Work Text:
The heat of the Fire Nation presses down like a living thing, a smothering weight that seeps into every breath. Katara lies sprawled across her bed, limbs flung wide in a futile attempt to escape the suffocation. Her blankets lie discarded in a crumpled heap on the floor. One of the balcony doors stands open, inviting in a breeze so faint it barely stirs the gauzy curtains. It doesn’t help. Even in her lightest shift, the heat clings, damp and persistent, coating her skin like a second layer she cannot shed. Above her, the gilded ceiling gleams faintly in the moonlight, its intricate patterns blurring as her gaze lingers too long.
Sleep will not come.
She longs for the crisp, biting cold of home. For the howling winds that carry the lull of distant waves and the songs of creaking icebergs.
Her mind churns, restless, circling. Dragging her back to earlier in the day.
To Ozai’s funeral.
When Iroh’s letter had come, bearing the terse announcement of the former Fire Lord’s death – suspected to be by his own hand – it had drawn the Gaang back together. They had converged from all corners of the world to support Zuko as he faced this grim chapter of his family’s legacy.
And the young Fire Lord had been… remarkable.
Steady through weeks of preparation, tireless in managing funeral arrangements. Navigating the minefield of council meetings, deflecting arguments over the scale of the procession, over how a tyrant should be honored and remembered.
He listened. He decided. He endured.
At dinner, he smiled as they teased and joked in an effort to lighten his mood. He’d laugh, quiet and careful, the curve of his mouth almost convincing. But the mirth never quite touched his eyes.
Today, at the procession, he’d been as composed as ever.
Shaking hands, bowing his head, murmuring thanks. He was gracious, almost maddeningly so, as he thanked citizens who offered condolences. Even more so to those who muttered, “Good riddance”.
Not a flicker of anger or panic, not a crack in the armor.
Katara stood with her friends, watching from a distance. Marveling at his calm collectedness.
Azula had been there too. Chains bound her wrists, the metal glinting under the hot sun as two guards flanked her on either side. She said nothing. Did nothing. Her gaze stayed fixed on the ground throughout the entire procession.
No one approached or spoke to her.
Katara’s stomach had twisted whenever she glanced at the broken girl, unease prickling along her spine.
Now, in the stifling dark of her chamber, she wonders what it’s like to bury a father who never loved you. To grieve for a man whose approval you spent your whole life trying, and failing, to earn.
With no mother by his side, and a sister locked away, she imagines Zuko feels lonelier than ever.
Her thoughts continue to swirl as she turns on her side with a frustrated breath, pressing her cheek into the warm fabric of her pillow.
A soft knock breaks the silence. Coming from the balcony.
She pushes herself upright, brows drawing together as her gaze snaps toward the gauzy curtains. A shape looms beyond them, tall and indistinct, a dark silhouette shifting faintly in the night.
Her breath catches.
Don’t panic.
Water answers her instinct before her thoughts can catch up. It rises in a smooth arc from the washbasin, cool and ready, hovering at her side.
It can’t be a thief. Not here. The palace is too heavily guarded, too tightly watched. No one slips through those defenses unnoticed.
“Katara?”
The voice cuts through her spiraling thoughts.
She stills.
Recognition lands a heartbeat later, steadying her breath.
“Zuko?” she calls, the tension in her voice softening into disbelief. The water lowers at once, slipping back into the basin with a quiet ripple as she swings her legs off the bed and crosses the room.
She pushes the already open door wider, ready to tear into him for frightening her.
But her words die as she takes in the sight of the man standing there.
Loose black trousers hang low at his hips, a red silk robe draped carelessly over his shoulders, parted enough to reveal the sharp lines of his bare chest. Her gaze flickers to the jagged path of his lightning scar before she forces her eyes upward. His hair, usually tied back in a precise topknot, spills loose around his face, strands clinging to his sweat-dampened skin like he’s just woken from a nightmare.
But it’s his expression that alarms her.
His golden eyes are rimmed red, dulled by exhaustion and shadowed by something heavier, something darker. His brows are drawn tight. His mouth, though pressed into a tight line, quivers slightly at the edges, as though even that restraint is beginning to fray.
“Zuko,” she says again, quieter now.
Worry knots in her chest. She steps closer without thinking, skipping past every question that should come first. Why are you here? How did you get here?
“What’s wrong?”
For a moment, he doesn’t answer.
His jaw shifts, tight with effort, and his gaze drifts over her as though he is both here and somewhere else entirely. Like he sees her, and doesn’t see her at the same time.
Then, finally—
“You asked me, once,” he says, his voice low and rough, dragged up from somewhere deep and splintered, “to help you forget. The night with Yon Rha.”
Katara’s pulse stumbles.
The memory surges up like a tidal wave, crashing through her thoughts. The cold cave. The relentless drum of rain. The unbearable ache of her grief. His kisses, laced with something desperate and pleading. The heat of his hands searing against her skin as though he could burn the pain out of her.
She never expected him to speak of it again.
They had buried that night between them, pressed it down beneath silence and routine, as if ignoring it could erase it. They moved forward, step by careful step, until everything resembled normal again. So convincingly that, at times, she had almost believed it had been a dream.
“I remember,” she murmurs, though her voice feels distant to her own ears. Her heart beats too fast, an uneven rhythm she cannot quiet.
“I need to forget.”
His gaze locks onto hers, the intensity of it sending a shiver skimming down her spine.
“Not like that,” he corrects quickly, catching the flush rising to her cheeks. The words trip over themselves as he shakes his head slightly. “I don’t mean—”
He falters. Swallows.
“I just… I can’t be alone. Not after today. Not with all the memories…” His voice cracks on the last word.
Katara sees it then, fully. The grief, the anger, the crushing loneliness, all of it crashing down at once. It’s too much for one person to carry, and yet he has been carrying it all day, all month, perhaps his entire life. Now it spills over, here of all places, on her balcony.
Her breath stills. Her mind races, grasping for something steady.
“You didn’t go to Mai?” she asks.
Mai had been there through everything. At every dinner. Standing just behind him during the procession, stoic and silent, except for the occasional dry remark that slipped past her lips.
Zuko shakes his head, the motion slow, heavy.
“She wouldn’t understand. She doesn’t—” He hesitates, eyes closing briefly. “I don’t want her to see me like this.”
Katara hesitates, torn.
The right thing would be to send him away, to urge him to find solace in his girlfriend’s arms. To share this weight with her instead.
But looking at him now, she knows she won’t.
She can’t.
Before she fully realizes what she’s doing, she reaches for his wrist and pulls him inside.
She leaves the door slightly ajar, lingering there for a moment, her hand resting on the knob as adrenaline hums through her veins.
What did I just do?
She inhales slowly, steadying herself, then turns back to him.
Zuko moves further into the room, his bare feet silent against the plush carpet. He drags a hand through his hair, the strands falling back into place only to be disturbed again by restless fingers. His robe shifts with each movement, red silk flashing like sharp flames.
Her room feels smaller with him in it.
She forgets, sometimes, how tall he is. How much space he occupies without trying.
“Why didn’t you just come through the door?” she can’t help asking.
He huffs a quiet breath, not quite a laugh. “Didn’t want to alert the guards or servants,” he mutters. Then, almost as an afterthought, his cheeks tint faintly red. “Or start any rumors.”
“Ah.” Warmth creeps into her own face at that.
“It’s this heat, and the funeral, and…” He trails off, his gaze dropping to the floor. “It’s too much.” His voice thins. “I’ve had a headache for days,” he admits, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. “The palace physicians haven’t helped, and—I know it’s late, and I’m sorry to have woken you—”
“Zuko,” Katara interrupts gently.
She crosses the space between them and takes his wrists, easing his hands away from his face. His skin is hot, tension coiled tight beneath it.
“Let me help.”
For a moment, his gaze is wild, unfocused. Then it finds hers.
Something in him stills.
The fight drains from him as he exhales a single, broken word.
“Please.”
Moonlight filters in through the curtains, its pale glow softening the harsh edges of his scar. Exhaustion hangs from his shoulders, pools in his eyes, presses outward like a weight too heavy to carry alone.
Katara feels it.
Feels the pull to ease it.
She lifts her hand, drawing healing water from the flask on her nightstand. It rises at her call, swirling into her palm, gleaming like molten silver.
She lifts her hands to cup his face, her palm resting against his scarred cheek. Zuko's eyes close at once, as though her touch is something he has been bracing for, or craving. He leans into her palm without hesitation, instinctive.
The trust in it unsteadies her.
Her throat thickens as she presses her fingertips to his temple. The water responds, cooling, glowing faintly as she channels the healing energy into him. She guides it carefully, threading it through the tight, aching knots of tension buried deep in his head. She tries to focus, to keep her thoughts clear, but it’s impossible not to notice the way his hair brushes against her hand, or the heat radiating from his skin.
She shivers, goosebumps rising along her skin, though the breeze that drifts in is warm and dry.
This is the third time he has let her touch his scar.
First, in the crystal catacombs beneath Ba Sing Se. The cold, glittering walls. Her anger, sharp and righteous, still fresh in her veins. And then—his voice. Softer than she expected. Unsteady in a way that did not match the enemy she thought she knew.
He had spoken of his mother.
And something in her had faltered.
Her hand had cradled his face, her thumb resting against his bottom lip…
Back then, he’d still been her adversary. A boy shaped by fire and pain, who bore the mark of his father’s cruelty. A boy who’d betrayed her.
The second time had been in another cave. After he’d helped her find her mother’s killer, following her into her grief without flinching. Offering something steadier than comfort or platitudes. Something that did not try to soften the edges of what she felt.
She had been unraveling then, caught between rage and emptiness, desperate for release and finding none. Nothing that would bring her mother back.
She had turned to him. The storm inside her, a weight pressing so hard she could hardly breathe. She’d asked him to make it stop. To quiet it, if only for a moment.
And he’d obliged her. Kissing her thoroughly. Intensely. Enough to burn away every thought.
She’d caressed the jagged lines of his scar, marveling at how that ruined, uneven skin only served to make him more striking, not less.
And now, here.
No war. No storm.
Only the quiet of her room as she forces her thoughts away from the origin of that scar. From the image of a father raising his hand against his own son.
How could anyone strike this boy, how could anyone not love him…
Katara closes her eyes, steadies herself. Concentrates on the task at hand.
She channels the healing energy with practiced precision, guiding it deeper, easing the pressure, unwinding the pain.
For a moment, nothing changes.
Then his shoulders sag, and he lets out a soft, almost soundless sigh.
“Thank you,” he breathes, his voice hoarse.
Before she can respond, his forehead dips to hers. The contact is light. Unthinking. Intimate in a way that steals the air from her lungs.
Katara freezes, her hands still cupping his face. His skin is warm, his breath brushing across her cheeks in uneven, fragile currents that make it difficult to think.
She should step back. Put space between them.
Instead, her hands betray her. Her fingers slip into his unbound hair, threading through the dark strands. They are softer than she expects, silk sliding between her fingers. At the touch, he exhales again, deeper this time, as if another piece of the weight falls away.
Her heart stutters.
The rational part of her screams to let go.
She doesn’t.
She can’t.
Not when he yields like this beneath her hands. Not when he stands so open, so unguarded.
She considers, briefly, that this should all feel strange. Him, standing in her room in the middle of the night, his breath ghosting over the bridge of her nose, her hands in his hair, mouths inches apart.
This is Zuko.
Zuko, whom she hasn’t seen in months. Their connection reduced to occasional letters and scattered updates as their lives pulled them in different directions. She had thrown herself into rebuilding the Water Tribes, traveling between North and South, negotiating, urging unity where there had once been fracture.
And Zuko had carried a nation. Shouldering the weight of a crown, of reparations and reconciliation, of a people still learning how to exist without conquest. A Fire Lord in a world that did not yet trust him to be any different than his father.
They had drifted.
Pulled apart by distance, by duty.
And yet—
Here, now, the distance feels like an illusion.
The years fall away, quiet and seamless, until he is no longer the Fire Lord standing before her. He is the boy who turned his back on everything he was taught, who chose the harder path because it was right. The boy who sought them out in search of redemption and belonging. The boy who waited outside her tent through the night, asking for forgiveness he did not expect to receive.
The boy who stood beside her when she faced the man who took her mother.
Zuko had never tried to shape her into something she wasn’t. Never asked her to be smaller, softer, easier to accept. Never held her to some impossible, idealized standard the way Aang had. That had been part of the fracture between them, one of the quiet truths that led to an ending neither she nor Aang could avoid.
With Zuko, there had only ever been space.
Space to feel. To break. To be angry, and grieving, and whole all at once.
He had never judged. Never turned away. He had simply stayed.
Maybe that is why this doesn’t feel as strange as it should.
Maybe that is why, standing here with him, she feels more like herself than she has in months.
His nose brushes hers, light and tentative.
Her breath catches, heart hammering hard enough that she is certain he must hear it in the silence. He smells faintly of smoke and something warmer, spiced. Intoxicating.
“Help me forget,” he whispers, the words slipping into the space between them, his voice rough and pleading, his proximity setting her every nerve ablaze.
Katara can barely think past the rush of her pulse. A wild, impossible thought flickers through her mind. If she could freeze this moment the way she freezes water, she would hold it here forever, suspended and untouchable.
“How?” she asks, breathless and bewildered.
Her fingers slip from his hair and settle on his chest, his skin smooth and hot beneath her palms. His breath ghosts over her lips, sending a tremor through her.
For a moment, neither of them speaks.
What is this?
What are we doing?
He draws back just slightly, enough to look at her fully. His gaze moves over her face, searching, careful and uncertain in a way she has rarely seen. It makes her dizzy, makes something low in her chest ache.
He leans in again.
At the same moment, she rises onto her toes, the distance between them narrowing without thought, without permission. Instinct takes over, sweeping reason and caution aside.
And then—
He stops.
The shift is subtle but absolute. His jaw tightens, something shuttering behind his eyes as if a memory has caught up with him.
Mai…
Reality comes crashing in.
They can’t do this.
She can’t help him the way he wants, the way she’d asked him to back in that cave. Not when he has a girlfriend…
“Tell me a story,” he says instead.
His voice has softened, carefully reshaped. He reaches up, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear with a gentleness that feels almost more intimate than anything that came before it.
“A… a story,” Katara echoes, blinking as if she has just surfaced from deep water. “I can do that.”
She removes her hands. Needing distance and air, she turns and drifts toward the balcony. The night greets her, warm and open, the faintest breeze brushing against her skin. It does little to cool her, but it gives her space to breathe. To think.
Zuko follows without a word.
They settle side by side against the balustrade, close enough that she is acutely aware of him, careful enough not to touch.
Below them, the palace courtyard lies hushed and still. Beyond its walls, the city stretches outward in soft gold, streets lined with flickering lanterns. Above, the sky is clear, the moon bright and watchful, the heavens scattered with quiet constellations.
Katara fixes her gaze on the horizon.
She begins to speak, her voice finding its rhythm as she reaches for old stories, the ones Gran Gran used to tell her when she was small. Tales of spirits and water and resilience, of people who endured and changed and survived.
She focuses on the words.
On the shape of the story.
On anything but the man beside her.
Because she can feel him. His gaze, lingering on her like a touch, warm and steady against the side of her face. Amber eyes never straying from her as she paints pictures for him with her words.
She doesn’t know how much time passes as one story bleeds into the next, her voice weaving a steady thread through the night.
At some point, they drift back inside.
Katara settles onto a chaise near the hearth and Zuko sits at her feet. She shares the stories her mother used to tell her and Sokka before bed, filled with gentle lessons and quiet comfort.
Her voice begins to roughen. Still, she doesn’t stop.
Zuko leans in slowly, almost hesitantly, until his head rests against her knee.
Katara stills for half a heartbeat.
Then her hand moves on its own. Her fingers slip into his hair, carding through the dark strands, slow and soothing. She keeps speaking, her touch absentminded, until his breaths even out and the last story trails off into silence, sleep taking them both.
When Katara wakes, the light has changed.
Sunlight spills into the room in long, golden streams, chasing away the shadows of night.
The space at her feet is empty.
She blinks, disoriented, pushing herself upright. Her gaze drifts across the room, catching on the familiar and unfamiliar all at once.
His robe lies draped over a nearby chair.
And beyond, through the open balcony doors—
Him.
Zuko stands with his back to her, leaning against the balustrade, his silhouette cut clean against the morning light.
Katara rubs at her eyes, her mind struggling to catch up.
Last night comes back in fragments. Disjointed. Tangled with dreams.
Her hands on his face. The heat of his skin beneath her fingers. His breath, close and uneven. The way he leaned toward her, the space between them dissolving into something charged and uncertain.
His lips finding her neck. His hands at her waist, pulling her closer—
Wait. No.
Her breath catches as clarity settles in.
They had almost kissed.
The rest… that had been her dreaming.
Heat creeps up her neck.
Spirits.
She rises from the chaise, her steps quiet as she moves toward the balcony. She pauses just inside the doorway, watching him.
His hair is still loose, stirred gently by the morning breeze. His silk trousers shift with the movement, light catching along the lines of his body.
Her gaze lingers before she can stop it.
Follows the breadth of his back. The defined lines of muscle shifting subtly as he breathes. The strength in his arms, the quiet solidity of him.
When did he get so… big?
Zuko turns, eyes landing on her. A corner of his mouth lifts in a small smile.
“Good morning,” he says in a soft rasp.
Her insides melt. What might it be like to wake to that every day? To hear his voice like this, low and gentle, meant only for her? To be able to reach out and touch him whenever she—
Get a hold of yourself.
This is Zuko.
Her friend. Her ally.
“Good morning,” she replies, managing a smile as she steps out onto the balcony beside him.
She turns her gaze outward, fixing it firmly on the courtyard below. Anywhere but the half-dressed Fire Lord standing too close at her side.
“You'd better get back to your room before the servants think you’ve been kidnapped,” she says, aiming for something light, something normal.
Something that doesn’t betray the way her heart is still racing.
“I bought myself some time,” Zuko replies. “Locked my bedroom door on my way out last night. Gives me an hour or two before suspicions start to rise.”
Katara arches a brow. “And how exactly are you planning to get back in?”
He glances to the left, toward the sprawling stretch of the palace. “Same way I got here. Climb the railing, cross the roof, drop onto my balcony.”
She studies him, incredulous. “You do this often?”
Zuko nods, gaze drifting outward. “I used to.” His voice softens, edges worn down by memory. “When things got… bad. Especially with my father. I’d climb out, sit on the roof, watch the city. Sometimes I’d make my way over here.” He gestures faintly behind them. “Check on my mother after they argued.”
Katara stills.
“This used to be her room?” she asks quietly.
She’s been sleeping here for weeks.
Zuko gives a small, almost absent nod. “Maybe that’s why I came to your balcony last night.” His hands come together, fingers lacing and unlacing as he leans against the balustrade. “Familiar habits and all that.”
A breeze lifts the strands of his dark hair. For a moment, Katara’s mesmerized by the way it moves, her gaze tracing the lines of his profile, committing it to memory with a sudden, aching urgency.
Knowing this moment won’t happen again. That there will never be a repeat of last night.
The thought settles heavily in her chest.
“About last night…” Zuko begins.
He doesn’t look at her. His jaw tightens, throat shifting as though the words are stuck there.
Katara’s pulse quickens. She isn’t ready to hear what he has to say.
“How’s your head?” she cuts in gently. Her hands twitch at her sides, aching with the urge to reach out, to touch his temple, his scar, to feel for herself if the pain is truly gone. Instead, she curls her fingers into fists.
“It’s better,” he says softly. “Thank you.”
Silence follows.
It stretches, thin and fragile, pulling tighter with each passing second until it feels like it might snap.
“I apologize for intruding on your night,” he says at last.
Her stomach drops.
The shift in his tone is immediate, unmistakable. Careful and diplomatic. The one he uses during council meetings and when giving speeches. Like he’d spent all morning rehearsing these next words.
“It was… inappropriate of me, and I take full responsibility. Yesterday was difficult, and I allowed myself a moment of weakness. It won’t happen again.”
He straightens, turning to face her fully.
Katara has to bite back a laugh.
Really?
You’re going to give me that speech while standing there half-dressed?
She steps closer, tilting her head.
“You can bother me any time you like, Zuko. That’s what friends are for, right?” The words come easily, echoing the response he’d given her back in that cave.
How odd that word feels.
Friends.
How criminal and heart-rending. It doesn’t come close to holding everything he is to her.
Zuko looks at her for a little too long, mysteries swimming in the golden-brown depths of his eyes.
“Right,” he says finally, nodding.
He tries to smile.
It doesn’t reach his eyes.
Katara swallows past the tightness in her throat and gestures toward the far end of the palace. “You should probably go before your guards tear the place apart looking for you.”
A faint edge slips into her voice as she adds, “And remind me to have a conversation with your security detail. Including whoever’s supposed to be watching the roof.”
That earns the ghost of a real smile.
“Thank you, Katara,” he says.
She wonders what he’s thanking her for. Which part of last night.
She doesn’t get to ask. Watching as he scales the railing with practiced ease before disappearing across the rooftops, slipping back into the world he belongs to.