After being struck by Azula's lightning, Zuko comatose. The only thing that keeps him straddling the fence of life and death is her.
His world is black.
Blood thrums in his ears; pulsing, pounding, reminding him that yes, he's still alive. But not for long. There is inky dark silence, and there is nothing. Nothing but quiet. He can't feel his arms or his legs, and the weightlessness is almost…nice.
For once in his life, Zuko takes a deep breath and rests.
The calm becomes pain.
Before he knows it he's drowning in a sea of bright, colorful agony. He flounders and flails, limbs suddenly leaden and heavy. The feeling takes his breath away. The worst of it blooms from his chest, and all he can see is red. It occurs to him then that he is dying.
The thought angers him momentarily. Didn't he get a chance to fight death before it actually won? But then tingles of electricity – not the pleasant kind – are rippling through his body. From head to toe, he's a firecracker.
All thought fades, replaced by burning and despair. He suffers.
It seems like ages before the pain stops, but when it does he starts to breathe again. Something cold and cool washes over him, seeping into every nook and cranny and filling the hole in his chest. There's pressure; gentle and quite pleasant over his heart.
Slowly the darkness turns to light and then….it's blue? Zuko inhales and exhales and feels as if he is at the bottom of the ocean looking up through the waves into the sun. Light dances across his vision and he feels weightless again, but this time much more alive.
Zuko realizes that he'd died, but he definitely isn't dead anymore.
He doesn't know when the blue takes the shape of her eyes but somehow she's standing in front of him.
Katara.
She's the last person he would've expected to be here in this place. Every emotion is multiplied by a thousand; every color a deeper hue. Zuko knows he's somewhere beautiful but a flicker of the pain echoes in his mind and he knows he's somewhere dangerous too. He doesn't want her here, where she could be hurt. Opening his mouth, he attempts to tell her to flee, but the words won't form. Instead he grips her arm and pushes her away with all his mind and his might.
He thinks she gets the message, when she disappears. He's sad that she had to go.
Katara comes back, but this time is different.
They're not in the strange place anymore but in what he recognizes as his old bedroom in the Fire Nation palace. Candles flicker in the corners and there are fire-lilies in her hair. She's grinning up at him from the bed; hair splayed out on one of his pillows.
What's going on?
It's another one of those things that Zuko doesn't know. But like every other time since he's been lost (because he certainly isn't found), he goes with it. She's so beautiful, and for once he lets himself think it. He laughs a real laugh, and twirls a deliciously soft piece of her hair around his finger. Her lips move but he can't hear what she says. In the end her hand presses itself into his chest and a throb of the old pain filters through. He looks down, and there's a scar there. How did that happen?
When he looks up she's frowning, a prettily sad upside down smile on her face. He reads her lips.
"I'm sorry, Zuko."
And she's gone.
Somewhere far away a blue-eyed girl starts from her sleep. She rolls over and he's there; a boy who's been asleep for far too long.
"Wake up," she whispers. "Come back to me." Nothing happens, but the spirits are listening. Agni kisses her on the forehead when she's dreaming again.
The next time they're together again, he's worried. Partly because he's been lost for a very long time now. And partly because his mind has clearly started going to fairly dangerous places.
Katara has grown. She's a little taller, and a lot….rounder in certain areas. Of course he can't help but notice. She's wearing Fire Nation clothing and in this vision they're sparring. Well…they had been sparring.
He's soaked to the bone and she has scorch marks on her tunic. But clearly they've finished fighting because the way she's sauntering towards him is more than threatening. It's sexual. Seductive. And he can't remember ever feeling this turned on.
"Zuko." Her hands grip the front of his shirt, and yank him closer. He can hear her voice this time, and the sound makes him want to cry. She presses her lips to the corner of his mouth. "Zuko."
Suddenly she's an ocean and he's a man dying of thirst. His arms wrap around her, fingers curling into the fabric of her attire.
"Yes, Katara?" He's found his voice again. Their lips are so close that his exhale is her inhale.
"You need to wake up. It's been so long. Wake up, Zuko." She's begging him now with sorrowful azure eyes.
For the second time, she disappears.
He's getting sick of darkness. Everything is so black and boring and so utterly exhausting when Katara isn't here. The pretty blue lights have gone away, but Zuko can tell he's still alive. Katara had told him something….their conversation had been so quick….
He remembers.
She'd told him to wake up... Wake up? So he was sleeping? How stupid. What a waste of time to be asleep for so long. It had been an extremely long amount of time, hadn't it? Zuko makes a mental note to slap himself when he finally DOES wake up.
Which he doesn't know when will happen. He can't quite figure out how to do it.
The children are what finally push him to the edge.
Katara isn't there this time, but he is and so are they. And Agni, they're so beautiful. Somehow he knows the little girl with the tan skin and the golden eyes is his. She's got to be. Her sweet little smile, and the fire dancing at her fingertips almost bring him to tears.
And then there's the boy. Zuko doesn't know his name but it's there on the tip of his tongue. The kid is about three, and downy black hair sprouts from his skull. His eyes are blue; positively mesmerizing. Just like his mother's. He wants to hold him, and kiss his pudgy cheeks. He wants to be the father he never had.
He drops to his knees and they run to him. They disappear after a moment, but the tears on his face don't.
Zuko decides to find his way back to reality no matter what it takes.
It's hard.
So fucking hard. He pushes against the blackness, straining against the feathery lightness of his limbs and shoving the barriers of his mind back. In the beginning it feels impossible but he refuses to give up.
He has a life to live. A girl to love. A family to raise. Fuck this.
It hurts before anything happens. The agony returns seeping through his heart and spreading through his arms and legs. It rages through him, and then it vanishes altogether and he can feel again.
Suddenly he can control the way his body is moving and with all his might he throws himself against the first black wall he can find. It goes down but there's always another. He kicks some down, slams through others. And then ….then there's a spark. After one particularly tough wall, something flares in the distance.
Before he can blink, light is rushing towards him. He gives in, letting it engulf his body; his soul. The last thing he knows is light seeping into the hole in his chest.
Zuko wakes up.
"Oh my god." She can't help the shiver that slips into her voice, as his fingers flex beneath her own. They squeeze once, twice, three times. The first signs of life besides the breath that flows in and out of his lungs. Tears well in her he's not done yet. Katara watches as he shifts, head rolling against the burgundy pillow. It's been so long….so freaking long. An entire year that she's spent the days worrying and the nights praying he would come back again. And then, before she can gasp out another breath, pale eyelids flutter quickly, promising gold underneath.
A sob bubbles in her throat. He's looking at her. Zuko's looking at her. A pink tongue wets lips that have been dry for weeks, and the burden she's been carrying tumbles from her shoulders.
The room is bright. Too bright for eyes hidden by a year of darkness. He squints into it and everything comes together so slowly, but when the shapes are no longer blurry, it's worth it. She's there, looking exhausted but happy. So happy. Zuko thinks he could wake up to this every morning.
"You're here," he says, and his voice is raspy and dry. It rumbles in his chest, and he has to clear his throat. "I was hoping you'd be here."
She smiles and it's sad like before, but hopeful too. Tears drips from her chin to the bedsheets. "I stayed. Everyone thought you'd...but I stayed. I knew you could do it."
"You knew before too." He chuckles to himself, and he figures that she won't quite get the joke. It's alright, though. She's actually here, and she'd been waiting for him like he'd hoped. He reaches for her then, for whatever part of her he can touch. In the end, he cups her tan cheek in one hand and tugs a lock of her chocolate hair with another. "Would you believe me if I told you I saw the future?"
"I'll believe anything right now."
"I saw-," he swallows hard, and she reaches up to traces the scar around his eye. One of his many scars. "I saw impossible things."
A smile curls the corners of her lips upward. "Impossible things? Like what?"
"Like you…and I."
The look in his eyes tells her he knows something she doesnt. And he does; he knows of firelilies and "sparring" and a little boy with her ocean eyes. But she doesn't move away like he thought she might. Instead she slides closer, leaning over him and he drops her hair to grip the waist he'd felt in his dreams. She really has grown; taller and stronger and so much more beautiful. Her body presses against him; the friction more delicious than anything he has ever tasted (her lips are still an unknown delicacy).
"Zuko, nothing is impossible."
And when she kisses him and doesn't let go, he knows he's finally stopped dreaming.