1 am.
She waits.2 am.
She stares at the ceiling.3 am.
She rolls over, heaving a sigh.4 am.
-He finally crawls up into their bedroom. He's like a zombie, a body wandering without a soul, there are heavy bags hanging from the eye that is unmarked, weighing his appearance down beyond his years. The twenty-seven-year-old man has streaks of gray in his charcoal-colored hair, though his wife insists on calling them "silvery locks", which makes him snicker.
Katara is used to it, but it pulls her heart down into her stomach, like an anchor is hooked to her life-raft heart, docking to the pit of her stomach. She cannot sleep until he's there, the fire lord, her husband. She doesn't know why this is, she slept alone for years, but she needs him beside her. She doesn't know if it's fear for his wellbeing, or a phobia of her own lonliness, but she needs his warmth beside her to sleep- so she waits. Night after night, hour after hour, until the wee hours of the night (more like the early morning) crept into sight.
But, he always comes up eventually, exhausted, only to be up by eight am, a meager four hours later. Zuko doesn't say anything when he comes in, and it hurts, Katara hurts. She feels neglected, but she tries to understand. She knows it's what she agreed to, she knew she had to be second in his priorities, he told her that he'd be busy, but he always promised she meant most to him, but she knew she couldn't be. The fire lord's duty to his country had to come before his wife. That hurt. She wanted to talk to him at night, to curl up in his strong, comforting arms. But, Katara loved her husband, and she'd purged the subject once, only to have him vexed, but more so guilt-ridden by the allegation, so she kept silent. Fighting over it was futile. It would go nowhere. "Contentment with second-place" might as well have been aligned in their wedding vows, at least for her.
Katara still smiled when Zuko came in, plopping himself down, nearly passing out on their bed. He didn't even bother to get under the covers, or get undressed. Zuko just threw himself down, and he was out like a light. He was what she had been staring at the blank celling all night waiting for anyway.
She does what she always does, each and every night. Katara encroaches on him, careful not to stray his little slumber. She always notes how peaceful he looks while asleep, the lines of worry from his face gone. She then pulls the crown pin from his topknot, and then undoes it, placing the crown on the bureau, running her hand gently through his unkempt, shaggy, "silver-stranded" hair. She then pulls off the heavy, royal robes he's always appareled in, putting them on the single-sofa for the morning. Katara always then tugs off his thick, black boots, setting them underneath the robes by the sofa. She pulls his legs off to the side gingerly, enough to pull down the bedsheets, so she can place them underneath, and tuck him in- then pulling the blankets up to his chin.
Then she'll finally crawl back beside him, kissing his cheek, pushing the stay, straggled locks of hair from his face. "Goodnight, Zuko. I love you," she'd whisper every night, not hearing a reciprocated reply, that cracking her heart; she then wrapped her arms around him soundlessly as she inhaled sharply, holding back the tears she seldom apprehends.
5 am.
She cries.6 am.
She sleeps.7 am.
She makes breakfast. He's there. But, he doesn't know. He thinks she has been sound asleep all night long.8 am.