Destiny Upon Us
Don't own Avatar in anyway
Destiny Upon Us
Katara rushed to him, desperately, water enveloping her hands. She pressed the cool liquid to his chest, pressed the cold to the heat, the heat of pain and injury and fire, her own heart aching as she waited for him to breathe.
Gold eyes opened, like light permeating darkness, sun rising and brightening the blackness of night. Her heart stopped hurting, relief washing through her like waves through the sea. He was alright, they were alright.
"Thank you Katara." He smiled weakly up at her, smiled even though he was the one that saved her. He put himself in danger for her when only days before she had hated him, had loathed him because of the fire that coursed through his veins and through his body. An evil sun within him that she had only recently learned was not evil at all.
"I think I'm the one that should be thanking you." She replied, she couldn't possibly explain her gratitude at that moment. He would have died for her, she could think of few people who would die for her, and an ex enemy wasn't one of them.
"Let's go find Aang and the others." He suggested, even though he could barely stand without cringing. His scarred but still handsome face tightened in pain with the effort of remaining on his feet.
When she could finally see land, the ache in her heart returned, the land was burning, glowing orange like the surface of the sun. The world was ending; Aang had failed.
She clung to Zuko, and they watched the world burn together.
"He couldn't do it." He said softly, warmth on his face as he leaned over the saddle, watching his element destroy everything he had wanted to save. People and animals and plants alike burned and eaten alive by destructive heat. "He needed to kill my father and he couldn't do it." He was angry, furious, he wanted to shoot his fire into the sky and vent his anger. He wanted to burn everything around him and punch and kick and release flames until all he could do was sleep. Sleep and dream and pretend that his world wasn't on fire, that it wasn't over, that everyone wasn't dead.
"He was too good of a person." Katara was crying, trails of tears on her face that he wanted to wipe away but couldn't. Because he was fire and she was water and he was afraid that she could blame him, blame him like she had blamed him for the death of her mother somehow.
"I know, I only wish I could have done it for him." He could have killed his father, Katara could have killed his father, anyone but Aang could have.
"What's the world going to do now?" Her tears had stopped, but her eyes shone with liquid sadness. Her water-like eyes damp with warm water that threatened to fall again at any moment.
"Wait until the new avatar is born, try again." There wasn't anything else they could do but try again, attempt their plan once more. Aang would be reborn and so would their plan, so would their hope to defeat the Fire Nation.
"Born into the Water Tribe." She whispered, and her hands drifted to her abdomen. Their eyes met, gold meeting blue, fire meeting water, he could almost hear the hiss of steam.
"You're Water Tribe." He said as though it were some kind of secret, he said it to reassure himself, to see if she was implying what he thought she was.
"I'm Water Tribe." She repeated, nodding, she meant what he thought she meant.
"But I'm not." He told her even though she knew; he didn't know if it could still work, if mixed nations would still create an avatar.
"We have to try." She pleaded, and she was right, they had to try.
"I'm sorry." Was all he said, there wasn't anything else to say, if they were to be together, it wasn't supposed to be this way.
But it was.
Zuko kissed her on the mouth, warm, warm like fire. Destructive fire that burned the world orange beneath them as Appa flew, flew towards the South Pole, the only land not bright with flames. His skin was hot; his hand cupped her cheek, fingers heated almost unbearably against her jaw.
He kissed her cheek, and his hand moved to her neck. He kissed her neck, and his hand undid her dress. When there was nothing left to kiss; they began their new plan.
Anything to save the world.
The South Pole was cold, his breath rose in wispy white tendrils with each exhale. He wore a parka, a blue parka, one Katara sewed for him their first night in the icy world. He had never worn blue before; he couldn't help but think he didn't look as good in the color as Katara did in red. They brought new hope to what was left of the planet with news of their plan, and they brought despair with the news of the fire that had ravaged what the Earthbenders had called home. There were few Earthbenders left, only the few who had managed to escape with some of the waterbenders. Haru was one of them; it was good to know a friend had survived the fire.
The inhabitants of the South Pole, the few that there were, moved with them to the North, to the security of numerous waterbenders and an impenetrable fortress. His father couldn't destroy what Zhao hadn't been able to defeat before, and he wouldn't want to, not as long as they never rebelled. If the Northern Water Tribe stayed in the North, they would never be thought of again.
He knew his father well enough to know that he would not crush what he already assumed was broken.
Pakku had not escaped the fire; she had lost a grandfather before she had known him. Her father had survived, somehow, survived along with Haru, by some grace of the spirits she wasn't going to question. She had lost a brother, she had lost most of her friends, but she had her father. Blessed relief in a hurting world.
Her stomach grew along with her hope, along with her people's hope, the only people left who dreamed of an end to the Fire Lord. Her child moved within her, first a gentle bump on her bronze abdomen, then a large swell, like a watermelon beneath her skin. The thought of carrying the avatar, the hope for what was left of the world, was overwhelming, but she would do all she could to save the world. She needed to succeed where she had failed. She would teach her child waterbending as she had always dreamed, and her child's father would teach it firebending. There would be no one to teach air, but the avatar could learn on its own, and she would help in anyway she could. She would love her child not because it was the avatar, nor because it was the reincarnation of Aang.
She would love it because it was hers, because it was her baby.
His son was born under a full moon, bright silver illuminating the snow. He watched Katara struggle, watched beads of sweat from exertion travel down her bronze skin. She was doing more for the world then he ever would, she was giving birth to the savior. He held her hand; he whispered soothing words of encouragement in her ear. It was all he could do. There wasn't love between them, not yet, but there was a bond. He cared for her more then anyone in the world, simply because, she was all he had left in the world, all he had left other than a few people he considered a little more then acquaintances. He didn't know what he was to her, but they slept beside each other every night, his heat keeping her warm, her kindness keeping him sane.
The baby was beautiful, his baby was beautiful. Ebony hair, his ebony hair, and dark skin, fair, bronze skin, Katara's skin. When his son was swaddled in a blue blanket, protected from the cold, he opened his eyes. His eyes were blue, Katara blue, and he felt a brief disappointment when he knew the baby wasn't the avatar. He didn't see the spark, the gleam; his heart didn't jump in his chest. Rather, a strange, overwhelming sense of fatherly pride struck him like a bolt of lightning, a bolt of lightning he didn't want to redirect.
"I don't think he's…."
"I know." Katara said, distracted, their newborn son clutching one of her long, slender fingers in his chubby little fist. Her eyes were alive with motherly love and affection and tenderness, he couldn't see disappointment anywhere. She loved the baby like he'd always thought she would. She kissed the tip of their son's nose, brushing her lips over the baby-soft skin like he could remember his mother doing to him as a child.
"I guess we won't be naming him Aang."
"No, I think Iroh would be just fine." Her words stunned him, and a smile formed on his face as he lifted the tiny baby he'd helped create into his arms.
"Sokka would be appropriate too." He offered, because she'd lost her brother while he'd lost his uncle, and in the end, her brother had died years before he was meant to.
"We could always name our next son Sokka." She said absently, leaning back against the pillows, drifting off into well deserved sleep. He didn't ask about her remark, that would be for later.
"What about the avatar?" He asked instead, cradling his son awkwardly, the first baby that he had ever held.
Katara gestured a bronze hand towards the door, towards the city.
"It's been nine months Zuko, all the people of the Water Tribe are here, we'll find him or her soon enough."
"And until then?" He didn't know what they were now that their plan had failed, what they were supposed to do.
"We raise our son." Hope would come later, until then, he and Katara had a new plan.
To raise their son, to love someone in the world where fire had almost destroyed the very emotion.
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