They had been silent during the entire flight. Zuko could make out Katara's silhouette as she sat ahead steering Appa. He kept waiting for it to happen, for her to cry like she always did and maybe find some relief. But nothing happened. So, Zuko was left to deal with the emotions and memories that this excursion with Katara had forced to resurface. He had told himself that this mission was about her, he wanted to help her get closure and finally earn her trust but he had hoped that seeing her take down the man who had killed her mother would relieve him of his anger at what had happened to his own.
As it turned out Katara was a much stronger person than he was, she remained unfailingly kind even in the face of someone who had wounded her so irreparably. Zuko thought of his geneology and knew that that kind of compassion and mercy could not possibly be inside of him. He was weak where Katara was strong and weak in the way his father had always accused him of being. He had the opportunity to take revenge on the man who had taken his mother from him and he could not do it. He was too struck by the knowledge that his mother had killed for him, and then abandoned him.
He did not like thinking about his mother because it inevitably led to questions of where she was and why she had not come to find him. The entire world knew that he had been banished. He was on his own for 3 years and there was never any word of her. He had accepted that she was dead, even begun to heal a little, and now that wound had been ripped wide open again. Zuko told himself that the fact that she was alive was just a technicality. If she hadn't come looking for him in the last 3 years she certainly wouldn't now that he had so gravely betrayed his country and had Azula and the like chasing after him. No, finding out about his mother did not change anything so he would focus on helping Katara.
"We can't fly all night; we really should stop somewhere and make camp." Though she didn't respond Appa began to descend and they both began to look for a spot to land. Seeing a clearing on the shore, Katara brought Appa down and they silently set up camp. Zuko would never be the first to complain about not speaking but this was Katara and if she wasn't flitting around talking about hope and a million other things than he didn't know who she was. Cautiously, he approached her as she stood gazing into the darkness he said, "What you did was amazing Katara, you have more strength than anyone I know."
Silence ensued and when she finally turned to look at him there was hatred in her eyes that he had prayed he would never have to see again. Before he could even register what she was doing she had smacked him with a water whip, sending him flying into the ocean.
"I am obviously not strong!" she screamed as Zuko was desperately trying to fend off the waves that kept crashing over him, "I couldn't protect Aang from you, I let you capture me, and then I almost wasted my spirit water on you in Ba Sing Se just because you were smart enough to prey on my weakness!" At that she brought two waves in on him so that Zuko had to dive underwater to keep from being crushed. When he resurfaced, coughing and out of breath she was still screaming.
"You pretend to join our group to get to Aang the same way you pretended with me and I still didn't kill you. And then that man…" Zuko was beginning to be terrified. She no longer seemed to be aware of the power she was wielding; her bending was taking on a life of its own.
"That man killed her! And your father ordered him to do it!" Zuko had avoided using his firebending until that point because he thought it might send her over the edge, but he could no longer duck her attacks. As he threw up a wall of flames to block her most recent whip she let out a laugh that scared him in how much it sounded like Azula.
"Now fight back! I am going to be strong from now on so fight back!
Zuko punched fire balls at her to give him some breathing room, careful not to actually hit her. It was night which meant the moon gave Katara an advantage that Zuko was starting to fear he could not overcome. She may have been a Master Water Bender, but she had no training in hand-to-hand combat, so Zuko began to slowly move closer to her. After being nicked by more than a few icicles, he finally managed to grab her wrists and pin them to her side.
"That's right, just manhandle me like the rest of your barbaric nation. Cheat because you know my bending is better than yours!" She continued to rant and struggle but Zuko never budged. Then he felt her struggles fade and be replaced by the shaking of weeping shoulders. When he let her go she collapsed at his feet, clutching her sides and sobbing. He knelt down, scooped her up and carried her on to shore. He shot fire from his fist, sat down, and just held her. He had suffered this loss, and knew there were no words. She was crying so hard that he was becoming tired just from holding her still. The sobs began to subside and Zuko stroked her back gently, whispering to her that it was okay.
When she had finally exhausted herself with crying and thought she was calm enough she relinquished her hold on him and let out a deep sigh. Awkwardly, she got up from his lap and stood looking down at him.
"Zuko, I am so sorry. Everything I just said to you…it's…I was…I don't even know what to say." This was the Katara he knew; devastated at the thought that she may have hurt someone.
"Katara, you don't have to apologize, everything you said was-"
"You just called me Katara." She said, looking even more confused. "You've never used my name before."
"Of course I have." Zuko said, bewildered.
"No. You have called me 'Peasant' and 'Water bender' but never Katara." She said, her expression now thoughtful. She then moved to heal the wounds she had inflicted during their spar.
"You don't have to do that."
"I put them there, I can heal them." Katara paused and looked up at him. "When we were in prison in Ba Sing Se together and you told me that the Fire Nation had taken your mother from you, were you just trying to soften me up or was that true?"
"It was true."
"Oh" she breathed. "Could you… Could you tell me about her?" In that instant she saw his jaw clench and his walls go up and felt disappointed.
Zuko would have immediately denied anyone else but this was Katara and seeing her sad and pessimistic was like seeing a cloud pass in front of the sun for the first time. He was debating internally with himself when she spoke again,
"It's just, I have for the most part been able to keep perspective throughout this whole thing, the war I mean, and I accepted that my dad had to leave and do his part to end it. I know that helping Aang is the only thing I should be focusing on." A small sob escaped her and Zuko immediately tensed but she drew a steadying breath. "It feels like I've lost her all over again and it would be helpful to be reminded that I'm not the only one who has suffered because of this war, because that's how it feels right now."
She turned to look at Zuko as she finished and in that moment, her blue eyes misty with unshed tears and the firelight casting shadows on her elegant yet strong face, Zuko knew he could not refuse her anything.
She watched him with different eyes while he spoke. This was the Zuko that she had seen, briefly, in the catacombs at Ba Sing Se. Sensitive, insecure, and seemingly so lost, she could no longer doubt that the arrogant Fire Nation Prince was a mask. And she could not longer doubt that he was genuine in his attempts to join their group and end the war. If anyone knew how evil Ozai was, it was Zuko. She could not stop from gasping out loud when he told her of his father's plans to sacrifice him, or begin to imagine how it was growing up in an environment like that. A swell of admiration for the man he had managed to become arose in her chest, as well as a swell of sympathy for his sister; it was suddenly much easier to see Azula as more than just a raging psychopath.
Zuko stared into the fire while he was talking; trying to pretend that it wasn't Katara he was telling all of this to. She couldn't understand what it felt like to not be loved by your own father. Everyone loved Katara. She was loyal, compassionate, an amazingly powerful bender, and just looking into her uniquely blue eyes could make even her enemy feel that he deserved to be healed, that he deserved to be loved. Zuko glanced up to see those same blue eyes glimmering with pity and…something else he couldn't identify, something new.
"You haven't seen her since?" Katara asked gently.
"I thought she was dead until the day of the eclipse." He said, defeated. "Spirits, I took comfort in thinking she was dead. I couldn't imagine that she had been alive and that she…"
"That she had left you?" That was not a sentence that Zuko needed finished, and Katara's heart wrenched at having vocalized his deepest insecurity and the source of so much pain. He was so stoic all the time; she couldn't imagine how painful it was to have to hide all these feelings, to have to pretend he wasn't broken.
"Zuko, can I tell you something that might sound a little strange?" Katara asked
Anything to change the current topic of conversation, Zuko thought, but just nodded.
"I like knowing that you've had a difficult past, that it's made you…well, a little dark I guess. Sometimes, I just have so much anger and I don't know what to do with it, it scares me sometimes, but I have to be…certain things to certain people, so I push things down and then when they surface I feel…I'm not explaining this well."
"No, I understand you. But, the war you've had to grow up in, the things you've had to sacrifice it would be unhealthy if you didn't feel rage. I'm sorry that you feel like you have to be perfect for…certain people but my Uncle used to tell me we cannot deny any part of ourselves, even the parts we don't like, and that our feelings are like the elements and they all keep us balanced and we shouldn't ignore them?" Zuko gave her a self-deprecating smile that she was forced to admit looked very good on him
"I can never understand what he's saying but I think if he were here he would tell you not to bury your anger, it's there for a reason. We all have darkness in us."
"Aang doesn't. If he had been with us tonight, if he had saw what I did on that ship…" Katara turned away from Zuko's gaze.
"What exactly did you do to him?"
For a while Zuko did not think she would answer but then he heard her timidly reply, "I bent his blood."
Zuko took pause at that, wondering again at her skill and trying to fathom the power she had demonstrated. Katara tensely waited for him to back away from her, to tell her that what she had done was inhumane, unforgivable, but he just looked thoughtful.
"I never thought anything could drive me to use that technique on another human being. That's why I wanted so badly to face my mother's killer, because the rage I have at him, I can't carry it anymore; it scares me." She was dying for him to speak. She could feel her eyes sting with tears, she really did not want to be showing this weakness in front of him again. "Now, I'm a monster like him."
Zuko whipped his head around and saw that she was now crying in earnest. He knelt down in front of her and lifted her head up to look at him.
"Katara, listen to me. I have that anger too. I have dreamt of killing the man who took my mother from me since I was a child. I have dreamt of killing the man who banished me, the man who scarred me. I have taken lives before and I would take the life of my own father, if I did not know that it was the Avatar's duty to do so. You are not a monster. You were put in front of the man you hate, and you showed him mercy. I need you to hear this; you are not a monster." Zuko spoke with a firm finality that reminded Katara that he was a prince.
Their eyes held for what seemed an impossibly long time. Katara had no idea what to say to him.
"We should get some sleep, you've been through a lot today." He finally spoke.
Katara nodded her head and pulled out her bedroll. They both laid down and after Zuko had dimmed the fire, Katara turned on her side to look at him.
"Thank you, Zuko. I am glad that you were the one that was here with me for this." She closed her eyes and fell asleep. Zuko watched her for a while, trying to make sense of the day, and of her.