I wrote these for a friend's birthday, and in one of my frequent devouring-all-things-Zutara moods, I decided to post them here. I've got about a handful that I wrote for her, so I'll try to get them all up as soon as possible— they just need a little formatting.

I read the first part of an A:TLA graphic novel story called "The Promise." At one point Zuko gets attacked on a diplomatic mission by a girl wielding a chain with a spiked ball on either end. I don't think he actually gets hurt beyond her dumping him on his back, but I liked the idea of the girl assassin and her weapon, so I kept them for this fic.

(I'm not making any claim or attempt to be compatible with "The Promise" here.)

The Ubiquitous Healing Fic

"Zuko!"

She barreled into him, knocking him back against the wall—for the second time in three days, thank you very much—an explosion of furs and sodden hair. Zuko pushed her away, gritting his teeth as the movement jostled his shoulder. He stepped into the middle of the hallway, positioning himself carefully out of the way of any pointy or breakable objects. "Katara! Why are you—"

"Well of course I had to come," she said, scowling at him. "Aang couldn't leave negotiations, not at this stage, but schools can wait for a bit."

"Katara—you were in Ba Sing Se—"

"It takes half a day for a train to the coast, and about three times that up the coastline and down the river. By myself, that is," she added. She gave him a once-over and pursed her lips. "You look awful."

She was one to talk. Katara's hair was sticking up in swirls and spikes all over her head, and her eyes were buried so deep in dark circles she looked like a raccoon-monkey. She must not have slept at all, he realized. He should have known she'd be reading all of Aang's letters, even the ones he sent specifically to the Avatar so that Katara couldn't see them.

"Stop feeling guilty, it isn't doing you any favors."

"I wasn't . . . I mean, I am, but . . ." she cut him off with a glare and pushed him down onto one of the boxes that were stacked in the hallway, half-unloaded before one little girl with a spiked chain had turned what little organization there had been upside-down. Zuko tried to tell Katara that he'd had no less than three highly experienced healers (and a fourth whom he'd had his doubts about) poking at him every five minutes since the attempt, but Katara tsk-ed and asked shrewdly whether any of them were waterbenders, and what in Tui's name he thought he was doing stopping her when they were not. When he pointed out that she was soaking wet and should probably dry off so that she didn't drip all over the fire lord's royal person, she froze his mouth shut and resumed examining him with impressive vigor.

The bandage was around his neck and his shoulder, the girl's weapon having torn through the muscle before he'd rallied enough to force her to her knees. Had to give her a point for that, Zuko thought; the girl was fast, and good with that chain of hers, though he doubted it'd hold up to his dao in a fair fight. Two points, maybe: that thing had hurt. The disgusting brew they'd made him drink wasn't doing much for the pain, not that he'd tell Katara that, and—"Katara, what are you doing?"

Or at least, that was what he tried to say. His mouth was still frozen shut. But Katara understood (she always understood) and smiled at him, though her fingers kept peeling back the edges of the fine white cloth, unwrapping it carefully from his flesh.

"Relax. I'm keeping everything in. I need to see it, is all." She frowned at his shoulder as the last strip of bandage fell away, brushing her hand lightly around the skin there—it's a hundred degrees outside, Zuko, why are you shivering—before muttering something about hedge-witches and earthbender grubby fingers. "This is going to scar," she said.

Zuko raised an eyebrow (his only eyebrow) at her.

That made her laugh, which did wonders for making her look less like a drowned rat-lion, though Zuko still would have liked to get her to a hot meal and a good bed. "Shut up when I'm silencing you and let me heal, your lordliness."

Zuko gave a one-shouldered shrug and tried (and failed) to grin up at her under the ice before submitting meekly to the touch of cool water on his skin. There was something nice about it, being healed by her, especially as she wasn't begging his pardon every three seconds for touching him. Just heal the damn thing, it doesn't matter, he'd finally told the last healer, but that had only scared the man more.

"Relax," said Katara, gently this time. "It goes faster if you're not clenching. Remember?" She kept her left hand slowly moving the water over his shoulder and laid her right palm over his chest, over the mark that Azula—sister—had put there.

"I do," he said, surprised when the words got out: he hadn't noticed her taking the gag away. He reached up his hand, to put it over hers, but she had already withdrawn it and was concentrating on the newer wound, a furrow denting the skin between her eyebrows. Zuko swallowed and looked away.

"What are you going to do with her?" Katara asked after a pause. "The . . . assassin, I mean."

"I don't know," Zuko replied, his hand curling into a fist despite Katara's earlier words. "She's in one of the cells now. I didn't know this place had cells until they told me they'd put her there. For a colony town, they seem to have all the comforts of home." He felt Katara tense at the bitterness in his words, but he couldn't seem to soften them. And, fine, maybe having his own citizens try to kill him again was bothering him slightly. "Traditionally, those who attempt to kill a member of the royal family are disemboweled slowly in the city square, and then their entrails are roasted before them."

The coolness drew away from his shoulder. Katara's hands dropped down to her sides. "And what do you think?"

He met her gaze. She was staring at him squarely, a fire burning fiercely behind her eyes despite the steadiness of her words. He had seen that light before, when she had caught the man who'd killed her mother. It was not the light of mercy.

"I think she will have a trial," he said, pitching his voice low so that she had to lean in further, close as she was. "And I think that I will make a decision, after hearing all that she has to say."

"Don't be kind," Katara said in the same tone.

"No. I'll be fair." The water appeared at his shoulder again, sinking deep into his flesh, drawing the breath out of him, making his head slump forward and his eyelids flicker. He lifted a hand to his shoulder and worked his fingers over the muscle, feeling the smoothness of scar tissue where Katara had joined the skin.

"Get some rest," he said, but he meant thank you.

"You as well," she replied. You're welcome.

.