Chapter Text
She had found him.
Katara had finally confronted the man who had killed her mother, who had robbed the last of her childhood, who had taken away so much from her and her family, and she had been too—what? Weak? Sympathetic? Considerate?—to give him exactly what he deserved.
She was pressed into a corner of Appa's saddle, hugging her knees tight to her chest, trying to crawl inside her skin, her mind swarming with questions and doubts, desperate to feel something other than numb. Was it her place to decide who deserved to live? But what right had he had to take away an innocent life? Countless innocent lives. Did a person like that have any right to her sympathy?
The rain that had poured down on them for hours was finally letting up, giving way to a gentle breeze instead. It would have been refreshing, if not for the yanking realization that she was shivering from the cold. She felt Zuko’s silent gaze on her, not for the first time since leaving Yon Rha behind, and yet again she feigned obliviousness. That is, until he started guiding Appa to the ground.
“What are we—”
“I can hear your teeth chattering from here.”
Katara’s face warmed as they hit solid ground. “This is unnecessary. We'll be back soon.”
Sighing, he released the reins of the air bison and turned around to grab his bag. “No, we will not. If you don't get dried off, I'm going to be bringing you soup and porridge while you quarantine for the next week. Consider this a decision made in self-interest.”
“You—” The words caught in her throat. His eyes, usually full of fight and fire, were reminiscent of a soft, homely hearth right now, and it broke her will to argue instantly. Standing up, she mumbled quietly, “You don’t have to do that.”
“Yeah.” He chucked his rucksack off the howdah and warily leaped off. Stumbling as he found his footing, he then gingerly slung the bag over one shoulder. His movements, usually powerful and agile, had been calculated and stilted this entire trip. “Because now you’re not going to fall ill.”
Landing next to him, she raised an eyebrow. He could light a fire as big as he wanted, it would still take her a while to warm up. When she questioned this out loud, he cocked his head and frowned.
“I…I figured you would be able to bend it off yourself? Am I wrong?”
“Oh,” she said dumbly, processing his words and feeling the gears in her brain slowly turn back on.
Closing her eyes, she inhaled and felt every drop clinging to her skin and hair. Wordlessly, she pulled them off her clothes and body and let the water splash into the soil. She felt instantly better—still cold, but no more stifling discomfort—and the mindfog started to lift ever so slightly. When she opened her eyes, Zuko looked calmer and gave her a small nod. She held her hands up again to bend the water off of him too, when she noticed that he was bone dry.
“How…” Her brows knit together, eyes widening. Trivial as it was, for the first time in two hours, her brain was focusing on something tangible. He came into sharp focus and she vaguely took stock of their hushed surroundings with the lofty trees and their lush green canopies enclosing them.
“I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.” He grinned sheepishly, just for a moment, before abruptly dropping it. It was instantly replaced by an apologetic, downcast gaze as he started walking toward the outcropping of rock that lay a few feet away.
“You can still smile, you know.”
His footsteps paused, and he craned his neck back uncertainly.
She took a few steps forward. “Actually, I’d prefer if you did.”
“Really?”
She nodded, and tried to elicit one of her own, only for her lips to quiver and her voice to catch at the end of her hum. All at once, the dam that had been building inside came crashing down, and there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop her tears from falling.
Zuko’s expression morphed into one akin to horror, his grip on his bag slacking as it fell to the ground with a dull thud. Katara hid her face in her hands as he took a step towards her before freezing in his tracks.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit, Katara, I’m so sorry, I…I—”
Shaking her head, she wiped away her tears. A futile attempt at drying her face. At least in the torrential downpour they could both pretend that she wasn’t crying.
“No,” she hiccuped. “No, that’s not—” she tried again, her words faltering yet again. She trampled over the scant daisies peppered among the blades of grass as she staggered to the nearest tree—an ineffective effort to drown in her shame in solitude.
“Katara.” His voice was soft and despairing. “Please tell me what you need; what I can do? I’m sorry, I’m really bad at this.”
She heard his reluctant footfall between sniffles and turned around sluggishly. She looked at him with blurry vision and his palpable panic pulled a garbled laugh out of her, lost somewhere in all her weeping. He probably thought she had lost her mind, which, truthfully, she wasn’t sure she hadn’t.
She slid down the sturdy trunk, taking a deep breath to try and curb the crying. But there were about twenty different emotions brewing inside of her, all overshadowed by an almost decade-long grief. Her chest hurt as her mother’s brave face engulfed her memories once more, and her breathing turned ragged again, the tears free flowing.
“Katara?” Zuko repeated, sliding down to sit with her.
His raspy voice sounded so distant, but there was something grounding in the way he said her name. When she didn’t respond, he called out to her again, and this time, she looked up at him, the scattered sunlight casting his face in a warm glow. His hand was reaching towards her, frozen mid-air, as though he were debating whether touching her would help the situation. His golden eyes were tender and glassy, and she could have almost fooled herself into believing that he was going to cry for her too.
“I loved her so much, Zuko,” she choked on a sob, and he lowered his hand. “She was the best mom in the world, and I miss her so much that it’s hard to breathe. She was so good and kind, and it’s my fault that she’s dead.”
“No, it’s not Ka—”
“Yes, it is!” The anger in her voice nearly surprised her. “She was murdered because she was protecting me, and now what? I’m too weak to even punish the man who took her away from us.” She laughed humourlessly. “How the fuck are we supposed to win like this? We’re just kids, Zuko.”
“Katara…look at me,” he said slowly. When she shook her head, he placed his hands delicately on her shoulders and when she didn’t push him away, the grip tightened ever so slightly. “Hey, listen. You are the strongest person I know,”—she huffed in disbelief—“No, stop that, you are.”
Slowly, she glanced at him, able to see him better now that the weeping had subsided.
“You are the most loyal and caring person I have ever met, and you can kick my ass in combat, blindfolded. Empathy is not a failing. Whether Yon Rha continues to live his miserable little life has no bearing on either your character or this war.”
She shook her head again, not at anything in particular. Somehow, through the mental haze, he had made sense to her. She was just struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel like she usually did.
“She’s going to have died for nothing,” Katara whispered hopelessly.
He gave her shoulder a firm squeeze. “No, she’s not. I’m going to make sure of it.”
“Are you sure you’re fine being here by yourself for the next hour?” Zuko asked once they had alighted from Appa at the beach house and stowed their belongings away in the rooms.
Katara twiddled her thumbs. “Yeah, I don’t want to face Aa—all of them just yet.”
Colour rose in her cheeks and she refused to meet his gaze, instead taking in their new surroundings. He allowed the little slip to go unnoticed. “Okay, get some rest. There’s still some food in my backpack if you need it.”
Because you’ve barely eaten since we left camp.
She nodded, a little dazed, and he wasn’t sure she was listening to him at all. She had certainly been more responsive since their pitstop, but she still seemed quite out of it and, hyper capable as she was, he felt rather uneasy about leaving her alone while he fetched the others.
Sighing, he said, “I’ll be back soon.”
As he spun around, she called out, “How do I get to the ocean? I thought I saw a beach as we flew over.”
“Follow me.”
She trailed a few steps behind him, their clunking footsteps the only sounds echoing in the cold, empty hallways. Suddenly, every nerve in his body was standing on end, unaware that they were no longer tiptoeing around Ozai’s moodswings, asserting his dominance over the house that had belonged to his mother. He swallowed the urge to take refuge in his chambers to calm the nerves of being back here again and continued down the stairs, taking a deep breath once they were finally outside.
He dropped her off at the pier and turned to leave without much fanfare, assuming it was what she wanted, but then she called out to him. “Will you be long?”
“The campsite is a little over an hour from here. Did you need anything? There should be tea and some more snacks in the kitchen from my last visit. I can show you—”
“No, I don’t need anything, Zuko.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, if you do…”
She frowned and he wasn’t quite sure what he had said wrong this time. But then she said, “Just…be safe. I’ll see you soon.”
She walked away, leaving him confused. Shaking his head, he hopped back on Appa. Petting the bison’s head, he mumbled, “Sorry, buddy, I know it’s been a long week. I’ll buy you the most exquisite fruit and all the hay available first thing tomorrow.”
Appa grunted appreciatively before taking off towards camp, but Zuko’s thoughts remained with Katara. He still couldn’t get her gut-wrenching wails out of his ears. Looking at it now, he had to ask himself what he had thought would happen. It had been stupid to think that this would bring her closure. He had wanted to help, and she had been eager to take the opportunity he had presented. But now…maybe he had broken everything that they could have had for good.
Defeated, he closed his eyes, the wind caressing his face as Appa navigated the skies, and tried dredging up long forgotten memories of running around the courtyard while his mother watched on fondly; back when Azula still played with him and before his father had occupied this sacred space too, turning it into just another extension of his palace. They usually hurt to think about, and he had briefly gotten his hopes of friendship with his sister up again when they had made the trip back together earlier in the summer, only for it all to come crashing down again. But it was all he could do to keep the jitters at bay for the next hour, until Appa landed and he was no longer alone again.
“Zuko!” Aang called out, with Momo on his shoulder, and he waved at the entire gang running towards him. He supposed the air bison was kind of hard to miss.
“Hey! Where’s Katara?” Sokka asked, worried.
“I took her to the house first. She’s fine, but she wants to be alone.”
“What did you do?” Aang interjected, his tone markedly more aggressive than Sokka's. His voice deepened, just a notch, in a manner that suggested an endeavour to reestablish his position as “The Avatar” as he stepped in front of the pack and squared his shoulders.
That caught Zuko off guard.
Before he could say anything, Toph cut in, her blatant aggravation hinting at a frustration she had been holding in all day. “Why don’t you let him explain before ripping into him, Twinkle Toes?”
A silence fell over the group, and all eyes turned to Zuko.
“She let him go.”
Katara didn’t join the team for dinner that night. After the infuriating conversation with Aang, she had headed back to her quarters for some privacy. She wasn’t sure where he got off on acting like the paragon of pacifist virtue when not two years ago, he had massacred legions of Fire Nation soldiers in the North. Or closer still, when he berated Toph and entered the Avatar state last year after Appa had been kidnapped. The only reason he hadn’t slaughtered the sandbenders too was because she had stopped him, at risk to her own life. He hadn’t even cared that his friends would be collateral in the crossfire.
Did he have a distinct set of standards for her to follow, or had his moral compass truly changed? Maybe at one time, she would have agreed with him. But she had aged far beyond her years since she and Sokka had left their home behind to put an end to this war.
She used to think she had it all figured out, but her worldview was no longer as black-and-white as it had been before Zuko wormed his way into her life.
She paced around the room for a few minutes, recalling her breakdown from a few hours ago, and the way he so effortlessly made her feel seen—like he always did. It’s why his rejection at the catacombs had hurt so much, hadn’t it? He had always treated her as an equal. Even when they were the bitterest of enemies. She wasn’t a sounding board for his loss, a pretty shiny thing to be toyed with for his pleasure, or a sacrosanct deity to be placed on a pedestal. He saw her for who she was, not what she did for him, and made space for it. Hell, he had even taken on half the burden of her chores without being asked.
At the glade, she had been too overwhelmed to register everything he had said, but now she lay on her pillow, barricaded from the world under the covers, replaying the scene with startling clarity. For the first time all day, Katara felt something pleasant unfurling inside, finally lulling her into slumber.
But the peace didn’t last very long. Memories of her mother’s last moments interspliced with images of Yon Rha flashed through her subconscious and she jolted from her nap an anxious mess. Panting, she scrambled out of her mattress, poured a glass of water with shaky hands and downed it, trying to center herself. Her skin was prickling, the heat from those flames feeling as fresh as they had nine years ago, the coppery smell of burning flesh feeling all too real.
She remembered the soot from the charred remains of her village burning her lungs as she frantically searched for her father or any of his men, anyone who could save her mom, already knowing it was too late. Heart thumping deafeningly loud in her chest, hoping Gran Gran was okay, crying out for Sokka amidst the screams and chaos. The relief that coursed through her when she finally found her big brother, his confusion and concern when she started bawling in his arms, and the horror when he realised why.
He was nine—just a year older than her—but at the time, he had felt like the last safe haven on earth, even among all the bloodshed. He had held it together for her sake, and how had she rewarded him? By constantly belittling his love for their mother.
She rubbed her temples as guilt crashed into her. Sighing, she slipped out of her room—it was time for a long overdue conversation with Sokka.