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“We went down into the silent garden.
Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence.
Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.”
She didn’t want to look.
He sat directly across the campfire, the outline of him hazing in the thick smoke. But Katara could still see his intermittent glances in her direction, his golden eyes bright, reflecting the flickering flames. Katara did not return any of the glances. Acknowledging him meant acknowledging the incident.
The incident that shouldn’t have happened, and should never happen again.
Except—
Except she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
It made her so unbearably furious. What she wanted, really wanted, was to leap up here and now and attack him. Challenge him to a fight, bend until she subdued him, until she won, until she forgot this unsettled feeling in her entire body. She needed to do move, run, fight, train. Anything, as long as she wasn’t sitting still. The feeling only grew more turbulent as the summer passed, as the comet sped closer every day.
Katara was fidgeting with her bowl. She hadn’t taken a bite in several minutes. She blinked and focused again on the others around the fire. Peals of bright laughter broke out—she’d clearly missed a joke, and the carefree sound of it, rather than soothe her, set her even further on edge. Only Zuko wasn't laughing.
He was looking right at her again, through the ever-growing curtain of his dark hair.
This time Katara met his eyes with a hard defiance. With the expression he wore now—wary, but gentler, more amenable without a scowl or the stern twist to his mouth—Zuko looked like he had in Ba Sing Se.
When she had reached out to him, and he threw it in her face after. Her gut twisted sharply.
Katara suddenly set her bowl down hard and rose to her feet. Being in his presence made her so angry she couldn’t think straight. The group’s acceptance of him did not help. She stalked off from the campfire. She usually had better control over her anger. She had no idea what was happening to her lately, and she was shaking by the time she made it to the woods surrounding the air temple. The first several ice daggers she hurled missed the tree trunk entirely. Katara took a few seconds to ground herself and started over. This time the daggers stuck into the bark with each pass of her arm. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Images of her loved ones flitted through her mind, their eyes empty, just as her mother’s had been. Sokka. Aang. Her father. Katara moved faster to try and banish them, to dissolve that fear that tightened her throat. She threw ice dagger after ice dagger. The others all seemed remarkably unworried.
Did they not feel it? Weren’t they terrified?
Katara kept going, even when her arms ached and her lungs burned.
She had no idea how long she was at it.
She kept searching for that place, purely physical, where she could forget the war.
Katara had sex for the very first time in a tree house in the Earth Kingdom, stretched out on a thin cot on the floor.
She remembered little details. The sway of the tree branches outside, a singular candle lit in the corner of the room. Jet’s calloused hand on her hip, his hair tickling her cheek. The sting of pain when he entered her, even though he was careful. Katara remembered lying there afterward, expecting a flurry of emotions and finding only bemusement. There'd been a tiny ache between her legs—soreness, and a lingering desire. She’d gasped when Jet came, mostly out of surprise, marveling at what her body could draw from him. Maybe he’d taken that little gasp as evidence of her own release, because then, when he was still on top of her, inside her, he’d kissed her neck and asked her in a husky voice if it was good for her.
Katara had told him yes, she liked it. It wasn’t a lie. As far as first times go, the experience was positive, if a little underwhelming. Jet had not realized she hadn’t finished, and she hadn’t the heart to tell him, especially when he smiled down at her. Because it had still been nice, finding comfort in being wanted.
Katara remembered, afterward, waiting to feel different from before. More adult. She remembered expecting people to see it on her the next morning, plainer in the daylight. Written in her face, or in the way that she walked, or in something about her general countenance: I am no longer a maiden.
But those things didn’t happen. It was not especially good, or bad, or life-changing. She felt no older, no younger, no wiser. She felt no different.
When Jet manipulated her, lying about the dam, trying to murder a village with the water she bent for him because she believed him, because she was infatuated and looked up to him and connected with his loss, she tried not to let it sour the memory. All her life, she'd had this underlying, ever-present fear. But for those minutes of carnal respite, all that mattered was bare skin and physicality, the rhythm of hips.
For the first time since her mother had died, the war was forgotten; briefly evaporated in the heat of lust.
What were the odds they would all make it through this war?
The question haunted her.
Even the bending session didn’t do much to decrease Katara’s whirring thoughts. She washed off, sluicing the sweat and grime off her, and soothed her sore arms with her healing. She walked to her room and stopped abruptly. Zuko was waiting outside her bedroom door. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, staring at the ground with a far away expression. Upon hearing her footsteps, he straightened.
Almost imperceptibly, his gaze flicked over her. It lingered on her bare shoulders, following the cascade of wet hair she hadn’t yet bothered to bend dry. His hands twitched very faintly at his sides, as if he was remembering how they’d been buried in her hair, or holding her hip, last week when he—when they—
Katara cut off these thoughts. To her dismay, the memories of it had increased in frequency and were getting harder to contain, not easier. “What do you want?” Katara snapped, and regretted it instantly.
She should have ignored him. Talking to him only gave him an opening. She hurriedly stepped into her room and made to close the door, but Zuko strode purposefully forward and put his hand on it.
“Katara,” he said. “We should talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” She pushed on the door, but Zuko held firm.
“I think there is,” he said very seriously. He was close enough that she could smell him; a clean, earthy smell mixed with lemongrass soap. She had smelled it on herself for several hours after…the incident. It had lingered around her neck, where he’d buried his face when—she quickly cut that thought off, too.
His fingers were long and curved tightly around the edge of the door. The muscles in his forearms strained as he held the door open. An unwelcome flush of heat rose in her and with it came panic.
“As if I care what you think,” she said sharply. “Go away!”
“Katara,” he said again, a faintly pleading quality to it this time. She couldn't help remembering the last time he’d said it like that. Also like a plea, but rougher, more undone, the syllables spilled into her neck.
She’d found him alone in his room on the evening of the incident.
Well, technically she’d followed him.
But no one else seemed suspicious of Zuko, even though she’d tried to tell them about Ba Sing Se, about how he’d expertly played on her sympathy strings. Even worse, Zuko and Aang had returned just that morning from their trip to learn about firebending, and it had worked. That made Zuko even more dangerous. His trip with Aang only made the others more trusting of him. Well, not her. She knew better.
He’d left his door slightly open, and Katara peered inside.
Zuko sat cross-legged on the ground. His breathing was slow, his expression calm, and the candles in his room fluttered in time with his breath. Zuko was meditating. Katara could not stand the serene expression on his face. She could not stand that he looked so peaceful, so free of turmoil, while she had a storm inside her, while she laid awake at night and worried about the future while everyone slept.
And part of the reason she had to worry was because of him.
Because he’d chased them. Because he’d sided with Azula, and Aang had died.
Aang could die again. Any of them could.
Katara stalked into the room like a whirlwind.
Zuko’s eyes flew open, but he didn’t move. “Yes, come in,” he said dryly.
Katara’s temper flared. "Planning your long con now that you’ve got your bending back?”
Zuko rose slowly to his feet. Katara’s pulse roared in her ears. She wanted to remind him of what she could do. She wanted to put him in his place, like she'd done at the North Pole. She wanted to fight.
“If you’re so worried about me hurting Aang,” Zuko said evenly, “why did you let me go off alone with him?”
Katara reeled back, her lips parting. She found she had no answer to this. Except the obvious.
The tiny, taunting little voice in the back of her head said: because you know he is sincere now. You just feel stupid and silly and betrayed by what happened in the catacombs. Zuko calmly watched her struggle for an answer, and rage, acrid and scalding, bubbled up in the pit of Katara’s stomach. She wanted Zuko to shout at her so that she could shout back. She wanted his anger and his temper. Katara strode forward and snatched his shirt, looking him dead in the eye. She opened her mouth to shout at him and provoke him.
But then she saw that his eyes were hooded, and he was breathing harder, his gaze fixed on her mouth.
Katara leaned forward, testing her power over him. A gratified shiver swept over her when Zuko’s breath stuttered. She did not know exactly what motivated her next course of action, expect maybe that she liked making him feel unbalanced, and she'd realized this was the best way to do it. She kissed him.
She poured all of her violent anger into it. They kissed and nipped and licked at each other’s lips and jaws and throats, quick and desperate and panting. She scrabbled viciously at his tunic with more than lust, with that pulse of hate, not caring when her nails scraped his skin. She was the one doing the hurting.
Zuko didn’t seem to mind her nails, judging by the raw, helpless groan he made into her mouth.
Desire roared up at the sound of it, blindsiding her with its intensity.
They barely paused in their feverish kissing to pull his shirt and her dress off. Zuko growled low in his throat when she bit at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. The insatiable need coiling low in her belly tightened, and Katara reached down to grip him through his clothes. She was in control like this.
This was another type of spar, one she suspected that she could always win.
Zuko wove his hands in her hair and breathed raggedly between kisses as Katara rubbed her hand up and down along the hard length of him. The war was gone. There was only his fingers along her scalp. His warm mouth sucking on her clavicle. His leg lodging between both of hers. Her back hit a wall, and Zuko’s foot shot out and kicked the door shut. His hands took hold her hips and he urged her little rocking movements, pushing and pulling as Katara ground against his thigh. Pleasure unraveled through her with each frantic roll of her hips. But this began to feel too much like Zuko calling the shots.
Katara flipped around and yanked him until his chest pressed against her back. His hot skin covered the spaces around her wraps like a burning blanket. She looped her fingers in the band of his trousers.
“Do it,” she said.
It was here that Zuko decided to falter. “I…are…are you sure…?”
Katara huffed. She did not want a delay. Delay meant time to think, and remember the world, and where she was, and everything else, and all she wanted was to escape it all, just for a few minutes.
"Yes. Hurry up,” she said tersely, and Zuko cursed under his breath, fumbling at the rest of his clothes.
She shoved her own wraps aside just enough that he could—
Katara gasped as he eased inside her.
Zuko’s head fell to her shoulder and he made a guttural sound in his throat. Her core clenched involuntarily, and he did it again. It was unfairly attractive. His palms braced on either side of her, against the wall, fingers tightening against the stone as he set a rhythm. Slow. Careful. Katara’s eyelashes fluttered each time he slid into her. It felt so astoundingly good that it took a moment to find her voice.
“Harder,” she snapped.
He immediately obeyed. Katara grabbed his forearms and held on; he took her hard and fast. She dug half-moon marks on his arms, around his veins. The repeated fill of him made her toes curl, but it wasn’t enough. She had been too tentative to tell Jet what she needed, that first time. She had no such reservations with Zuko. “Touch me,” she commanded. It came out more breathless than she liked.
Zuko’s hand slid between her legs. “Like that?” he murmured, into her ear.
“Lower," she said fiercely.
He found the right spot and an electrifying pulse zapped through her entire body. Katara’s legs quivered, and a sound came out of her she'd never made before. Zuko buried his face in her neck and diligently worked her with his hands and hips. When he drifted too far from the spot she needed, Katara pushed it right back until he learned where to touch her. He thrummed back and forth, the warm pads of his fingers rubbing and swirling, adjusting the speed and pressure according to her reactions.
He was observant, Zuko. Resourceful. It was how he’d chased them, how he’d managed against impossible odds. He used these qualities to coax an orgasm from her so fast that Katara barely noticed it coming. One second she was gripping his arms for purchase; and the next she was seizing, clenching up as hard as the wall he had her pressed against. The world honed to the wave of delicious release barreling through her, the brush of bare skin, the arm snug around her waist. She dimly heard him say her name.
Suddenly Zuko pulled out. Soft, wet sounds were followed by a long, low groan that almost sounded pained. He’d spilled into his hand. It felt like a decisive victory.
Katara’s mind had stopped racing. She felt…good. Relaxed.
The war was, for the moment, forgotten.
But all too soon the reality of what just occurred settled over her. With as much calmness and dignity as she could muster, Katara got dressed. She did not turn or glance at Zuko, the way he stood there, stock-still and shocked and with his come all over his hand. She was halfway to the door before he moved, awkwardly bending to adjust his clothes. And she was already opening it when he said, “Katara, wait—”
Katara, of course, did not wait. She darted out and left him there.
She resolved to store this away as a very necessary release and never to think of it again.
Now Katara woke to early morning sunlight.
The long line of a warm torso was pressed lightly against her back. Her eyes shot open and she snatched at the sheets, gathering them to herself as she sat up. Her hands clenched hard around the blankets.
Zuko was lying on his back, and he was awake. Shirtless.
She quickly looked away, but a throb of interest taunted her. “What are you doing here?”
“Last night?” he said slowly, as if worried for her memory or possibly her sanity, “because we, you know…”
“I know what happened last night,” she snapped, face heating.
They hadn’t talked, to say the least. They’d done the exact opposite of talk.
He’d stepped into her room and she’d ranted at him. She couldn’t even remember what she said. He’d watched her with that oddly calm look on his face, which only served to make her more furious. She’d pushed at his chest. He’d caught her hand, firm but gentle. And then—somehow they were kissing again.
She’d moved to her hands and knees on the bed this time, and she instructed him to go fast, until her mouth dropped open from the angle. Zuko’s hands had settled on her hips, pulling her back to meet him. At one point he’d gripped her shoulders, bowing her back as he drove into her. Then he’d pressed her down into the mattress, his body slick and heavy on top of hers, and wrapped both arms around her. The combination of him gliding in and out of her and the way the surging movements rubbed her clit against the bed made her forget everything except her body, and the various ways it could be made to feel good.
He’d said things to her. Short, simple things like feels so good and fuck, breathed into her bare back, between little nibbles and licks along her spine. She’d come with such intensity she’d seen stars.
She’d been so spent she’d drifted off to sleep almost immediately, and Zuko apparently hadn’t had the decency to slip out in the night, or even this morning. He rose with the sun. He could have left.
But no, he’d just been laying here. In her bed. Half-naked.
With very messy hair that she did not think was roguishly handsome.
Zuko’s brow furrowed. “Then don’t you know why I’m here?”
“I meant why are you still here, obviously!”
“Katara—”
“Get. Out.” She jabbed a finger at the door.
Zuko sighed and pushed himself out of bed. She couldn’t help but peek at the firm contours of his body as he pulled on his tunic. He trudged to the door, and Katara felt the faintest regret for her sharpness.
One time could be explained away as a one-off. A release of tension.
The second time, a mistake; a way to fully get whatever feral energy they had for each other out of their systems. But a third time threatened a pattern. This knowledge didn’t stop Katara from continuing it. By the time she woke one morning to discover Zuko and Sokka were missing, she and Zuko had slept together six times. She’d resigned herself to it by time number four. She had decided that, at the very least, if she was going to take her pleasure from Zuko’s body, she could set certain rules.
First, sleeping over: definitely not allowed. Zuko did not try it again after she kicked him out.
Second: no cuddling.
And third: the fierce kissing that happened before they ripped clothes off was one thing, but kissing while he was inside her was another line Katara did not want crossed. This was relatively easy, as she was also careful not initiate any position that had them facing each other. In fact, time number two had been such a delightful angle that Katara had scrambled onto her hands and knees for numbers three and four, with what she told herself was not too much eagerness. Times five and six had Katara in his lap, facing away from him, Zuko sitting up behind her and gripping her waist as she bounced up and down on him.
After, Katara always turned over and wordlessly waited as, without fanfare, Zuko dressed and left.
But somewhere between times three and four, Zuko started hovering when she was doing chores.
Katara had a very meticulous and carefully assigned chore schedule. She was responsible for most of the cooking for the simple reason that if anyone else did it, they would be eating deeply unsatisfying meals indeed. The others had their jobs. Zuko had other jobs. He chopped firewood and tended the fire pit and washed clothes. He joined Sokka for hunting and setting traps, and spent his mornings training Aang.
Zuko had plenty to do, so Katara glared at him the first time he appeared, while she was cooking alone.
She braced herself for a conversation that she did not want to have. She expected him to start talking to her about their arrangement, to ask her why she was doing it, or any number of uncomfortable things.
But he didn’t.
And over the next several weeks, Katara’s suspicion of some ulterior motive faded. She was unnerved by how easy and comfortable both the silence and his presence were when they did chores together.
She was unnerved by how her anger for Zuko was beginning to drain out of her.
It wasn’t because of the sex, although the escape she found in his arms at night did relax her. Even Sokka had made a comment about her uplifted mood lately. Horribly, he'd said it in front of Zuko, and she swore Zuko's eyes briefly gleamed with triumph. No—it was also the way he helped around camp. It was the way Aang’s firebending was making astounding progress. It was the way he wasn’t pestering her to talk.
Now he’d been gone for two days, he and Sokka both. Through her thick clouds of anger, Katara also had a bone-deep worry, and not just for Sokka. The revelation that she no longer truly hated Zuko, that she cared about what happened to him, even if she hadn’t forgiven him fully yet—it was too infuriating.
They came back in one piece on the third day. They brought her father.
Katara was so relieved at their return, and at seeing her father safe and alive.
She spent most of the next several days glued to her father’s side, needing to confirm that he was real.
They went for long walks in the forest together. She showed him her new knowledge of the Fire Nation flora and fauna, and he showed her his own wisdom gathered over the years, just as he'd showed her how to navigate the icy tundra back home. It was surreal being here, at the air temple, in the Fire Nation, moving through this vastly different terrain with her father. Sometimes it was like he'd never left.
Sometimes she felt she barely knew him at all.
They talked about her mother the most, sharing stories. He talked about how much he still loved her.
“How?” Katara asked, when Hakoda told her how he'd already known, by the second date, that he loved her. "How did you know you loved her?"
Her father smiled gently.
"Some say love is blind,” he mused, running his hands over a berry bush and plucking a few of the bright red berries, tossing them in their basket. “I think it’s the opposite." A spasm of pain crossed his face. "I loved your mother because I saw her. Really saw her. And she saw me. The right kind of love, the kind that’s real, the kind that sacrifices…that kind of love doesn’t blind you. It forces your eyes wide open."
Katara slipped to Zuko’s room after everyone had gone to bed and knocked softly on the door.
When it opened, she stepped inside without preamble. It was a new moon, and barely any light crept in through Zuko’s small window. It smelled of lingering incense and faint ash, and of Zuko’s lemongrass soap, which by now had sunken into her own sheets. She breathed it in every time she put her head on her pillow. Zuko was a faint outline in the dark, his golden eyes like a dim beacon, fixed on her.
He said nothing. Waiting, as he always did.
“You disappeared,” Katara said. “For almost three days.”
The fact that she’d spoken instead of simply leaping him seemed to surprise him, because he blinked at her for a few moments. “It was a long flight to the prison,” Zuko said finally.
The prison. The horror and anger she’d felt at learning where they’d gone surged up again.
“You could have been caught,” she said sharply. Hurt. Killed. Tortured. She didn’t say any of these other things, but she hadn't been able to stop thinking about them.
Zuko took a small step toward her. The sharp lemongrass scent intensified. It was abnormally strong. He must have just bathed, and an image, sudden and unbidden, of Zuko, wet and muscled and naked, pressed itself into her brain. Katara froze as he moved even closer. Desire warred furiously with her rage.
There was gratitude, too. He’d risked his life and freedom to help Sokka bring her dad back to them. Any doubts about which side he was on were gone. She could not hide behind the excuse of suspicion any longer. She hadn't been suspicious, not really. She'd been hurt.
“I didn’t know you would care,” Zuko said softly.
“I don’t,” Katara said instantly, defensively, full of heat. “But you took Sokka! You could have gotten my brother locked up! All I could do was wait here and hope you came back from whatever stupid thing you were doing, and I knew you weren’t fishing, what a ridiculous note. I didn’t know where you were for three whole days! I didn’t know anything! If you got caught—you’re a traitor, they might have—”
Her mouth snapped shut, horrified.
One tentative hand came to cup her neck. “Katara,” Zuko said, still so softly.
He dipped and kissed her. He never kissed her first.
Katara wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened it, grazing her tongue against his. Zuko’s breathing quickened and Katara walked into him, nudging him backward. They tumbled into the bed and she straddled him. She was still angry, a little thrum of it pounding in time with her pulse, but it was different from her usual anger with him. It also had a taste of fear. She kissed him even more desperately and ground against him, already thick and hard under her, while peeling his tunic off.
“You’re so stupid,” Katara whispered against his mouth. “You're a reckless idiot—”
A high-pitched gasp came out of her when Zuko rolled them over and pressed her into the bed, surrounding her with solid muscle and lemongrass and heat. He kissed her so deeply that Katara’s head spun. He slowly pulled off her clothes. There was a deliberateness to the way he did it, to the way his lips moved on hers. It made her oddly nervous, made her feel too present. He kissed along her jaw and neck, hand sliding to the apex of her thighs. He drew a sharp breath when he felt how wet she was.
Her body always did this; reacted to him so easily.
By now Zuko knew exactly where to tease and touch her. Katara’s hands gripped his broad back, biting her lip so she wouldn't whimper. He shrugged the rest of his clothes off and pressed himself closer, bare body intertwined with hers. They’d never been this close. She’d never felt so much of his skin. The tip of him nudged against her entrance and he kept kissing her. It held none of the usual rushed ferocity.
It was slow and meticulous, attentive. One of Zuko’s hands slid along her jaw and tipped her chin up to kiss her deeper, his nose brushing hers. Through the haze of desire, panic stirred. This was breaking her rules. Two of them. They had a system, and Zuko was trying to dismantle it. This felt—too different.
Katara put both hands on his chest and pushed. She caught a flicker of Zuko’s expression, the surprise and pang of something else, before she scrambled up to her hands and knees. She waited.
“Well?” she said, a little brusquely, when it took him a long time to react.
Katara thought she might have heard Zuko sigh, but then he was kneeling behind her, guiding her backward by the hips to slide into her easily. Katara’s head dropped as her body adjusted to him.
She felt him all the way to the tips of her fingers, to her toes, along her spine. She was so full.
Last time Katara had discovered a circular motion of her hips, timing the rotation to meet him as he pushed forward. The reaction she’d got from him doing that and the spot it had hit for her was so satisfying that she immediately set to doing it again. Zuko folded over her, his chest to her spine, one arm around her, pinning her to him. Their bodies swayed back and forth together with each steady, hard thrust. Eventually he had her flat against the mattress, draped over and around her. Katara had to press her face into the sheets when she came, muffling her choked scream. “Fuckfuckfuck—” he growled.
His body tensed against hers as he followed her over the edge, his hips jerking.
Katara had determined, after time number three, that he could finish inside her, thanks to her bending. She felt it all—every hard, hot inch of him twitching in her as she clenched tight around him. It prolonged the bliss; it lasted forever. Finally, they both went limp. Zuko didn’t move away when he slid out of her. Instead he rolled them both over to the side, let out a long, content sigh that rumbled through his chest, and he pressed his face into the back of her head, burying it into her unruly hair. Katara's body was buoyant, her mind sleepy, and at ease. It took quite some time for her to drift back into awareness.
When she did, she stiffened and scooted away.
“Katara…wait...” Zuko's own post-climax relaxation made him sound husky.
Katara didn’t reply. She quickly took care of the potential pregnancy problem and fumbled around for her clothes, her hands shaking slightly. Once dressed, she sat on the edge of the bed, her back to him.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
She jumped when a hand brushed her back, drifting lightly up her spine, up and down.
She really should tell him to stop. She somehow could not.
“You could stay,” Zuko said, raspy and cautious. “I could…you know. Give you another?”
Katara shivered with involuntary excitement. Very dangerous. No, she definitely could not do that. She should get out of here as soon as possible. Yet there she remained, sitting on the edge of his bed. “I wasn’t thanking you for the orgasm.” She fought the bizarre urge to laugh. “It was for helping break my father out of jail."
The fingers on her spine stopped for just a moment before resuming. “You don’t need to thank me."
Zuko’s voice was very warm. An answering warmth flared to life in Katara’s body.
She found herself wondering if he had specific ideas for round two…
Katara firmly fortified herself from such traitorous thoughts. “Well, I don’t forgive you yet,” she said sharply. “But it was a very big thing to do, going to get him. I can’t tell you what it meant to me to see him. I—was so worried about him.” She stopped there, because she was getting choked, and the last thing she needed right now was a display of emotion. All of this was on thin ice already. Maybe she shouldn’t have come here tonight. She shouldn’t have been so relieved to see Zuko return with her father and brother.
A rustle of sheets from behind her. Zuko had sat up.
“What can I do,” he said, suddenly urgent, “to make it all up to you? Everyone else trusts me—”
“Oh? Well, I was the first to trust you!” Katara whirled and glared at him, and Zuko’s face twisted up. “In Ba Sing Se!” Katara quickly turned back around. She came to Zuko for a specific purpose: to escape the war. To find pleasure. To calm her mind. She’d done those things. It was high time to make her exit.
She pushed to her feet.
“Wait,” Zuko said. “Katara, don’t go yet. At least tell me how to start fixing it. This isn’t fair!”
That rankled. Katara’s jaw flexed; how dare he talk to her about fair.
“Maybe you can reconquer Ba Sing Se for the Earth King,” Katara said coldly. “Or hey! Bring my mother back." The silence that followed was stiff and somber. One glance over her shoulder before she left revealed him sitting in the middle of the bed, bare-chested, staring down at the sheets and looking so dejected she felt a bit guilty. Katara turned back to the door, but she paused with her hand on it.
“I don’t forgive you yet,” she repeated. “But I…” She swallowed hard. “I’m glad you made it back.”
She ripped the door open and rushed out.
The arrangement continued with Katara’s careful rules in place, though far less often.
There were more people at the air temple now, not to mention her father. And sometimes, Katara thought that Hakoda glanced between her and Zuko when Zuko joined her for chores.
Katara went to Zuko's bed four more times before the peaceful, fragile existence at the air temple was shattered by Azula. Zuko saved Katara from falling rock, rolling his body to protect hers from any impact.
She and Sokka had to separate from their father again, but at least they knew he was free.
Not safe—no one was safe. But free.
Zuko went back to fight Azula, and fell through the sky, and Katara caught him. When she pulled him into the saddle, their hands grasped tightly around each other’s forearms, their eyes met. Considering how much time they spent around each other, it was rare that they looked at each other so directly.
“Thank you,” he rasped, before shifting away to the other side of the saddle, wincing.
The rest of the flight, Zuko stared back toward where his sister had survived her own fall. As the group set up camp for the night, Katara approached Zuko, who was flinching as he pitched his tent.
"I can tell your back is hurt."
Zuko turned to her.
“You must have scraped it raw when you landed on the ground," she went on. "When you tackled me.” He opened his mouth to protest, but closed it when he seemed to notice that she was teasing. “Thank you."
His eyes softened.
“Turn around, kneel down," she ordered. "Take off your shirt.”
Zuko obeyed, his movements stiff as he pulled his tunic off. Katara drew back a little when she saw the damage. It was scraped up badly, raw and red and covered in gashes. She covered it in water, and as it began to glow, his back mended. Afterward, when he faced her, he watched her for a long while.
“I think I know who killed your mother,” Zuko said finally, and Katara’s chin snapped up.
“You—you do?” It was suddenly hard to get air all the way into her lungs, into the very tips of them.
“The men that raided your tribe were the Southern Raiders. It would have been their leader.”
The Southern Raiders.
Flashes of that day moved through Katara's mind—the terrifying, faceless helmets, the men trampling through the snow, the screams, the flames. She did not ask how Zuko knew that a raid that killed her mother, or how he knew who they were. His face was alight with his typical stubborn determination.
"I can help you find him,” he said.
After Yon Rha, they stopped for the night in a cave.
Zuko prepared a fire and went back for Appa while Katara settled next to the warmth.
Even though she’d bent them both dry from the rain, the cave was dreary, the air cold and wet, and when Zuko and Appa returned Katara was shivering, staring unseeingly at the fire. She should probably prepare some food. Something to drink. But she couldn’t make herself move. Everything felt foggy.
Something heavy, warm and comforting settled over her shoulders.
Katara looked up, but Zuko had already turned and was striding back to Appa. He climbed back into the saddle to haul down the rest of the supplies. He gave Appa food and water and petted him, then staggered back and made a low noise of irritation and disgust when Appa gave him a grateful lick. A small smile pushed at Katara’s lips; she tucked her chin down but kept surreptitiously watching Zuko through her hair. He rummaged in the supply bags and got out food. He found herbs for tea, went outside to collect water, and brought it all back over to the fire. Finally, Zuko sat across from her and started cooking, face furrowed in concentration as he bent the flame as low or high as he needed it with his breath of fire.
He didn’t hover or question or pester her.
Katara had held so much anger toward Zuko since he’d joined them. It had already started to fade. Now was when she realized it had vanished entirely. A steady warmth bled into her chest as she looked at him.
“Zuko,” said Katara, and he glanced up at her over the roaring fire. “Thanks.”
She did not specify. She did not say ‘thank you for knowing I needed to face him’, or ‘thank you for not giving me advice on this’, and she did not say ‘thank you for taking care of things right now and letting me just be.’ But his face changed, softening as if he understood. “Here," he said, and passed over a plate.
Katara should have been starving, but she couldn’t summon much hunger. She picked at the food until she felt she’d made a reasonable attempt at it, and she accepted the cup of tea Zuko handed her, numbly watching the swirls of steam. Zuko scooted a little closer, until their legs were touching. Tentatively, he held an arm open in a silent offer. Katara accepted it, burrowing into his side, soaking up his body heat.
They stayed like that for a long time. And after, when Zuko set up the sleeping bags, she stopped him from putting hers out and slipped into his, her back to his chest. He seemed too shocked to move for several seconds, but then his arms came around her again; loosely at first, then gradually tighter.
Katara’s eyes burned and she clung to him.
She did not want to think of Yon Rha's hard, glittering eyes. She did not want to think about the fact that he'd actually been searching for her that day. The last waterbender. She didn't want to think about whether she had done the right thing by sparing him, or if she'd simply been too weak to end him.
She could try and escape it all. She could draw herself out of her mind with sex.
But she didn’t initiate anything, and neither did Zuko. He only held her close.
She started to quietly cry, trying to muffle the sound of it. A sharp sob betrayed her, and Zuko ran his hands up and down her side, through her hair. Soothing. Pressing his face into her neck. This only made her cry harder—deep, heaving sobs that shook her body. Zuko held tighter and let her cry herself hoarse.
When Katara had finally calmed down, eyes red and raw and swollen, she'd worked herself to a deep exhaustion. She drifted off in Zuko's arms, and her last coherent thought was that somehow, this felt more dangerously intimate than the shedding of clothes and joining of bodies.
The group remained at Ember Island for the remainder of the summer.
It would have been easy to continue their arrangement. Such a big house, so many empty rooms. So many places to disappear. But nothing sexual happened between them at all. Instead, they started to talk.
When Zuko joined her for chores, he asked her a question about growing up in the South Pole, and then he asked more questions after that, and soon Katara found herself talking to him about it with a shine to her eyes—about ice skating and penguin sledding, and communal stories around a campfire, the feeling of safety in community. She almost always caught a wistful look in Zuko’s face when she talked about that part, any time that she mentioned the tribe’s fierce attachments and loyalty to one another. He told her about his upbringing, too, carefully; clearly navigating around subjects he didn’t want to speak about.
But Zuko already talked to her far more than he talked to the others. Something about that, and about the way he always listened to her with rapt attention, tugged at her heart. She started watching him.
To be fair, she'd always watched him. Now, though…
Now she was mesmerized. Zuko's arms rippled when he carried firewood. His eyes turned very focused and his lips pinched slightly when he was bending, controlling his inner fire. Strands of his long hair now brushed his jaw, and sometimes Katara found herself thinking about the feel of it under her hands. Zuko's smiles were rare, and she’d caught him doing it exactly once, when Momo had brought him a nut from a tree, then leaped onto Zuko’s shoulder and chattered at him. Zuko's hands were sure and sturdy as he washed clothes and dishes. And his fingers were capable of diverse tasks—rough work like bending, wielding swords, or chopping wood, or for softer, careful, precise work, like helping Sokka make traps.
She missed the way his hands felt when they mapped her skin.
Initiating sex wasn't a big deal before. Why was it so scary to contemplate now?
Once, on the hottest day of the summer, she spotted Zuko carrying Toph up the beach, clinging to his back like a hog-monkey, and for some reason Katara could not really fathom, she ducked behind a bush to furtively watch their progression up to the beach house. Maybe it was that she wanted to keep looking at that expression on his face, that gentle half-smile he wore when he thought no one else could see him.
“Not a word about this, Sparky,” Toph was saying.
“Right. I’ll be sure never to mention to the others that you’re human,” Zuko said.
“Hmph. I still think I could have walked.”
“I saw your face. The sand was burning your feet. Just wear sandals on hot days like this, it's not hard—”
“Out of the question.”
Zuko sighed. This was clearly an argument that they’d had several times before.
Katara’s heart was fluttering in her chest, and she realized that she was smiling.
She kept watching, kept stealing peeks. Sometimes Zuko turned his eyes up to the sky and got a distant look to them, and she wondered what he was thinking. Sometimes she caught him staring at her, and her belly would twist. Katara began doing unnecessary chores, telling herself that they were necessary. Zuko still joined her. Soon they dropped pretense and actively sought out each other’s company without chores.
Walks on the beach. Exploring the empty rooms of the beach house, full of Zuko’s childhood memories.
Sparring. So much sparring. They sparred until they could barely breathe, dripping sweat. It was the only thing comparable to sex in the way it took Katara out of her mind. It was not the same, but it helped.
She told him stories of her mother. For a long time, he didn’t speak about his, and Katara didn’t press.
But when he finally did, he told her that he spent the most time with his mother out of anyone. He told her, haltingly, that she disappeared one night, though he clammed up when she asked why. He told her that he missed her. “Ursa,” Zuko said, one evening at the ocean, as they sat and watched the tide wash in. “That was her name.” His eyes were misty, his jaw set, and Katara, without thinking, took his hand.
Zuko angled to her. His eyes were warm, and Katara’s breath caught. He reached out to her and carefully tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, fingers brushing her hairline. And then, just as quickly, almost as though she had imagined it, his hand dropped, and he was looking out over the ocean once more.
They flew across the Earth Kingdom.
Tomorrow they would cross the ocean, and head for the royal palace. Tomorrow was the comet.
And Aang was gone.
Zuko had that hard set to his jaw, his gaze fixed ahead. Determined, focused.
Even here, even now, with everything else going on and the end so near, her body responded when she looked at him. Their conversation with Iroh back at the camp outside Ba Sing Se returned to her, as it had many times throughout their flight. She was still processing all the implications of it.
An idealist with a pure heart and unquestionable honor. It has to be you, Prince Zuko.
I’ll try, Uncle.
Zuko, becoming Fire Lord.
Katara. Blazing golden eyes, fixed on her. How would you like to help me put Azula in her place?
Zuko, asking her to be the one to go with him; her easy agreement. She shifted in place on the saddle.
She felt pent up; she'd been sitting around for too long. When they landed, they unpacked meager supplies for dinner, and afterward, Zuko clambered up to Appa and slid down again with the two tents in his hands. “It’s less work to pitch one,” Katara said, taking one from him and putting it aside.
All Katara could think about as they worked to pitch the tent was the night after Yon Rha; being held in the same sleeping bag. Maybe she should have gone to his bed again. Maybe she should have let herself be with him every night. It was full dark now, and as Zuko tended to snuffing out the fire, Katara ducked into the tent, heart in her throat. She undressed with shaking fingers and crawled into the sleeping bag.
She waited in the dark.
When the flap opened and Zuko’s silhouette edged in, her body lit up in anticipation. The nights since they had stopped sleeping together found her sometimes trying to mimic the feel of his hands, but the satisfaction was limited. It always felt much colder without him, without the way heat furled off his skin.
He joined her in the sleeping bag, and his sharp inhale when he felt her skin boosted her confidence.
"Is this okay?" She snuggled closer.
A quiet, almost disbelieving laugh. He slid his arms around her. "Yeah," he responded, deep and husky.
Katara’s hand found his cheek and cupped it. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark and she could see his face, see him swallow hard. And then she was kissing him. Soft and slow at first. Sweet. Then more ferociously, with a clear hunger. Zuko groaned into her mouth when her tongue sought out his.
She angled her hips toward him.
“Zuko,” she whispered. “Zuko, please.”
Zuko leaned back to look at her. Her stomach erupted with butterflies.
Then he kissed her again, hard and claiming, and rolled on top of her.
Sex with Zuko was nothing new. And yet—
And yet.
Everything about this felt new.
Zuko used his hands first to slowly savor and touch every bit of her skin, until her hips were wriggling with need. Katara’s head tipped off to the side and Zuko was quick to tease his tongue along her throat. His hands spanned over her thighs. "I missed you," he murmured, between little kisses to her neck.
He pushed off the rest of his clothes, with some difficulty in the confined space. Katara kissed his chest and his jaw and his shoulders as he aligned himself; her muscles tightened as he started pushing in, and a low, helpless noise slipped out of her mouth. Zuko swallowed it with a hungry kiss. She’d been so desperate for this that it almost hurt. Now the fill of him relieved a deep ache. He sank all the way into her, drawing it out. They both moaned brokenly when he had finally pushed in all the way to the hilt.
He propped himself on his elbows and moved his hips, long, languid strokes. Agonizingly slow, building up the ache and teasing it out until she was gasping and shaking, until Zuko’s teeth were clenched and his eyes had glazed over. It had never felt so good. Katara squeezed her eyes shut.
But hot fingers suddenly gripped her chin.
“Katara,” Zuko said, low and firm. “Look at me.”
Her eyes fluttered open. Zuko’s pupils were so wide that his eyes were nearly black. He tilted his forehead to hers and rocked his hips, back and forth, watching her face as she took him. Each time that Katara’s eyes started to close, or she would tilt her head to bury it in his shoulder, his hand took hold of her chin.
“Look at me,” he would whisper to her, over and over. “Look at me.”
He picked up the pace, driving into her with hard, deep strokes. She hooked her legs around his hips and arched her back, and Zuko hissed between his teeth, his eyes flashing with something feral. The sensation of him filling her, deep inside, drove her toward the crest. It built and built until she writhed.
“Zuko,” she whimpered. Her eyes grew pleading as she stared up at him.
One hand snaked up her neck and held the side as he thrust harder, precise and deliberate. His hand moved up further, to hold her face. He made sure it was tilted up, made sure it was angled toward his.
He did not let her escape, not this time.
“Katara,” he panted. He kissed her. “Katara. Look at me.”
Their gazes locked; she broke. Her entire body rippled, angling to his, and she cried out. Zuko’s mouth found hers, consuming and passionate. “Yes,” he murmured, feverish, into her lips. “Yes—” The pounding sensation shortened, then stuttered, and he finished just as hard. The cords of his neck and muscles in his shoulders and arms pulled taut and he rolled into her, again and again, his body shaking.
When it subsided, Zuko, breathing hard, wrapped his arms around her so tightly she could barely move.
"I missed you, too," Katara whispered, after a while, after she'd caught her breath.
Zuko shifted and kissed her. First just her mouth, but then everywhere. Her neck and shoulders and breasts and arms. Katara’s throat drew tight as he kept going, worshiping her skin. Katara returned the affection. She kissed his chest, his abdomen, his hands, his face. His fingertips. They kissed, and kissed.
Wordless promises, on the eve of battle.
The next day, Zuko’s body lit up with a lightning strike meant for her.
Katara's eyes were wide open.