None of these characters belong to me. If they did, canon would look very different. Enjoy!
The bowl almost slipped from her hands. Almost.
Standing in the shadows, hidden by the swooping crimson drapes the Fire Nation insisted on hanging from every vertical surface, Katara stood transfixed as she watch Zuko share an embrace with Mai. It was not embarrassment that kept her rooted to the floor, and nor was it any other emotion she could readily identify. Later, when the sweat of an hour's brutal waterbending practice in the midday sun had cleared her mind, she would finally settle on absolute shock as the reason why her body had refused to respond to her commands.
But for the moment, she did not question herself; there were no thoughts in her mind at all. She could only watch them, intimately entwined by the window so that the sun caught strands of Zuko's raven-leopard hair and burnished it as golden as his eyes, sharing a kiss like ones they had so clearly shared before. Never had she seen such an ungarded, happy look on his face…
When they separated, and Mai gave a quiet dig at him to never dump her again, it was like the night when Hama's bloodbending grip had been released. Katara swayed where she stood, surprised by the power another's unconscious actions could have over her, and the water in the bowl in her hands swished and threatened to spill. This was a private moment, and she should not be intruding.
The fact that she had been the one to guard him this past week while he had lain slipping between unconsciousness and delirium in the royal apartments, mopping his brow as he suffered his own internal heat and sending her hearts energy through her palms to knit the electrified flesh and organs beneath his sternum, did not enter into it. The fact that she had only left him at all at General Iroh's suggestion that she go draw some water from the sacred well in the centre of the palace complex meant nothing in the broad scheme of things. For a week she had slept and eaten beside him, and now he was kissing Mai and it was none of her business.
Keeping the bowl as level as she could so that it did not spill, she glided from the room and knew neither of the two lovers had noticed.
She let her instincts guide her, following the sweet, clear scent of water through the baking, ornamented grounds of the palace until she found the turtle-duck pond, cool beneath the shade of a cherry-willow. Without conscious thought she flowed into a starter's stance and let her muscles carry her away, slipping from one form to the next with the kind of exertion that is no effort at all. It detached her mind, all this pushing and pulling of movement, the submersion in her element as she expulsed the feelings she had not even known existed until that short while ago. Her thoughts floated above her self.
Had she loved Zuko before he had saved her from the lightning? To admit it, ever since he had helped to lay to rest her guilt over her mother's death, their rapport had grown, their trust had cemented into something powerful that danced when they fought side by side. But more than that? No, impossible.
But then…
Watching the Ember Island Players, she remembered the small jolt that had flared deep in her belly - tiny really, small enough to be dismissed - when the actress playing her and the actor playing him had professed their love for each other. She had not lied to Aang that night, her confusion had been very present, made all the worse when he had kissed her despite her protestations.
And then they had been racing to find General Iroh, then to confront Azula, and everything else had burned away watching the horror of the Agni Kai. When Zuko had taken the lightning for her, she had dismissed it as nothing more than a gut reaction to protect a comrade - Zuko was nothing if not honourable, after all. But later, after his strength failed and she had all but carried him to his room, she began to wonder. She had brushed the hair from his face and the lines of pain contracting on his brow seemed to soften and fade away. She had poured so much of herself into healing him, there were only moments when she was not too exhausted to think about what his actions.
He had taken a lightning bolt to his chest in order to save her.
To pass the time, and to help him back to the land of the living, she spent her time with him telling stories from her childhood, when the fire was all that stood between the people of the South and a slow death by freezing. She told him of Tiva and Shiu, who had brought their warring clans together by learning waterbending, and of how Anaq and Kula had undertaken a quest to the cave of the spirit bear, Naga, in order to find a way to survive on the ice. She began to hope - not just that Zuko would survive, but that…
And he and Mai had been kissing.
Water fell with a splash around her ankles and soaked back into the pond. Someone was coming.
"An excellent show of skill, Master Katara," said a smiling General Iroh as he ambled towards her. "I hope you do not mind that I paused to watch you."
"No, n-not at all," she stammered. "I just felt the need for some exercise, and your training grounds aren't really equipped for waterbenders."
"Mm. That is so." Iroh smiled. "I take it that since you are out here, my nephew is on the mend?"
For a second, Katara stood nonplussed. "Er, yes. Yes, he's up - he's… fine."
"Master Katara? Is anything the matter?"
"What? I - no. I just suppose I'm tired, I guess. That's all."
"Then I suggest you go and get some rest. Somebody else can take care of my nephew for a while."
Oh how those words stung!
"I'm sure you're right. I could do with a nap." Thankful for her excuse, she made a hasty bow and left.
Almost a month later, and the despondency that had settled over Katara like winter nights in the South still refused to lift. In the short time since Zuko's coronation they had been all over the world, first dropping off Sokka and Suki at Kyoshi Island, then taking Toph to visit her parents in the Earth Kingdom. When it had just become she and Aang, she tried hard to be her old jovial self, but the effort cost her more and more each day, especially once he started trying to get her attention, in a way that suggested he thought her mind was made up about him in that way.
She sighed. The gong for dinner at the Jasmine Dragon would sound in little over an hour, and she had yet to even glance at what she would be wearing - the finest dyed Earth Kingdom silks she had ever seen. Zuko was going to be here, as part of the small group of them that had saved the world, and her stomach twisted itself into knots in anticipation. What would he say when he saw her again? What would his expression say?
But Mai was coming with him. The thought spurred her forwards, chin high, and she began to dress for dinner.
Aang leaned against the balustrade looking out over the upper tier of Ba Sing Se, his figure so slim and gangly that even the loose-fitting monk's robes he wore these days could not hide it. Would he be so bad? He had said he loved her so many times already, which was more than could be said for Zuko.
Katara lingered in the shadow of the curtain that draped the doors to the terrace. Inside, Suki teased Sokka about his poor artistry, Toph laughing with them, and the new Fire Lord stood with his hand around the waist of the young woman who would one day become the Fire Lady, and murmured something softly in her ear. He had spared not a glance for her since asking her - rather awkwardly - how she had been since he had seen her last. What sort of hope could she hold out after that?
Yet her feet refused to move forwards. This was not like that fateful morning weeks ago when shock had rooted her to the smooth marble of the Fire Nation palace. Instead, this was the reluctance of the piglet-lamb to slaughter, the diver looking over the edge of a precipice. Her head had no say. Her heart pumped blood round her muscles, and so it controlled them. It refused to yield to her common sense, to the almost smothered voice of her conscience that yelled out that Aang, still with the weight of the world on his shoulders, needed her, in whatever capacity she could provide.
The sunset flared with all the colours of fire. Inside the tea shop, Mai said something and Zuko laughed. Her heart shattered, and its grip on her legs shattered with it. Forcing her misgivings to the back of her mind, she stepped into the light next to the airbender who had saved them all.