Work Text:
Sokka tells Katara that Zuko’s face is just like that.
Aang suggests maybe that the house still makes Zuko sad. Because, see, Zuko invited them all to the Ember Island estate for a little vacation to celebrate that the world they saved was, still, more or less saved. Old memories must have been brought up, Aang insists. Nothing Zuko can’t handle, probably. Nothing Katara should have to worry about. Not unless Zuko brings it up (and they both know he never will). He has Mai, after all.
Toph’s thought is that he had to have eaten something that’s been haunting him. The type of something that makes your stomach miserable for days just thinking about. Which Katara is pretty sure means ‘don’t ask me, Sugar Queen.’
Suki has a theory to, of course. And her theory is this is all in Katara’s head. If it isn’t in her head, it’s probably something to do with Mai. Because Zuko brought Mai to this little reunion. The hope was (probably) that they’d all get to know her a bit better, as most of them still only know Mai as the girl with the knives who spent a summer trying to kill them along with Zuko’s sister. Or, well, Katara shouldn’t be so harsh. They were just trying to hunt them. Killing wasn’t the goal. Even if it was a distinct possibility.
Iroh just smiles.
And as for Mai…well, Katara doesn’t ask Mai.
Or Ty Lee for that matter, who was also invited.
Not that Katara saw either girl much. While she didn’t dislike Mai, the few interactions they’ve had outside of the war were fine, Katara knew that Mai was not likely to try to get to know any of them much better this way. But at least Mai had someone outside of Zuko to talk to, nearly glued to Ty Lee’s side.
It’s easy to imagine how uncomfortable this has to be from Mai’s perspective. Hanging out with a group of people she helped ruthlessly hunt down.
Having Ty Lee must make it easier. That way she’s be able to do group things, slowly trying to get to know everyone while also having an easy, bubbly, escape hatch. And Katara assumes that’s how Mai is, that she needs to slowly acclimate herself like moss growing on a rock.
Either way, Katara wasn’t going to ask Ty Lee or Mai.
All the questioning has all left her where she started days ago when she first saw Zuko on the docks and thought that, clearly, something was on his mind. And, clearly, that something was not being cleansed by the beach.
It’s bothering her to no end.
And the options were nearly endless.
He’s Fire Lord now and she knows the job is coming with a lot of stress. In the letters she’s gotten from him, there’s been a lot of issues. Nobles are a nightmare. The people in the Fire Nation are struggling with what it means to no longer be at war and with the fact they have been so lied to, so used, for so long. There are so many bridges to mend with the rest of the world and he’s struggling to know what to prioritize. He’s in the process of building his own allies within the Fire Nation as well. Finding who to trust, who he can create a new world with.
This little vacation must have been a nightmare for him to set up even if he needed it the most out of all of them.
There’s Mai herself, to. Katara knows their relationship can be a bit…tumultuous at times and Zuko is often light on the details. She mostly remembers that from things she heard back before the end of the war, things he’d tell her around the fire when everyone else was asleep. He and Mai have a lot in common, but that includes their tempers. Their moodiness. The stubbornness. He’d explained how often Mai internalized everything. That cool, devoid personality was something practiced and calculated and made her feelings very difficult to parse out for him until they bubbled over and stung them both. Katara can only imagine the types of stress that’d lead to on both of their parts.
Though…in the interactions she saw between the two of them since they all arrived, either in passing or when everyone was together, it doesn’t look like Mai was consuming his thoughts. They look normal for them, more or less. Mai leans on him less, clings a bit less. A slight departure of the past times Katara’s seen the two. But, still, neither seems to be uneasy, both in that smooth intimacy of knowing one another so long.
Briefly, Katara worries that maybe it was his family. But, Uncle Iroh is here after taking some time away from his tea shop and seems to be in good health. While he spends most of his time lounging in the house or playing pai sho, he is happy and content and Zuko hasn’t been hovering over him. If it’s Azula…well, Mai and Ty Lee haven’t mentioned her once either. Katara can only assume, where ever she is, Azula is also safe and accounted for.
But…that isn’t Zuko’s whole family. And any other member…well, mention of them is not to be taken lightly.
She’s been pondering this for days.
And she still hasn’t gotten a moment alone with him since they arrived.
That feels weird.
Before, she’d spent tons of time with Zuko alone. They were always up the latest at camp, tending the fire and cleaning up meals together. He’d help her cook to, often spending time alone with her to prep the food. There were the days they spent tracking down the Southern Raiders, also entirely alone save for Appa who is wonderful company but a horrible conversationalist. On multiple occasions, Zuko would track her down to ask tips on how Aang best trained. They’d sparred alone plenty of times. After the war, to, she’d spent a week helping treat the lighting impact spot. That, to, was usually alone.
Now…well…she supposes it’s been hard for her to get anyone alone. They’re all very eager to see each other. After the war, everyone went their separate ways, all with different ideas of what to do next with their lives.
After a long, occasionally tense, conversation and their break up, Aang began searching for the Air Nomads. Either pockets that survived or people he could share his culture with. Toph was often at the Fire Lords palace, both because she wasn’t sure where else to go and because her ability to detect lies was invaluable in the current landscape of Zuko’s court. Sokka went home to the Southern Water tribe and Katara followed, eager to spend time with the rest of their family and begin the rebuilding process. Suki did the same, but with Kyoshi Island and with Ty Lee in toe as a new member of the Kyoshi Warriors. Iroh went back to Ba Sing Se, back to the Jasmine Dragon. And Zuko…well…Zuko is Fire Lord now.
Katara’s seen everyone else in bits and pieces since they split off. Mostly, they visit her and Sokka. Sometimes her and Sokka will meet them in the Earth Kingdom when they venture out to negotiate supply trade with their closest neighbors. But one thing rings true, no one see’s Zuko outside of the palace. Not even the Avatar. Foreign leaders have been coming to him, despite his attempts otherwise.
Naturally, Zuko’s been quite the commodity this vacation.
It’s the fourth night that they, for the first time, agree to have a home cooked dinner. The days prior have featured Zuko treating them to meals elsewhere on the island. Today, though is the day that Katara, finally, will find herself alone with him. She’s positive.
Because, see, she knows Zuko. That’s how she knows something is wrong and that’s how she knows he’ll be blackening he kitchen archway with his shadow soon enough.
She’s one of the few people in the group with any particular skill when it comes to cooking. Toph, Ty Lee, and Mai all grew up too wealthy. Aang can make vegetarian dishes but that’d never please Sokka, who needs meat and can only cook that. That leaves Katara, Suki, and Uncle Iroh who have a balanced skillset. And, well, Zuko who is an excellent assistant and a very fast learner even if he’s not a natural cook himself for the same reason as the other rich kids.
Early that morning, Suki and Iroh join Katara to gather supplies. She plans something simple but delicious because she already can see how the day would go.
When they return, Katara insists Iroh sit and relax. After some light debate, he agrees to make tea before they ate, a compromise Katara accepts. Suki tends to get easily distracted by Sokka. And that rings true today. After lunch, Suki joins Katara to help prep some of the meat. But Suki doesn’t come alone, Sokka follows on the excuse that he wants to help given that meat is his only specialty. By the time they finish, Suki’s giving Katara polar bear dog eyes. And Katara…she can’t help saying yes to them, dismissing Suki as soon as the meat was roasting. The couple bounds off, the meat taken care of and slow cooking through the evening. She knows not to expect Suki back for the rest of the preparations.
That’s what Katara prepared for, though. Cooking a feast mostly by herself with some in and out guests through the day. And Zuko, of course.
He joins her pretty immediately after she begins the next phase of prep without even being told. His hands are already washed and he asks what he can do to help.
Just like before. Just like she thought. Katara smiles, welcoming him to her borrowed kitchen and assigns him chopping duties. There’s a lot of fruits and vegetable to wash and chop, after all.
They fall into an easy silence.
He slides right up beside her. She washes in her bowl, assisted by her bending. He chops whatever is done with his expert knife skills. It’ll take a while, but neither minds.
Zuko is the first to fill the pleasant quiet.
“How’s Aang?” He asks.
She swallows.
“Fine, I think,” she says. “Whatever we were starting…it’s long over.”
“Over?”
“If you could ever really call it started, yeah,” she says, glancing Zuko’s way as she churns her current round of vegetables in her bowl. “I thought we needed space. He agreed.”
It’s so easy to forget the whole thing. The kisses, the awkward love confessions, everything. At the center of all of that is one of her best friends, after all, and she loves that friend. That never went away and it never will, not after everything. Aang is as he always was, the boy she found in the iceberg. The boy she traveled the world with. One of the boys she saved the world with. A close friend, her family.
Not a boy she’s in love with though.
Especially not the way he was in love with her.
He’d asked her to come with him to find the Air Nomads. And Katara…Katara thought no. That’s not her life. That’s not what she wants to do with her life, she hadn't made that decision for herself yet and wasn't sure if she ever would. It was what she wanted Aang to do though. She-…
She doesn’t want to dwell on it. The first half of that talk with Aang had been so tense and it crawls back up her neck when she thinks about it too long.
But she’s dwelling too long all the same, Zuko noticing and asking, “are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” she says with a shrug. “Aang’s fine. It’s better this way.”
She’ll tell him more one day. About the long, long talk her and Aang had. Not today though. Not today. Not when that still feels so fresh. Not when it’s her first time seeing Zuko in months.
“How’s Mai?” She asks. It’s a place to start digging, an entry point that Zuko has opened himself up for. A thing she can check off her list.
“Fine, I think,” Zuko says.
“You think?”
“Mai is…it can be hard to tell, but she hasn’t told me she’s not,” he explains with a shrug.
“Aren’t you two still together?”
“That’s complicated to,” he replies. “She never exactly took me back. We’ve just been feeling it out while things settle down.”
“You aren’t together?” She sounds a lot more confused then she’d like to, but Katara had thought Mai took him back the day of his coronation. The other girl had stuck close to his side, helped him get ready, kissed him, held onto his arm, all the sorts of things Katara expected she’d do upon taking him back and forgiving him.
All Zuko does is repeat, “it’s complicated.”
Katara can understand that perfectly well.
“Are you alright with that?” She asks and he nods.
“It’s a mutual decision,” he says.
They return to that quiet, content in their duties for a moment. Two.
Then Katara finally can’t hold it any longer. She accepts there’s no graceful way for her to do this and asks, “are you alright in general? You seem off.”
“I’m not off,” Zuko lies. Katara doesn’t press. She just goes silent, taking flicking her current vegetable dry and setting it down near Zuko’s cutting station. And she stays quiet as she places the next vegetables in her washing bowl and pulls herself some new, fresh water.
“I’m not off,” Zuko insists, giving her some bite.
“You’re a little off,” Katara replies, undeterred.
Zuko swallows and they catch each others eyes again. He can’t shake her, she won’t let him.
All the walls go down the longer he looks at her, the longer he stays frozen in her stare. She can see them crumbling one by one, bit by bit. Until he sighs, his shoulders are falling to. He looks away, fixing on his knife.
“He says my mother left the Fire Nation alive,” Zuko tells her. No need to elaborate on who he is.
Katara blinks, hands still, her vegetables frozen place to where they’re suspended in the water she’s now stilled. The sound of his knife chopping again and again and again is deafening.
He won’t look at her.
“Do you think he’s lying?” She finally asks.
“At first I did,” he tells her, finally pausing his chopping. There’s a window in front of them and he lifts his head to look out it. Every place in this house comes with a beautiful view. Private beaches, courtyards, gardens, trees. This one has the sea and the sand and a stone pathway to it down through the grass.
Katara wonders if Ursa liked it.
If she looked up from these counters out to the sea and perhaps saw her children, playing in the sand.
Then Katara tries to imagine Zuko’s family happy at any point in his childhood…despite his claims they were often happy on Ember Island when he was small, part of her doubts it.
“The guards of his cell told me he wanted to talk to me. As usual, he was trying to leverage it to get himself free. I wasn’t going to do that, so I started looking for more information, trying to find proof on my own,” Zuko continues. “Nothing he says can be taken at face value. If it were true, there had to be proof. Then…I found it.”
“You found proof?”
He nods, his eyes go back to the knife, and he goes back to chopping. Katara does not resume washing.
“Toph was at the palace at the time. You know how she’s always in and out of there.”
With the end of the war, Toph has become notably listless. Her parents are more welcoming of their daughters true self but the years of walls and rules have made Toph resentful. No desire to go home, no desire to travel alone either. So, instead, she’s been making her rounds between all of them to find something to do. Usually this lands her at the palace at the moment. Zuko offers her a lot of freedoms and a lot of comforts.
But also a purpose, in a lot of ways.
She enjoys making the lives of Fire Nation nobles miserable in whatever way she can. From detecting lies, to her blunt nature, to messing with them with her bending, she has limitless options.
Katara can’t fault her for that. It seems like an incredibly noble cause.
“She came here with you guys and I think she’ll leave with you to,” Katara teases and Zuko laughs a little.
“I didn’t mention any of this to her. I don’t bring her with me on the rare chance I talk to my father because I just assume it’s all lies. Even if I didn’t want it to be, I was sure this was another one of them. Just to make sure I’d spent a few hours digging in the archives but came back with nothing. Toph found it entirely by accident. We were wandering around one day, by my fathers old suite, and she said she felt something in the walls. Like something in the vibrations felt hallow. So we moved around some things and…well, there was something craved out of the walls. My father had been keeping more personal records there, things he didn’t trust to be in the archives. And mixed in with all of it were records of my mother when she first got to the Earth Kingdom. He’d been watching her but her movements went cold after about a month,” he says.
“There’s a lot of reasons for that, Zuko,” Katara says quietly, heart heavy.
“I know. But whoever he had tailing her told him in their last communication that he’d just lost her trail,” Zuko says. He looks her in the eye then, almost desperate. “She made it to the Earth Kingdom and disappeared.”
The web he’s beginning to weave…it’s a lot to take in.
And Katara can’t lie to herself. Because she feels it biting at her heart, at her stomach. How nice for him, she supposes, that his mother might be alive. That’s what he’s implying, after all.
Swallowing, she tries to bite that down.
It’s not a fair thought.
She’s his friend, after all. And she wants his mother to be alive. Even if hers can’t. Especially if hers can’t. If she can spare him the endlessness of that grief, she would. She knows he’d do the same for her. He tried, after all. And in some ways he succeeded.
Her mother will always be dead. Some part of Katara will always blame herself. But finding those answers, looking the man who killed her in the eye and making him fear for his very soul…it made it easier. Knowing Yon Rha was just a small, miserable man living a small miserable life and nothing more made it easier.
It’s only fair. Zuko having this chance, even if Katara can’t, is fair. She keeps telling herself that and will until any thought otherwise is thoroughly digested.
So she looks at him, hoping her eyes are bright, curious, and intrigued.
“You think she’s in the Earth Kingdom?” She asks. He nods.
“I think she is,” he replies.
“Are you going to send someone to find her, then? I’m sure we could set up some meetings with-”
“I want to look for her myself,” he interrupts and Katara falters.
Is…is that something he’s even allowed to do?
“Oh! But what about the Fire Nation?”
“I asked Mai to keep everyone in line,” he says. “She’s Fire Lord in everything but name until I get back. It’s not her dream job, but she agrees with my politics. All the advisers and nobles are a lot more scared of her then they are of me. Toph said she’d stay as often and as long as she can to keep an eye on things. I wanted to ask your brother and Aang if they’re alright checking in with them, just to make sure nothings wrong. Maybe Suki to. I want to set her up with good, loyal people she can fall back on. The state of everything is so fragile…but…”
He trails off, lips pressed in a thin line as he focuses on his fingers.
“You have to go,” Katara finishes for him.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I have to.”
She remembers him at her tent, waiting for her to walk out in the morning so he can offer her retribution. She remembers thinking then that there was never a worse time for it. The war was breathing down their necks, the comet was so close she could nearly reach out and feel it burn her skim. She was needed there, at camp, with Aang. But…she had to go. She had to. Once she knew she could find the man who haunted her nightmares, there would be no rest for her until she looked him in the eye. Until she knew.
When she first agreed to teach Aang, to come with him, Katara never really considered having to become so close to her own mortality. It seemed like such a grand adventure, like the ones people in her village would share around campfires. Something magical, something simple, something grand with no grave risk. While she knew of the war, she knew of raids, she knew of risk and death and destruction, it was so singular. War was, in some ways, avoidable despite how it loomed. No one had been killed in her village itself since her mother, after all and the men who died in the war were so far away, so distant.
Of course, that wasn’t the truth. It wasn’t a grand adventure with no risk.
She was thrown into a war.
You can die so easily in a war, so tangibly. Especially when you become one of the key players.
Once it was offered to her, Katara couldn’t deny that she wanted revenge. That their plans for the comets arrival could leave her dead and if she didn’t take that chance, if she didn’t go with Zuko, she would become a restless ghost with a dangling thread she never solve.
She understands entirely.
It makes that bitter feeling in her gut all the worse while it shrinks.
“I’m a little offended you don’t want me to check in with Mai,” she teases, back to washing her vegetables.
“I want you to come with me.”
That nearly stops her heart entirely and it takes Katara second to register how she’s frozen in place once again. This time, though, she drops the water. The vegetables fall into the bowl with a small splash and she turns her head to Zuko.
He’s finally looking at her again. Eyes square on her face. Him and those pretty gold eyes.
“You’re asking me to help you track down your mother?” She asks.
“I…I can’t think of anyone else I’d want to bring,” he says. They study one another in silence, a silence Zuko seems uncomfortable to bear but Katara remains unsure on how to fill, rendered speechless. He stammers on, saying, “you can say no. That’s fine. I know it’s a lot to ask, and I know it might not be fair and-”
“I’ll go,” Katara interrupts.
He lets out a breath.
The relief, the gratefulness, washes over him so visibly. His eyes thank her a thousand and one times before his lips can utter the words.
“It could be months,” he says instead.
“I’ve spent months with you, I can do it again.” She teases and smiles. “You did it for me, I’m honored to help you do the same.”
It feels like a fitting way to repay him. Because saving his life is not the same as the debt she owes him for closure. For peace of mind. For leaving Yon Rha to rot in his guilt. She can rest easy now, when her time comes for her and she’s old and happy. Zuko gave her that.
But more then the idea of owing anything, he’s one of her best friends. He has many talented best friends, to be chosen above the rest of them…that’s an honor to.
“Thank you,” he finally says.
“Of course,” she replies. “When do we start?”
He considers. The offers, “right after we’re done with vacation?”
She nearly laughs.
“Are you ready to go that soon?” She asks. “I mean, with all your responsibilities.” He nods, certain.
“I was really hoping you’d say yes,” he tells her. “Do you need to go home first?”
Maybe she should. Even if it’s just to say goodbye to her father and Gran Gran and Pakku. But, truth be told, she doesn’t think there’s anything at home she needs to take with her that she doesn’t already have here. It’s not like before, her family is mobile and she has no deadline. Communicating with them, even seeing them, should be a lot easier.
“No,” she says. “Do you need to go home first?”
Zuko says to her, “I’ll need to go back but we don’t need to stay long. It’d mostly be to get supplies and finish tying up some loose ends. We could leave as soon as the next day.”
“Do you have a place to start?”
“The trail my father had went cold a little bit inland from a small, coastal town,” Zuko says. “I say we start with that town and follow her up. There could be some leads on the way.”
“Sounds good,” Katara says, setting down her bowl. She watches the water for a moment, two, then starts pulling out her current stock. She dries each vegetable and deposits them one by one beside Zuko.
Months, he’d said.
It could be more then that. She knows Zuko, you see, and if it takes years to find his mother he will spend years doing it.
But she’ll settle on the idea of months. Regardless the number of them. And she thinks that, perhaps, months traveling the world again now that there’s no war, now that there’s time to see it all…it’s such a familiar road, but in a new season she’s yet to see. No battle fields, no soldiers, no invasions. Just her, Zuko, and the entire Earth Kingdom. Because Katara is sure, if Zuko didn’t run into her the first time through the Earth Kingdom, that Ursa will not be easy to find.
This is going to be a journey that will take the two of them across the entire continent and perhaps then some.
And, honestly, it sounds exactly like what she needs.