Chapter Text
Katara doesn't hear the footsteps at first. And that's not good.
The crescent moon hangs high in the sky, the stars swirling like silver dust around it, beautiful but providing little light. It's late, maybe an hour after midnight.
What if it's another assassin, sent by Azula this time? A thief come to take what little they have? A holidaymaker here to air out the house, about to happen on the six most valuable fugitives in the Fire Nation? The list of possible disaster-level intruders is endless, so when Katara jerks up from her comfy spot of roof to the sound of the panelled door to the kitchen being opened and closed by a careful, quiet hand, her heart shoots into her throat.
She wastes no time bending a ramp of ice and sliding down to the ground and halfway across the courtyard. When she reaches the door (being not a complete idiot), rather than bursting through it like an avenging spirit, she restrains herself, stopping with her back to the door, and leaning forward just enough to listen.
Silence. Then something being picked up and placed down, twice, something being twisted open, and put down, a quiet, inscrutable grunt as someone hoists something off of a shelf.
No doubt about it, somebody is going through their things.
She bends a steady trickle of water into a fist-sized ball under her palm. The action would seem calm and measured, but Katara's heart is pounding like the footfalls of a runaway. If she fights this intruder, what then? Let them go? So they can tell everyone they know that there's a waterbender (at least) holed up in the Firelord's private Summer House? Otherwise they'll have to keep them prisoner, which would be not only one more mouth to feed, but they'll also surely have to be guarded, right? The other option...
Katara shakes her head, tossing her long, loose hair and willing the thought away
Cross that bridge when you come to it. She thinks bitterly to herself.
She's poised and ready, one foot forward, when there comes a sudden clatter, multiple heavy, metal objects crashing to the stone floor, which causes her to physically jump at least a foot in the air. Something- probably a wok- takes particular time coming to a standstill, and when the cacophony recedes, Katara hears a voice.
Not words, but a barely there hiss, as if they're imitating the sound of rushing water. Are they... Shushing the wok?
Then the voice utters a string of curses that would make a sailor blush, and Katara knows exactly who it is.
She bends the water back into her waterskin, and releases a long, measured breath.
It's just Zuko. With this knowledge ascertained, she should retreat, go back to her sleepless rooftop vigil. Were it a few weeks earlier, she would be storming in full of smug, victorious accusations, but things had changed, and now she's at least sure she can trust Zuko to grab himself something from the kitchen. Trusting him at all is new and raw, but it's so much easier that pretending not to.
Just as she makes the first motion to leave, she hears something that freezes her in her tracks. It's small, and for a moment she's able to pass it off as just her own mind playing tricks on her. But no- there it is again.
A quiet gasp breaks the relative silence of night, a broken sound like the rasp of a tide scraping over sand.
Katara can't help herself, careful not to be seen, she peers around the doorframe, seeking out the thin, lanky frame that she knows will be there.
Surrounded by a ring of iron cooking pots (including the mutinous wok), crouches a silhouette, half bathed in moonlight, hands still outstretched as if he'd meant to prevent the noisy display.
She hears a sigh as he straightens, pushing the heel of his hand against his forehead (she's seen him do this multiple times before, and knows that it probably means he's calling himself less than complimentary things in his head.)
Zuko returns to the cupboard, the doors of which have been left hanging open. Katara doesn't instantly recognise it from her previous inspections if the kitchen, so it doesn't contain food. He starts methodically removing jars, vials, bottles, turning each of them over in his hand before setting it down on the rapidly filling surface beneath. A couple of times he'll uncork one and raise it to his nose, before shaking his head and resealing it, each time with more force as his apparent frustration mounts. With one, before it even gets close his face, he recoils, overcome by coughing. As he moves, the sparse moonlight reveals an expression of disgusted regret and Katara has to bite down an amused snort.
She's started to forget about what made her stay in the first place, until- while in the process of retrieving a small vial- he suddenly jerks back like he's been stung.
And there it is, the muted gasp, which- now that she can see the actions to match- follow his hand coming up shuddering to his face. There's a broken, choked sob, and Katara doesn't realise that's she's stepping through the door until the whole room is bathed in flickering gold, as something shatters on the stone floor.
The fire in Zuko's hand is raised in defence, but his stance is lax. If Katara were an intruder, he would be dangerously unprepared. She'll have to tell him so once she's gotten to the bottom if what he's doing out here in the first place.
It had surprised Katara in the beginning to discover that Zuko is not a particularly difficult person to read. Of course, in the beginning it wasn't exactly a reach to say that he was an angry, melodramatic jerk, but lately, Katara has found herself doing double takes when she spots a small, nervous smile creasing the corners of his eyes, or a confused pout on his lips. Right now, his expression is… Afraid?
His breath comes in short pants, the one eye she can see blown wide and startled.
“Zuko? It’s just me.” Katara holds up her hands placatingly, stepping further into the light. Ember Island’s Summer heat always abates this deep into the night, so in the back of her mind, Katara welcomes the warm glow as she edges into the kitchen. She shivers when he drops his hand, extinguishing the flame almost as fast as he summoned it.
“Katara.” He says her name as if to himself like a mantra rather than an acknowledgement.
“Is everything okay?” She asks, stepping forward, but as she does so, he steps back, deeper into the shadows, until he’s beyond the reach of moonlight entirely. Katara stops, “is something wrong?”
“I didn’t mean to wake you.” Comes his voice, and something in it causes Katara’s hackles to rise. It sounds… Laboured, like every word is being forced out from behind his teeth. She doesn’t let the old suspicion rear its ugly head. She shakes her head and affects a certain amount of nonchalance,
“I was awake already. You think a cooking pot avalanche is enough to get me up? Have you heard how loud Sokka's snores are?” With every word, she inches forward, and with every inch she gains, he retreats.
She’s just tiptoeing around the mess of cooking utensils when something cracks under her shoe. Lifting her foot away, she squints down at the darkness, catching the shine of liquid under the shattered remains of an Earthen vial. A sharp, herbal smell wafts up from where it’s been disturbed.
She looks to the counter underneath the open cupboard doors and finds she recognises at least a couple of the barely distinguishable shapes.
“Why are you looking for medicine in the middle of the night?” Katara seeks out Zuko’s face again, but it’s simply a vague outline in the dark. There’s no reply. She forges ahead, regardless, genuine worry mounting.
“Zuko, what’s-” She’s cut off by a sound halfway between a sob and a frustrated snarl.
Katara wastes no more time, striding straight up to the shadowy figure and groping for his arm in the dark.
“Zuko, give me a light, now.”
“Katara, just go.”
“Now.” Throughout this unexpected encounter, Katara has been whispering, but now she injects command into her voice. The single word brokers no argument, and Zuko doesn’t give her one.
Small and flickering, a miniscule flame flutters to life between them, over his palm, and for the first time, Katara is able to get a decent look at him. He’s dressed for sleep, in the plain trousers and tunic which usually go under his long, gold-trimmed vest. Her hand rests on his upper bicep, fingers digging into the fine material. Zuko’s non-firebending hand is on his face, hiding the scarred skin with white knuckles. When her eyes alight upon it, it is removed quickly, returning to its spot at his side.
The eye that she can see is blown wide, like an animal that doesn’t want to fight but is finding itself unable to fly. And truthfully, Katara cannot entirely blame him, as she sets about conducting a thorough medical examination.
First she searches with her eyes, looking for redness or swelling. Then she takes her thumb and forefinger to his chin and turns it- somewhat gently- this way and that. Nothing out of the ordinary for Zuko. Same clear, pale skin, same full, soft- Nope, moving on. Same paralysing, gold eyes… There’s something not quite right there, but before Katara can put her finger on what it is, he’s turned his head out of her grip, as if his attention is fully taken up with the state of the cooking pots.
Shaking it off, she continues, looking carefully at his throat and down his arms. Everything seems to be in working order.
"Y'know, I've heard we've got someone round here with healing abilities, she’s meant to be pretty good at it too." She says, voice gentle despite the sarcasm. "You should've come and found me."
It wouldn't be the first time she's healed him since he became an ally. Small cuts and burns from training with Sokka and Aang has earned him many a stern lecture over a glove of glowing water, though recently they have lost their venom.
Zuko releases one more deep, shaking sigh. And for the first time since she started checking him over, he meets her eyes.
"It's my face."
Katara huffs, exasperated. "I'm perfectly capable of healing faces, Zuko."
Funny, she hadn't seem anything wrong with his face when she checked him over.
She's about to tell him as much, when she notices his pointed expression. And it clicks.
'Maybe you could be free of it.'
Oh.
She could leave him now. Leave him to find whatever it is he's looking for and forget she ever saw any of this. Forget the shortened gasps, the white knuckles over red flesh, the eye blown wide in panicked surprise. The way he's watching her, she knows he's expecting her to do just that. A week ago, she might have.
But things have changed.
"Like I said," her voice is barely a whisper when it finally escapes. "You should have come and found me."
She steps away, but her hand finds his wrist, pulling him forward (she knows the odds of him following if she doesn't are slim). They step over the mess of the kitchen. At some point they'll have to tidy it up, but she can tell that this- whatever this is- is so much more important than a few scattered pots and broken vials.
Even if she doesn't know why yet.
"Besides," she continues, trying to curb the tension that has curled in the pit of her stomach, "most of this is probably well past being at all useful. You could have just made it worse, then where would we be?"
Behind her, she hears something so quiet that it could just be another harsh intake of breath, but it feels like a laugh, and Katara glows with the victory.