Conviction
Disclaimer: Don't own it.
It is Zuko's confession to Mai that nearly breaks him.
His love for his girlfriend is real, like her own love for Aang. It isn't trivial or convenient or motivated by anything other than the desire to care for her as she deserves, but he doesn't cower away from what he must do. It isn't honorable to lie to someone you love.
Mai is visibly shaken, but poised, as she tells him, "I can forgive you this indiscretion if that is all it was."
But he shakes his head, and tells her the truth, the pain of his words breaking up his voice. "It's much more than that," he says.
#
Katara's heart sinks into her stomach with shame and regret when she finds the courage to tell Aang, but it is Sokka's reaction that nearly breaks her.
In their rented house in Bai Sing Sai, Aang hangs his head as she begs his forgiveness, knowing that his friendship after what she has done is too much to ask. But he offers it anyway, comforting her with words of understanding, even through his own pain.
Her hands shake as she gives him back his betrothal necklace, the one he made with her brother's help. Aang tells her to keep it because it's hers and it will always be meant for her, even if they weren't meant to be. She hugs him, sobbing into his chest, and kisses him chastely on the cheek – a gesture of goodbye and a silent wish for him to find someone who will return his affections in the way that he deserves.
She thinks that this is the hardest part until she tells her brother, hears the anger in his voice as he demands to know the answers to questions that she answers soberly like, "When?" and "How long?" and "How could you, Katara?"
He doesn't speak to her the entire week of the peace talks before she is scheduled to leave for the Fire Nation, ignoring the pleas from Aang, Suki and Toph to make things right before she does. When she gets on the ship, she searches the shore for Sokka's silhouette, hoping at least for a tense goodbye, but she never finds it.
Her ship arrives without fanfare in the middle of the night, but he is waiting for her. She hasn't seen him since that fateful night three months before, the night where they both found themselves where they shouldn't, but needed to be.
He smiles up at her and she releases a breath she wasn't aware she was even holding.
#
She is there, standing on the deck of the ship he sent for her, and is it the relief he feels first. He knows there is a part of him that will never fully trust the word of others, a far more painful scar left by his father long before got the one he wears on his face, and his heart fills with gratitude that she is there now, all of her promises to him through their letters over the last month kept.
He doesn't hold back as he takes her in his arms. It's beyond that point for them both. They've endured too much not to give in to that comfort, even in front of the guards that had escorted him to the dock.
"How are you feeling?" he asks, looking down and placing a hand on her stomach.
She smiles, closes her eyes, and puts her hands over his. "Okay," she says, thinking that even if that isn't the whole truth it eventually will be.
"Good," he says, brushing a few strands of hair from her face before leaning down to kiss her.
She sighs, having longed for his lips since the night they made love, the night they gave in and gave up the one battle they shouldn't have tried to wage. She knows that Sokka will forgive her and Zuko, and that one day he will hold his niece or nephew with pride, all anger forgotten. She knows this because she cannot imagine it any other way.
They never meant to disrupt the simple harmony they'd found in playing the roles they'd once sought, but they don't regret that they have found this love.
They mourn for the things they have lost, but they aren't tempted to get them back, tempted to beg their former partner's for forgiveness and ignore the truth that they have found together. Because even with all the right they had done for their world… they could never erase that wrong.