On the fifth anniversary of the war's end, the Fire Nation hosted a banquet in the capital city's Palace. Two hundred of the world's most powerful political figures, along with the Fire Lord's closest friends, gathered in the ballroom on a summer night. Heat and moisture hung in the air, and ladies bemoaned their ruined hairstyles while waiters and bus boys bemoaned their entire occupation. People were clustered around the dining table, making small talk and stuffing their faces with the best food the Fire Nation had to offer. Couples floated around the dance floor in swirls of silk dresses and tailcoats, elegant and dainty and fancy.
Katara hated all of it.
They only pleasant thing was having all her friends together again, because if she held her breath and closed her eyes she could almost pretend she was fourteen again, travelling the world with younger, wonder-filled eyes. After Ozai's defeat, the six of them had parted in various directions, and after a year on the road together, they had gotten…close.
Close didn't even begin to explain it. They had been brought together by a century long war and a little-boy Avatar who was far too small to hold up his destiny on his own. They had been bound together by a desperate goal and plenty of insane determination, and Agni, Katara missed those days.
In the past few years, they had gone their separate ways—Toph establishing her metalbending academy and terrifying small children, Zuko ruling as Fire Lord, Sokka working to reconnect the Northern and Southern Water Tribes, Suki resuming her duties as the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, and Katara accompanying Aang, upholding Avatar duties and keeping the peace.
(She wanted so much more, but tried to convince herself otherwise.)
All was as it should be among her friends. Aang was off mingling with the crowds of diplomats, ambassadors from the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribe, council members from the Fire Nation, letting them know that their Avatar was always with them. Ty Lee had dragged Haru onto the dance floor and was flirting with him winningly, flashing sugar-smiles and batting her long brown eyelashes.
Sokka was, of course, planted in a chair in front of the largest amount of food Katara had ever seen. Her idiot brother had his arm around Suki and was busy stuffing his face with possum-chicken drumsticks, while his fiancée filled Iroh in on their wedding plans. Toph sat a few seats down from him, talking to Bumi, which was slightly terrifying—those two could destroy continents together if they put their minds to it.
"So, what do you think?" Iroh asked. "A girl or a boy?"
"Oh, I don't know," Suki replied, looking down at the curve of her stomach, which was beginning to swell. "In truth, I'm hoping for a girl, so she can grow up to be trained as a Kyoshi warrior."
"A girl?!" Sokka spluttered, nearly choking on a meat pie. "Suki, the kid's gotta be a warrior of the Southern Water Tribe!"
Katara watched as they squabbled, knowing that no argument between them ever became truly real. Stupid, immature, idiotic Sokka had found something special—something that would last.
Unconsciously, she felt her eyes gravitate towards Zuko, sitting stiffly on his throne with a bored expression on his face. His eyes drifted across the crowd lazily, until they accidentally found hers. Katara held his gaze for several heartbeats—badum, badum, badum—and then she was thinking of sparring at the Western Air Temple, crouched in bending stances as they hurled their respective elements at each other; she was thinking of ambushing Yon Rha with a rainstorm at her command; she was thinking of that final, desperate fight against Azula, how for an entire moment, she had thought he had been dead.
And then she yanked her eyes away as if that would sever the connection, the bond between them, that she had never been able to deny, though she had tried—Spirits, she had tried.
"Katara?" her father asked, concerned. "You feeling all right?"
She attempted a smile, but she wasn't sure it was enough to fool him. "Yeah. I just need some air." She rose from the chair, wove her way through the crowd, and slipped out a side door onto a balcony overlooking the volcano-crater city. A warm wind pushed the waves of her hair out of her face, caressed her skin, and Katara could not help but think of Aang—her too-young Avatar boy who bore the weight of the world on his shoulders, who loved a girl that treated him like he was her son.
"Party too boring for you?" said a voice behind her, and Katara flinched at the raspy, hoarse tone.
She took a breath, let it out, and composed herself. He always managed to catch her off her guard, despite the fact that they were on the same side and she could fight him on equal terms, now. "Shouldn't you be up there supervising or whatever?"
Fire Lord Zuko shrugged as he joined her at the balcony, resting his pale hands on the stone railing. "The Avatar's there. What could possibly happen?" Katara didn't answer. "How have you been these past few months?" Zuko pressed. "We haven't seen each other since the New Year's festival."
"Oh, you know, the usual. Tagging along with Aang. Taking care of him. Worrying about him. Sitting through hours of meetings. Never staying in one place for more than a few days."
There was a long silence, and Katara bit her lip, realizing she had said too much. She wasn't supposed to—everyone thought she and Aang were still young and in love, saving the world together with eyes only for each other. She couldn't let them think any differently, because that would mean letting Aang think differently. She leaned her elbows on the balcony's railing and avoided his gaze.
"You aren't happy with him," Zuko said gently. It wasn't a question.
Katara laughed sadly, because she had never been able to hide anything from Zuko. He saw right through her. "Was I ever? I ask myself that a lot these days—I've—I've been his mother for six years, but did I ever love him?"
She stopped, swallowed her words, and thought of the Fire Lady. "Mai hasn't come back," she stated blankly, looking at the scarred side of Zuko's face.
A muscle in his jaw tensed, and he looked out upon the capital of his nation. "I don't think she's ever coming back, Katara," he replied, but there was no bitterness in his voice—only exhaustion. Katara wondered vaguely how long it'd been since he had a proper night's sleep. Carefully, she covered his hand with hers as another breeze stirred around them, but he was the one who twined their fingers together.
Suddenly she was fourteen and taking care of five other children, because they were all so young and so afraid and it was up to her to make sure they were all right. She was fourteen and reaching up to lay her hand on Zuko's scar in the catacombs of Ba Sing Se, thinking that he had changed, thinking that he was on her side. She was glaring into his eyes as he joined their family, distrusting him, warning him, threatening him. She was unleashing a side of her that no one had ever seen—the vicious, cruel bloodbender, who was only a step away from being completely merciless. She was fourteen, and Zuko had taken lightning for her.
Five years—it had been five years since the war's end, but Katara wasn't recovered, not yet. Zuko had seen her at her best and her worst, and he had seen who she really was.
"I should get back," he murmured and pulled away, fingers slipping through hers and leaving a chill in the space that they had filled.
"Zuko—" she began, but had no idea what she wanted to say. He turned back, his hand on the doorknob, and their eyes locked—golden on azure, fire on water, and she loved him, she loved him, Spirits, she loved him.
Zuko looked at her for a long time, shoulders rising and falling a little faster than they should've been, rings under his eyes prominent in the torchlight, that same muscle working in his jaw. And then he broke away, turning and yanking open the door. Music and laughter spilled out onto the balcony for a half a moment before he was gone in a swirl of black and red silk.
Katara was left with a tight feeling in her throat, and a tingling in her fingers.
There had always been a spark between them, but it had been snuffed out in the end.