Revolutions - a course, as if in a circuit, back to a starting point.
i.
They've gotten to the age where in nearly every instance in which they meet, they spend some of their time reminiscing. It usually starts with Katara's ice sharp memory, but every once in awhile, the old Fire Lord's lips will curve into a wrinkled grin, and he'll carefully ask their most beloved question -
"Do you remember when?"
As old as they are, it's usually a good question, but more than that, it recalls a certain fondness for shared events between them both. The laundry list is long, and always getting longer, and every time Katara sees Zuko again, there's something new to remember.
"Do you remember when you stole that waterbending scroll, and I found you?" is more or less countered with a sly, "Do you remember when Mai went into labor and you were nearly hysterical with panic?"
Of course they do. When they both remember the time Sokka attempted to take Bumi, and Zuko's daughter fishing as their wise Uncle (and failed miserably at it) they both laugh long and hard. When they remember the time Zuko accompanied Katara on her mission to find her mother's killer, they sober into silence. And then, they remember their journey to find Ursa together, with their friends.
The memories are good and bad, but they have them, and that is what matters most.
The memories this time have been bittersweet. "Do you remember the moment you knew Korra was the new Avatar?"
"Do you remember our argument when we couldn't agree on her firebending masters?"
Eventually, their memories fall upon one particular moment, long before Aang's death.
Zuko sets his jasmine tea down beside his pai sho table, and moves a lotus tile.
"Do you remember when Mai left?" he asks gamely.
Katara gives him a rueful look. "Which time?" It's an honest question.
Zuko frowns. "I left her, on the Day of Black Sun." He corrects.
The greatest female waterbender in the world snickers as if she's still twenty and light on her feet. "I see. That doesn't seem to help your case." She pointed out, blue eyes flashing.
"After my first year on the throne," Zuko explains, pushing forwards as Katara moves a wheel tile forwards on the game board, and puts one of his element tiles into jeopardy. "Mai broke up with me. That was before you suggested we go looking for my mother."
She remembers that. "You were a bit of a wreck." Katara says with a sage nod.
"You came to help me, though." Zuko replies fondly, "With the things Mai usually did. Paperwork, and social events, and reminding me to sleep." He pulled a pai sho tile diagonally to rescue his piece.
"I did. You needed someone to watch after you. And that's how I noticed you were so distracted." Zuko's concentration had been spread thin between his people, his country, and his mother. And Katara had been the first to realize that if the young Fire Lord Zuko didn't seek out his mother, he might always be conflicted. She had understood immediately.
"You always did read me like an open scroll." Zuko tells her.
Katara shakes her head. "You're just not very good about keeping things secret."
Zuko thinks about protesting - his 'secret keeping' was why Mai had broken up with him so many years ago in the first place - but in Katara's mind, perhaps she is right. He really is that bad at keeping his thoughts and intentions a secret. He's just as terrible at lying outright. Eventually, Mai caught on.
"-It was fun, though." Katara says warmly. "Seeing what the court ladies of the Fire Nation did. You and I made a good team."
They'd always made a good team. Zuko points this out, with single quirked white brow raised at her. Then, very seriously Katara leans forwards in a hush over their pai sho table. "We wouldn't have made a bad pair, you know."
This causes Zuko to splutter for a moment - decades later, he's still not particularly graceful when caught off guard - but then he leans forwards conspiratorially. "You loved the Avatar." Zuko accuses, and it's playful when he does so.
"And you married Mai. Still, we were an excellent team." Surely he can't deny that. Of course, he doesn't. Instead, Zuko hums in thought and agreement. "You're awfully bossy. I can't be so sure."
A drop of Zuko's tea splashes on his cheek. It drips down his face, and Katara chuckles. "Please. When has my bossing you around never not improved your life?"
"I can think of a few times." Zuko says drolly.
"Oh hush." Katara chides. "Can you imagine, if things had been different?"
"If the Avatar hadn't fallen in love with you, you mean?"
"If Aang didn't need me, and Mai didn't come back, and I had decided to get into politics…"
"—You were happy with your life." Zuko counters.
"So I was." Katara waves this off. "I loved being with Aang. Who else could have done it? He loved me always, but he had to love the world too. It was hard, sometimes."
"You think being the Fire Lady would have been easier?" Zuko scoffs. It isn't that he doubts Katara, but he knows the toll it took on Mai. She did not enjoy the constraints of being a Fire Lady, and he had given her many opportunities to visit her family and Ty Lee when the mood struck her. It had made them both happier for it.
"It would have challenged me. I like that. And I could have been bossy to to many more loyal subjects." She adds cheekily.
"You would have been a horror." Zuko said, steaming the tea off of his cheek and dabbing it gently with his napkin.
"But if it had been different," Katara presses.
"—If it had been different, I might have realized the importance of the colonies mixing benders and nations much sooner. Our partnership would have been a diplomatic one, it might have pleased some people. Certainly, there's a large faction of people who would have felt better if I was under someone's watch at all times." But the people of the world had to trust Zuko on his own merits, and he didn't regret earning that trust, slowly but surely.
"What about next time?" Katara asks.
At this, he pauses. Perhaps he's too old for this, even from his best friend. Zuko's forehead wrinkles deeply as he frowns in thought, and his scar tissue ripples lightly. Next time?
"I have no regrets this time." Katara explains, catching his bewildered expression. "But next lifetime, I want to try something different. Obviously, I can't marry the Avatar every time."
"You mean when we're born again?" Zuko asks, the pai sho game all but forgotten.
"In the next turn of the wheel, let's be lovers."
If he had been drinking tea, Zuko would have spit it out. Instead, he just gives Katara a look.
"Don't look so taken aback. You'd be a mess without me anyways. You'd miss me. And we've got no guarantee of meeting the next Avatar again…"
"You don't think we'd find everyone else again?" They'd promised themselves their friendships would last many lifetimes, but they're slowly dying, all of them, and it gets harder to believe the cycle will be perfect in meeting again.
"Maybe in another two lifetimes. Or three. But you and I are going to hold out for some time longer. We're too stubborn to die yet."
Zuko can't deny this much. "It's not such a bad proposition, I suppose."
"Of course it's not. Life is always easier with a friend at your side." Katara says to him.
"Don't I know it." Zuko says, with a heavy sigh. He looks back at Katara, scrutinizing her honest, old smile. It would be nice, in another lifetime. It was always hard to explain his friendship with Katara to others, to describe how much his best friend meant, how much he loved her, and yet wouldn't trade his life for the world.
It was nice knowing she felt the same.
"Alright then," Zuko said. "Next lifetime, we'll be together."
"Deal."
ii.
Two revolutionaries sat in their encampment, the leader's tent to themselves as they laughed and talked over wine and fire whiskey. He was fumbling his drinks and awkwardly cramped beside his commander; a place that he decidedly liked best. She was sturdy and strong, and covered in scars - her whip quick optimistic passion was easier to get drunk off of than her spirits, but he never had to tell her that much. Somehow, they both knew.
Tipsily, they navigated an old favorite game:
"Do you remember the time we nearly blew up that one building in the Earth Kingdom on accident?"
"Do you remember how that was entirely your fault to begin with?"
"I can't say I recall."
"That was after I met you for the first time."
"Now that, I remember."
A/N: Well, it's been quite some time since I've written some fic for this pair...haha.