Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender or any other copyrighted property that may appear in this work of fiction. Lyrics are from "In My Arms Again" by Michael W. Smith.
Will You Wait?
I really wanna see you
I really wanna touch you
If only I could hold you in my arms again
I really wanna reach you
Forever to be with you
If only I could hold you in my arms again…
It was all Zuko's fault, to begin with.
At least, that's how Katara preferred to think of it. Better to blame it on the misguided, brashly temperamental boy who tried so hard to destroy her hopes for the salvation of the world—the one who turned around and then sought her forgiveness, surrendering his pride and all that he was at her feet—than to blame herself, for giving him the opportunity and the weaponry with which to hurt her.
You can't truly change the person you are, no matter how you try to transform yourself into something different… and deep down at heart Zuko was an honorable man, and she was as sweetly trusting as a fool.
She must have been a fool, after all, to imagine that he had ever held in his hands the threads of her destiny.
...
It was written in the stars
On the pages of my heart
Oh, that someday I would find
The love I feel for you tonight
...
The sunsets in the Fire Nation were spectacular, thought Katara as she snuggled close to the Fire Prince who would become the next Fire Lord—her Fire Prince, she corrected herself, with a secret thrilling delight that sent tiny sparks of lightning flaring down her spine and every single nerve ending she had in her. It was almost surreal: the two of them cuddling out here in the middle of nowhere, Waterbender and Firebender, with her head pillowed on his right shoulder and his arm loosely wrapped about her, holding her close with comforting warmth and weight.
It was one of those universally potent, romantic moments that possess the power to hold females of any age and sentimentality in thrall, especially when it happens to them. Katara was no exception; with a soft smile she closed her eyes and sighed happily. She fervently wished the moment would last forever.
Of course, Zuko just had to open his mouth and ruin it for her instead.
"…We should head back soon."
"Mmm… already?" She tilted her head a little to the side, further exposing the smooth tanned curve of her neck as she peeped at him coyly beneath a double fringe of brown lashes. As she did so, Katara privately considered how her overprotective brother would react if he ever caught her flirting with Zuko like this. There was something intriguingly appealing about the thought of letting him catch them in the act… but Sokka was several days' travel away and so there was no real likelihood of that happening. "Aang's coming to pick us up in a couple of days, right? We have time right now, so why don't we relax and enjoy it?"
Zuko inhaled and exhaled, the breath softly whistling through his teeth. The expression he wore was distant and pensive—and as she watched it seemed to become more and more familiar. The lines in his face tautened and became more defined, the skin about his brows and the corners of his eyes wrinkled, and overall he looked like a man who had screwed his courage to the sticking point and was proceeding to do something he did not particularly relish the idea of doing.
"Katara… have you ever met Mai?"
Mai? Katara narrowed her eyes, dimly recalling a tall straight-backed girl with dark hair and eyes glinting dull with indifference. Cold, beautiful and deadly… a sister who was once willing to sacrifice her brother at the command of her liege Princess. "We've crossed paths—engaged in battle, once or twice. Besides that, we're not really acquainted."
"Really?" Zuko's grip tightened infinitesimally—the pressure awakening some mysterious feminine instinct in Katara's psyche, warning her that something was definitely wrong. "Huh, that's strange. I'll introduce her to you when we get back; I think you'd get along pretty well."
"I get along pretty well with most people, when they're not trying to kill me and my friends," Katara said very carefully, searching his profile with her keenly inquisitive gaze. "Zuko… is there something you want to tell me?"
For several long minutes, there was only silence. Then…
"I want to ask Mai to take me back as her boyfriend again."
Upon uttering those words the glowing rim of the sun sank beneath the horizon—and its absence brought them into a purple-streaked dusk, faded with pale silver clouds. It had the added benefit of plunging their faces into darkness, for which Katara was grateful.
She was Katara, the proud daughter of a Water Tribe chieftain; the last Waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe, and the Avatar's Waterbending teacher. She'd fought against the unthinkingly callous parts of this Prince for far too long… and she'd be damned before she let him see how much he'd wounded her, yet again.
"Oh, is that so?" She kept her voice neutral, detached, almost light. Katara had a face that was as unsuited to masks as Aang's or Sokka's was, but every female knows at least a little of the arts of dissimulation and has made use of them to save herself. "What a wonderful pair you'll make. I'm sure you have lots of things in common."
"It's not what you think," Zuko said quietly—the unspoken pain echoed in the nuances of each word he spoke, and together they almost succeeded in breaking down her defenses once again. "She defied Azula for my sake, Katara… even though I didn't deserve it. She did it because she loved me, and for all I know she still does. I cannot repay her by breaking her heart anew."
"So, instead you're going to break mine?" Katara got to her feet, seething with anger and staggered by the depth of the feelings of betrayal that surged through her. "I can't believe this… I trusted you not to do this to me again!"
"Katara…"
"You know what? It would serve you right if I DID end up with Aang! He loves me—and has loved me—since the very first day we met!"
Despite the dimness, here she had the satisfaction of seeing Zuko's golden eyes flare and darken, and his reserved expression of detachment cracked a little at the edges. "Oh… is that so? What a wonderful pair you'll make. I'm sure you have lots of things in common."
"Don't mock me! And don't you DARE mock Aang!" Katara snapped, stung by his word-for-word repetition of her earlier statement. "He loves me every bit as much as Mai loves you. At least he respects me more than to cast me aside because he feels that is the honorable thing to do!"
"Katara!" He seized her by the arms, preventing her from escaping to find privacy for her tears. Katara struggled for a silent, furious moment before succumbing, squeezing her eyes shut and jerking her head pointedly away from him. She vowed that she would refuse to acquiesce—nothing he could do to her was going to make her give in any further.
Not even when his proximity to her felt good enough to make her swoon, to make shivers run up and down her frame—not even when a hard calloused hand closed on her upper arm, thumb massaging small comforting circles into the skin above her elbow. "…Katara. Look at me," Zuko said, defusing what would otherwise be an imperious command with a hint of a plea; a rare gentleness muting the slight rasp of his voice. "Please. I need you to listen."
Her vow lasted for all of approximately twenty-eight seconds before she was forced to break it.
Setting her mouth into a tight little smile, Katara opened her eyes and glared at him—fixing the focus of her glare right in the center of his forehead, so she could deny him the advantage his too-readable eyes would have over her. "Fine. I'm looking. I'm listening."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Good." And with that the dark-haired youth pulled her forward, closed the remaining distance by rising to one knee, and angled his mouth to cover hers.
It was not her first kiss, and given her resistance it was definitely not her best. It most likely wasn't Zuko's first either, if he could kiss her so easily and so perfectly—persisting until her lips, closed in a stubborn line, softened and she let him in—drinking deep of the electric sensation that spread across her skin at the melding of his aura with hers.
Did Mai feel like this when he kissed her? Like the world could end, and Azula could pop in any second trying to destroy it… but it wouldn't be enough to break them apart, if they chose to stay as one?
Zuko held onto her when they parted, and unconsciously her gaze sought his—her blue eyes wide and wondering, his amber ones overcast and filled with a nameless anguish. They stood in stark relief against the mismatched skin that surrounded them: one side pale and unmarred except for the lightest of golden sun-freckles; the other rippled and scarred like old bloodstained leather, like the dark side of the moon.
She saw herself doubly reflected there, one on each side… and wondered if therein lay her future.
In the apparent absence of her wits, Katara's mouth decided to go ahead and shape words without consulting her brain. "This… doesn't happen to have any ulterior meaning, does it?"
Zuko blinked once, twice—then looked away, retreating into the protection of his royally aloof façade. Her heart sank like a stone.
"I'll only say this once, and you aren't to repeat it to anyone else. Understand?"
"…What?"
He turned his head, but didn't quite manage to meet her gaze. "I love you, Katara. I don't know why or how I came to feel this way toward you… when it happened, or whether I can even think of it as genuine." His fingers tightened on her arms, almost bruising her. "But somewhere along the way you became important to me—just like you did to Aang… Jet… and all the others you moved with your words and the essence of who you are. Proving my trustworthiness to you—after I had broken your faith in me—was an obsession, a personal quest that I couldn't allow myself to fail…"
"Then what's this about Mai?" she demanded, heart thudding in her throat like waves on a slick ice shelf, pounding away. Impatient with his reminiscing, Katara wanted to know NOW, and in simple words. "If you love me, then why—?"
"Because I have unsettled accounts! Debts I owe to people who deserve happiness more than I do!" The anguish was back, but he was better at controlling it this time—between one blink and the next it was gone. "Two of those people in particular… Mai is one of them. The other is Aang."
What? … Oh, don't tell me…
"Don't tell me you're giving me up because you feel guilty about all that time you spent hunting Aang, months ago!"
"…Uh. I wouldn't exactly, put it in that—"
"I KNEW IT." Her fingers itched. Ooo, how tempting it would be to just strangle him! "What kind of a stupid argument is that? 'Oh hey, I don't deserve you… so I'm just going to break your heart and let Aang have you!'"
"You were the one who said he loves you," he pointed out. "Plus he's the Avatar: he'll be able to take good care of you. You'll also have Sokka and Toph to fall back on when he's not around."
"You and Aang… both of you seem to assume that I can't get by without someone around to rescue me!" She hated his calm rationalizing of the situation, trying to make things like they were going to be okay. THEY WERE NOT OKAY! "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I don't need a man? That I can make a life on my own? My Grangran ran away from her home at the North Pole all by herself, and she did well—she managed to raise my mother, and then Sokka and me, without a man!"
"Then answer me this: will you wait for me?" Zuko looked directly into her eyes, like a drowning man who has seen a straying beam of light, a new possibility of salvation, but does not dare to hope that it might actually be a way out. "Can you wait, for however many years it takes, until the owed debts are paid in full? Until both Mai and Aang have found the happiness the sacrifices we make can provide them?"
Will you wait for me?
…Could she? Katara stared back, thinking of her Grangran and the life she'd led. Could she really follow in her grandmother's footsteps and take the path to a similar existence: alone, allowing the world to pass her by as she grew old and bent, without even the bright smiles of children or grandchildren to brighten her dimming days? Forever waiting for a love that could not be fulfilled while another (lesser loved, but still loved) still lived?
And Aang… would he understand? How would she ever manage to explain it to him? With a pang Katara remembered the look of utter confusion and hurt that illuminated his wide boyish eyes when she fled from him, on the night of that horrible play on Ember Island. Zuko was right: Aang deserved much better at her hands than what he currently received.
And oh, how that image of her Grangran haunted her: sitting alone in a tent next to a tiny smoking fire while she sewed sealskins in the flickering light and a furious icestorm raged outside. Withering, bent, graying, waiting forever to hear the voice of that one truly beloved one who loved her…
Can you wait, for however many years it takes, until the owed debts are paid in full?
They were not hers. No… they were his debts, his burdens, and what's more he had chosen them for himself. They were debts of honor, and—considering all Zuko had done since to repent—they should not have had to be paid.
As much as it tore her apart to admit it, Katara no longer had the ideals or the strength to dedicate her future to sharing the debts of honor her Prince—no, not hers anymore, she thought with sadness—seemed hell-bent on fulfilling. She would not be satisfied to receive a tiny sliver of utter happiness at the end of a lifetime of holding on… she was too young and bright for it to be worth the cost.
Katara knew all this. Yet, when she looked at him to say the words, for a moment all she could see was the beauty of a crystalline ice sculpture melting in the sun; the light of a brilliant multi-colored flame abruptly snuffed out.
Please. I need you…
"…No," she whispered finally—barely hearing herself over the sound of two hearts shattering, broken pieces reflected falling in his eyes. "You're right, Zuko. I… I don't think I can."
So saying, she left him there, kneeling in the darkening night as stars fell wheeling like celestial tears, streaking faint trails across the face of the moon.
...
On the ocean of our dreams
Like a prayer you came to me
And the longing that had been
Found its ending in your eyes
And I am missing you tonight
...
They'd avoided each other after that, as much as they could. Still, it was because of him Katara came to the former General Iroh's tea shop, knowing and hoping that she might catch sight of him. Her wishes, however reluctantly made, were granted—as she passed a window she caught a fleeting glimpse of Zuko and Mai, wrapped in each other's arms. His eyes were closed and relaxed, and she—cold, deadly, impassive—was smiling.
It was a beautiful, contented smile, and Katara couldn't help but hate her for it. For a moment she hated him for putting that smile there.
And when she kissed Aang and felt the powerful wave of his disbelieving joy, his blissful exhilaration crashing over her like a typhoon… she couldn't help but hate herself a little too.
It was his damnable sense of honor that began it, but her foolishness that ended it. Perhaps, Katara admitted to herself as she deepened the kiss, it wasn't all Zuko's fault.
For however many years it takes…
Perhaps... they were both to blame.
...
Across the waves, across the sea
Separating you from me
Here's a promise and it's mine
I will love you for all time
I'm wishing you were here tonight
...
FIN.
A/N: Sigh. What can I say? This is my take on what happened in the "several month" period that passed between the end of the war and the Kataang kiss that kinda... blew my mind there for a moment.
...More than a moment. The rest of you guys residing in the shell-rocked kingdom of Zutaria probably know what I mean. -coughmassmentalmeltdowncough-
The pic that inspired this is on my deviantArt page, which is linked on my profile. Yes, I know... somehow the tiny blurb I wrote for artist's comments snowballed into this. (Plotbunnies... mad, the lot of 'em.)
So please, if you've bothered to read this far... review and tell me what you think of a possible followup?