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Katara doesn’t know what’s worse: the fact that her husband seems to be deliriously ill or the fact that she just doesn’t know how to help him. Trying to restrict the Fire Lord to bedrest is a challenge in itself, especially when she simply wants to crawl into bed with him and hold him.
If all else doesn’t provide her enough sympathy to take care of him, she could remark on how adorable he looks, nestled in several sheets and blankets in the middle of their bed. His hair is pulled back neatly into a ponytail, small wispy strands falling beside his face. It had been her doing, while she listened to Zuko tell her about how pretty his hair would look since she was styling it for him, and how pretty her hair always looked.,
She didn’t think her husband could make her blush like a little girl.
It wasn’t the only thing she was wrong about.
Zuko is asleep when she finally creeps out of their bedroom to use the restroom, a departure she makes with a lot of resistance. His face is flushed and his skin is still warm to the touch, but certainly not any warmer than she’d ever felt. If it weren’t for the glassy look in his eyes and the brief stint of vomiting he’d done earlier in the day, she would have never known he was sick. So, she expects him to sleep for a little bit longer now that he’s finally managed to find rest.
She was definitely wrong about that.
When she opens the door, however, Zuko is standing in the middle of their bedroom, stripped of all of his clothing with the exception of his undergarments. Katara barely avoids slapping her own palm to her face at the sight of him, but he turns to look at her. His hair sways behind him when he stops and he breaks out into an infectiously lopsided grin.
“My wife,” he says in a voice so raw and tender that it gives Katara a fever of her own. “I slept too long and I missed you too much.”
He skips over to her, wobbly in his movements, and embraces her clumsily. His arms bend around her and he presses his nose to the top of her head, and Katara reluctantly presses her palm against his cheek.
“You’re going to get me sick.” She feels villainous, but she squirms in his hold, frowning lightly. “And you were only asleep for five minutes, Zuko.”
He tightens his hold when he feels her resisting. “I’m not sick anymore,” he mumbles and she can almost hear the pout in his voice, “and I still missed you.”
Katara laughs and ducks out of his hold. Somehow, the confused look on her husband’s face means that he didn’t quite calculate such an evasive maneuver, but he doesn’t move to grab her again. Instead, he moves over to the edge of the bed and sits there. Katara can see where he’d abandoned his clothes in the middle of their sheets, and she’s not sure that she has the energy to wrestle him in an attempt to put some of them back on.
“I love you,” she says, almost as a reminder, and for the way Zuko’s face lights up at the words, “but you need to rest. You should probably put your clothes back on, too.”
His brow furrows as he considers it. “Come lay with me?” He suggests instead, patting the space of the bed. Katara shakes her head, but he keeps patting the spot next to him with a wild grin, and she’s not sure how long she can hold out before he does something about it.
Katara isn’t sure that laying in the bed with all of Zuko’s sick germs will be worth it when she’s sick the next day, but something about his stubborn streak keeps her from fighting with him over it. His smile almost looks out of place with how bright it is, and he scoots over to the side when she climbs into the bed. He seems a little cautious at first, moving blankets and some of his clothes aside for her, but she pulls on his arm until he is lying down beside her.
“I feel better already,” he murmurs, smiling at her. Absently, one of his hands reaches out to stroke her curls, and Katara feels an unsettling warmth in the pit of her stomach. Maybe it’s not going to be worth it in the morning when she’s sick the next day, but she does get to sleep next to the sweetest man she knows.
She knows she’s not wrong about that.