Because I am a piece of Zutara shipping trash, and because I will never get over this ship not being canon.
/
Trusting people is dangerous. It means you sacrifice your ability to do something, choosing instead to let someone do it for you. The larger and more significant the task, the more trust is there, to be either ratified or broken.
Zuko is no stranger to reliance upon others – as heinous as he knows his scar is, he also knows it would be about three times worse if his uncle had not been there in the immediate aftermath with cold compresses and ointments and clean bandages – but usually he admits dependence only when he has no other option.
This is, of course, a matter of pride, and because he does trust himself. He trusts his instincts, now that his aching longing to return home is no longer governing them. He trusts his ability to survive, to endure, to persevere. He trusts the sun to rise and set every day. Trusting people is harder.
He trusts Ozai to remain sick and twisted.
He trusts Azula to always lie.
He trusts the rest of the world to never ever trust him or any other firebender.
So maybe he is a trusting person. But only sometimes, and then he's a very, extremely selectively trusting person, and he has no inclination to change until he reaches the Western Air Temple.
By now, he's only just started to be a trustworthy person, so he figures he's taken the whole concept of trust, whether it's deserving it or giving it, in baby steps. And that's fine, until he watches the Avatar and his friends in their everyday interactions.
This group, this…family. They don't bother with words of reassurance, unless they're needed. They don't start each day with a pep talk, telling the Avatar that they're with him until the end. Those words are spoken instead in thousands of little gestures, nonverbal demonstrations of faithful support, and Zuko is amazed by it.
An encouraging smile after bending practice, a friendly elbow nudge after a frustrated sigh, a hand on a shoulder after bad news is delivered.
He wonders how long it will take until the same actions, coming from him, are no longer interpreted as another apology but as an expression of camaraderie and fidelity, of trustworthiness.
He also wonders if they even have time for it to reach that point, but on the clear, bright morning when Azula sends explosions through the air and chunks of rock come hurtling down and he grabs Katara, because Sokka is their plan guy and Toph is their lookout and even at her worst Suki is a better fighter than Zuko is and Aang is the world's greatest hope for peace, but Katara…
Katara is somehow more vital to their group than any of them.
Agni help him, he doesn't know why or how, but when he sees her look up in surprise at the falling ceiling his legs are propelling him forward and he catches her around the middle and this time, this time it's got nothing to do with his redemption in her eyes, with earning one of those little smiles she's always handing out like presents to the others, with having her hand him his bowl of breakfast porridge without a snarl curling her lip, with making her see that she can trust him.
This time it is completely, totally about her survival.
He knows, despite his short time in their company, that they all depend on her more than any of them realize. Without Katara, they would have starved to death by now, or at the very least Sokka's pants would be all holes.
Zuko thinks that maybe he is the only one who truly sees what the waterbender means to their group. The three of them – Sokka, Katara, and Aang – set off from the Southern Water Tribe on a journey to restore the world's balance. If he could put into monosyllabic words, he would say that, Aang is the what, Sokka is the how, but Katara is the why.
Without her, they would be utterly lost. Zuko sees this, within a week of his unofficial initiation into the group. He also sees that for all her faith, she is a bit lost herself.
What surprises him most is that he knows how to help her.
He tries desperately the whole trip not to read too much into anything. He knows this doesn't mean she trusts him; rather, she has chosen cooperation with him over never facing her mother's killer. He is merely the lesser of the two evils, and when they walk away in the rain, leaving a sad, empty man weeping behind them, he thinks that while she does not trust him still, he trusts her so much it frightens him.
It frightens him, but not nearly as much as Katara does when she smiles – smiles, a real smile, the kind that reaches up into her blue eyes – and says she forgives him. Her arms are gentle and strong about his neck, and even as he embraces her in return he thinks that betraying her, them, now would be like cutting off his right arm.
It isn't until much, much later that Zuko realizes how much this bond of trust has grown. How much he has come to rely on her for strength – he, who has been made strong by all he has suffered - he draws upon hers when his is spent, seeks her out to soak up her tireless faith in the twelve year old shoulders that bear the fate of their world.
Not only that, but she comes to him, sensing his need for comfort, even when he does not deserve it, kneeling before his uncle's tent, choking on fear and shame, and she tells him that while she took time to see the good that is inside of him, his uncle has always known.
He cannot quite bring himself to believe her, but it gives him the courage to stand up and enter. And when he emerges the next morning, and she sees Iroh's hand on his shoulder, he can see her smile from across the clearing, and he hopes she sees the gratitude in the one he gives in return.
It is not gratitude, however, that prompts him to turn to her. Somehow, before he even begins his question, he knows what she will say. And it hits him, in that moment before she smiles and agrees, that she trusts him enough to follow him, to fight with him rather than against him, and this time it is not because he is the lesser of the two evils, but because he is part of the good that she believes in so strongly.
The knowledge helps him not lose his head when his uncle abdicates, making Zuko, he of the scars and mistakes and betrayals, the next Fire Lord.
But when he is up in the air, with Katara in Appa's saddle, he realizes he will have to fight Azula, his sister, quite possibly to the death. And the knowledge shakes him.
He has thought of it before, obviously, and he thought he'd steeled himself for it but all of a sudden he imagines himself standing before his sister, her knees on the pavestones and tears on her face, begging for him to have mercy. He imagines his hand, full of blinding white heat, coming down on his sister's face, a face that resembles his mother more and more every day, and screams echo in his ears before he pulls himself back to reality with a jolt.
Katara climbs over the saddle's rim and joins him on Appa's head, and he is grateful. She settles down quietly beside him, and his heart rate gradually returns to normal as he tells himself that he is many things, mostly bad and some good, but he is not Ozai.
Besides, he realizes, if Azula ever did kneel and beg for mercy he still would not believe her, because Azula always lies.
He knows that Katara can sense his troubled thoughts, and is somehow not surprised when her hand reaches over to take one of his. Their fingers lace together, her skin looks like the color of rich, dark earth against his own that shines like fresh cream. She is cool to the touch, and he is reminded that she is with him to help fight his sister, but also to fight whatever demons may remain inside of him.
She is, other than his uncle, the only person who truly knows what those demons are, and what they are capable of doing to him. She also knows how much they scare him, because every one of them bears Ozai's face, and reminds him that he could be destined for the same black path his forefathers have paved for him.
But here, above the clouds, Zuko closes his eyes and feels the sun's rays, and remembers the colors of the dragons' fire, and he releases the fear, breathes in the faith that rolls off of Katara like her element, and believes.
He believes even when their plan changes, even when Katara, one of the best warriors he's ever seen, is forced to hide behind the pillars of the plaza when the comet makes the Agni Kai's flames too widespread. He believes even when he hears Azula's manic laughter crackle like the lightening sparking at her fingertips, and he believes even as he hurls himself through the air, feels the energy crack and splinter within him, making him drop to the ground, twitching and with the taste of metal in his mouth.
He believes, even as he hears Katara cry his name, that the world will continue without him because he is not the what or the how and especially not the why, he is simply another unknown variable that is better off remaining unknown. There will be no wondering if he will be a Fire Lord like Ozai, there will be less mistrust to overcome between the nations with Iroh, the savior of Ba Sing Se, on the throne.
But when he opens his eyes, and he sees blue shining like the ocean against the comet-red sky, he realizes that Katara has not given up faith, and even as he hears Azula's screams he feels more at peace – sorrowful, too, but still at peace – than he has since before he was burned.
He thinks that perhaps Katara worries for his health so much because of guilt – an emotion he easily recognizes, since he knows it far too well personally – but after he's been crowned and the party is finally over she corners him in his private lounge, her hands already gloved in glowing blue. The others have all dispersed, and the room is dark and quiet and she all but shoves him onto one of the low sofas, sitting down beside him and watches his stiff movements as he unties his tunic.
Personally, Zuko is not that bothered by another scar – what is one scar, easily covered by clothing and earned with honor, compared to one that makes him recognizable world-wide and was given in anger? – but Katara's brow furrows as she works, smoothing her hands over the angry red starburst, he catches a shine in her eyes that is more than firelight or guilt, and her hands still when the first tear falls.
Wordlessly he pulls her close, marveling at the distance he has traveled with her. When she leans back to stroke his face – both sides – he is able to identify the emotion in her eyes, and he catches his breath.
Katara has healed him because he is her friend, because he almost died saving her, because she believes for some insane reason that their friends need him. But she has also healed him because she believes that the world needs him, that he is not an unknown variable, but he is like Aang – he embodies the goal for which they have strived so long.
It is then he realizes that what he and Katara have leaves trust far behind; she does not merely trust him to have her back in a fight, or to teach Aang rather than capture him. She believes in him, in his potential to take the broken, crumbled-to-ashes world left behind by his ancestors and piece it back together.
She believes that Zuko, her friend, will do the right thing, the honorable thing.
She also believes that Fire Lord Zuko will lead the Fire Nation to do the same.
The vows he took just hours ago, as the gold flame was set into his top knot, suddenly have more weight, and he knows that as much as he wants to repair the damage Ozai has wrought, he wants even more to prove to Katara that her faith is not misplaced.
He doesn't know how to express this. Words fail him, and suddenly Katara being in his arms means something entirely different, and suddenly she is there and he can feel her nose brushing his, and when they close the distance – he will think back, but will be unable to remember who leaned in first – he finds that he doesn't need words to tell her that her faith means more than any oath, any crown or any title ever possibly could.
She slides her fingers through his hair and opens her mouth under his, and Zuko thinks that, perhaps, he might need to be reminded of her faith in him every once in a while.
He pulls back to ask her, to ask if she would mind to trade her furs in for silks, to ask if she would mind bending with water from ponds in the palace gardens or the sun-warmed water from the harbor rather than with ice and snow, but he stops at the look on her face.
Just as she knew his question before he asked it, he knows her answer before she gives it.
He leans down, swiftly this time, and when she climbs into his lap without pausing for breath he allows himself to think for the first time that so long as she is here, and believes that there is a good man inside of him, that he might someday believe it too.