In Common
By: Panakin
Beta: Forever Fyre
Katara hated Zuko.
Everyone – including the ex-Prince himself - knew she did. He had betrayed them in Ba Sing Se; he had tried to capture Aang multiple times; he was Fire Nation. Now the group had welcomed him with arms wide open. How could they? Even Sokka had accepted that pampered Fire Nation prince.
Didn't he remember what the Fire Nation had done to their mother? And then Zuko had done something... good? He had rescued them from the assassin, although he had hired the man in the first place...
Maybe not good, but it showed promise.
He had asked her what he could do to earn her redemption; she had replied "Bring my mother back!" Instead, he offered her revenge against the man who had killed her mother.
Close second.
Aang didn't understand. She had expected that, but she hadn't expected Sokka to fight her on her quest for justice.
O
"You sound like Jet," Aang told her. How dare he? How dare he tell her that she was acting like a monster?
"It's completely different and you know it!" Katara defended herself, she was going after justice."Jet attacked the innocent, this man, he's a monster."
"Katara, she was my mother too. But I think Aang is right on this one," Sokka said. How could her own brother be so willing to let the man who had killed their mother live?
"Then you didn't love her the way I did!" Katara yelled.
No one had loved Kya the way Katara did.
O
Zuko and Katara had gotten to 'borrow' Appa through sneaky procedures happening around midnight. Zuko was now nagging Katara about how she needed her strength and should get some sleep. Katara then began nagging about how her mother died. Katara didn't really know how or why she decided to tell him the story, but she did. Now he knew. He knew why this man needed to die more than anyone else on the planet.
Why the Fire Lord's reign had to end; he took children's parents away from them. That was unacceptable. Anyone who did that was a monster whose life needed to end. Zuko also knew why Katara hated him so much. That monster, who had ripped her beloved mother away, was his father. He couldn't blame her, he would hate himself too.
O
Katara stood in the damp, dark, glowing cave, trying not to cry as she shrieked at the ashamed and banished Fire Nation prince. "You don't know what this war had taken from me! Me personally," she couldn't stand anymore, but she would die before she showed weakness to Zuko. She turned away from him as the tears leaked from her eyes, but she still refused to do as she wished and sink to her knees. "The Fire Nation took my mother away from me."
You killed her...
She instinctively touched her mother's necklace, it was her last link to Kya, and the only thing that had she had only shared with Katara.
There was a hand on her shoulder, Katara was about to relieve Zuko of the limb when she heard words she never thought to hear coming from Zuko.
"That's something we have in common."
O
"Tell me about your mother," Katara didn't request, she ordered.
Zuko felt a deep pain throbbing in his chest as a thousand memories rushed into his head. The one where his father told him the truth about his mothers disappearance, the last time he saw his mother, and his favorite memory about his mother. How odd that it also included his sister and his father, two people who were now his enemies.
O
"Zuko, Azula! Stop fighting with each other and come along!" Ursa called to her little children as the winds of Ember Island blew her long jet-black hair about.
The seven year old prince, with his shaved head (Azula had put some honey on his hair; Ursa and Zuko were not amused.) and red swimsuit pushed his little sister - who was trying her hardest to knock his eye out with her tiny fist - off of him and ran to his mother.
Azula, so petite and fragile looking, with her stick-like figure, chubby-child-cheeks, gold eyes and a shorter version of her mother's hair, she almost looked like a doll. She pushed herself off the ground and dusted the back of her gold colored swimsuit.
"Come children, we're going on a picnic," Ursa announced, holding up a delicious smelling picnic basket. "I had the cook make all your favorites."
"Is Father coming?" Azula asked, hoping that their father would have time to do something with them.
"Yes dear, your father said he would meet us later, now step to, we're wasting daylight."
O
"When my father got there, we had a food fight and mom joined in...we all had so much fun. It is one of my precious few memories where Azula, mom, my father and I actually acted like a real family." Zuko finished the story in a trance like state. The memory seemed so close, yet so far away at the same time.
"It sounds like you're mom was a fun person," Katara said, wondering what to think of the story. Could it be possible the Fire Nation Royal Family were human? She doubted it.
They had found the Southern Raiders, the group of Fire Nation soldiers who had invaded the South Pole, and infiltrated the flagship that the leader of the group commanded. Upon finding the man who had killed her mother Katara did the one thing she promised herself that she never would; she bended his blood.
When Zuko had shot bursts of fire at him and he started to retaliate, all Katara could see was her mother's terrified, yet brave face as she told her daughter to get help.
But then, when she stopped seeing her mother, and actually saw him, it wasn't.
"It's not him," she said, just above a whisper. She relaxed her pose in defeat and the Southern Raider captain, confused and scared, regained use of his body,
"What do you mean?" Zuko asked, flabbergasted. "This has to be the guy!" 'I have to regain your trust' is what he meant. Katara shrugged. Zuko grabbed the captains arm and twisted. "Who are we looking for?" he demanded.
"You must be looking for Yon Rha, he retired four years ago." The man's voice shook. He had just lost control of his limbs and now he was pinned to a wall...today seemed as good a day as ever to retire.
Katara and Zuko shared a look, one thought passed from her gaze to his; I must find the man who took my mother away from me.
On the trip from where they were to where their target was, Zuko tried to convince himself that there was only one reason that he was helping Katara track down Yon Rha.
But the truth was, there were three reasons. The first one; him trying to regain her trust, of course. The second, revenge by proxy, he too had lost his mother, and somehow, he thought, if he could help Katara get revenge for her mother, perhaps, he would be getting revenge for his mother as well.
And the third reason, he wanted to help ease Katara's pain, he didn't know why exactly. When he was with her, and she wasn't yelling at him, it was almost like, he was with Mai. But that couldn't be possible. He loved Mai.
Didn't he?
They had found him; Yon Rha, ex-leader of the Southern Raiders. "We weren't behind the bush," Zuko told him, voice calm as he glanced at the bush Yon Rha thought they were hiding behind. It was a good thing they weren't; it was engulfed in a blazing inferno.
"Please, take, take anything you want, but, please don't hurt me!" he pleaded. Katara stepped forward.
"Do you know who I am?" she asked coldly, as she glared daggers at him.
"I—I don't know..." the old man said confusedly.
"Oh, you better know!" Katara screamed as she took a menacing step towards him. "You better remember. Remember like your life depends on it!"
Yon Rha took a deep breath as he looked at the girl in front of him. He recognized something about her...
"You're the little water tribe girl, the one who's mother I—" he told his story, as if there were no guilt in his words. As if he didn't think there was a reason to feel guilty, as if the person he had killed, was nothing more than a brainless, animal.
By the time he was done Katara wanted to run away, cry her heart out, and then scream at thin air for about an hour, and that still wouldn't make her feel any better.
As Zuko watched Katara's silent reaction he wanted to hug her, to tell her everything would be alright, but he couldn't... and for some reason that killed him.
"She lied to you! She was protecting the last waterbender," Katara said, whispering the last part to herself.
"Really? Who?" he asked, shell-shocked. This man was not only a murderous cowardly monster, but an idiot as well.
"Me!" Katara shrieked. Her whole body ached to kill him. It was more than a want, it was a need. She needed to exact justice on this swine who had taken her mother away from her. She needed closure, justice, she needed...
Revenge.
But, in the end she couldn't do it, she couldn't kill the man that had taken her mother away from her. She told Aang this when they returned to the rest of the group. He had assured her that she was strong for not doing it. And before Katara walked away, she gave Zuko a lasting hug. Zuko wondered why he enjoyed it so much.
As she was walking away she strained to hear their conversation. She couldn't help it, she had an insatiable curiosity.
"You were right about what Katara needed. Violence wasn't the answer," Zuko said.
"It never is," Aang agreed.
"Then I have one question; what are you going to do when you face my father?"
Aang's answer was terrifying. "I don't know."
Katara turned around and locked eyes with Zuko. Once again, the same thought passed through them, and they knew what the other was thinking.
That's something that we have in common.
Fyre's Notes: Nope, not Author's Notes since this was written by big sis. BUT DON'T TELL HER. She never sent me the finished version due to the sappiness. I have converted her to the dark side. Now I must bake cookies.
Author: Hey Fyre, what'cha doin'?
Fyre: Nothing...
Story posted.