back to sleep.