a.n.
This is a series of one-shots based on ATLA episodes and how they might have been different (a.k.a. more Zutara-based) if certain things did or didn't happen. It's basically me taking scenes/episodes from all three seasons and saying 'What if...?"
(Rated T for some swearing)
I don't own ATLA.
Life sucks.
Episode 2.20 ~ The Crossroads of Destiny
What if... she healed him?
The Crystal Catacombs were cold.
She didn't expect them to be, but they were. Granted, she was miles underground, surrounded by cold, vibrating, glass-like crystal, but she hadn't expected it to be cold. She wanted to waterbend, give herself something to do other than sit on her butt in the bone-chilling temperature, but she didn't want to risk it. The Fire-Bitch hadn't thought to take away her water-skin, and she didn't want to draw attention to the fact that she could still defend herself; not yet, anyway.
She had a plan all worked out for the next time Azula came to gloat - a plan involving encasing her in ice as she slid down the long chute into the underground prison - but the psychotic princess hadn't visited since she had tossed the waterbender into the hole hours, maybe even days before. But Katara knew that Azula wouldn't stay away from too long. She wouldn't be able to resist bragging about this minor victory and her plans for the Avatar.
Not to mention, Katara thought grimly, her hand slipping almost-unconsciously to the criss-cross of burns on the skin of her left arm, Azula would come to torture her. Again.
But when she came, Katara would be ready.
The burns throbbed painfully, and Katara was suddenly glad for the deep, unending cold. She shifted over to the nearest jutting outcrop of glittering crystal and pressed her decimated flesh against the cool, smooth surface. A feeling of instant relief washed over her and she let out an involuntary sigh, her head falling back to rest against the greenish pillar. She hadn't healed herself, not wanting to waste her most precious resource, her only hope for escape.
Speaking of escape... she sat up quickly, her left hand resting on her water-skin, her right hand curved and ready to bend. Living with Toph had taught her more than patience: it had taught her to listen. And she could hear, somehow, footsteps and shouts from the mouth of the chute high above her.
She stood and popped the lid off her water-skin, ignoring the shooting pain as she did so, and immediately felt the flow of control seep through her body.
"Come on, Azula," she muttered, her voice cold and cracking like sheets of ice. "Come out and play."
Someone came sliding down the chute. Katara pulled the water from her side and sent it flying toward the entrance of the tube. Then she saw who it was and she froze, the water freezing with her. She gaped, her ice suspended in sparkling animation before her as her visitor groaned and sat up.
It wasn't Azula, at all.
"Zuko?"
He looked up and saw the ice above him. His face registered his shock and fear, and the fire came before she could stop it; within moments, all of her water was gone, melted and destroyed by the scarred Ex-Prince's ferocious self-defense. Katara stared, uncomprehending, as her only chance of escape literally evaporated before her eyes.
"No," she whispered, sinking shakily to her knees. "No!" She actually grabbed handfuls of her soft brown hair, tugging viciously at it in a futile attempt to awaken herself from this horrible nightmare. "STOP!" The tears came suddenly, almost from nowhere. The shock of losing her water, losing her hope, was just too much to bear. She buried her face in her hands and mumbled a barely-coherent plea to the boy before her. "Stop. Please. I wasn't trying to hurt you, I thought you were Azula."
The fire stopped, leaving the Fire Nation noble breathing heavily, but it was too late. Every drop of Katara's birthright was gone, wasted. She was powerless.
"I'm sorry," he said, his husky voice pronouncing the words as though they were a foreign language. "I didn't realize-"
"Yes you did." She pushed herself to her feet, her burned arm screaming in anguished protest as the skin and muscle moved and pulled. "This was Azula's plan all along, wasn't it? To send you in first, make me waste my water? Now she'll come down and... and..." She touched her left arm again, trying to force the tears and pain away. Zuko's eyes landed on the burns, and narrowed.
"Azula hurt you?" he asked darkly, his expression unreadable.
"Don't you pretend to care!" she snapped, turning her back to him and sitting down, whimpering slightly as she put weight on her injured arm.
Zuko sighed and followed her lead, settling himself on the cold ground to wait for his sister. "But I do care," he whispered, so quietly that even he could barely hear it.
And he did care. If Azula was twisted enough to torture the Avatar's girl just for fun, then she had slipped even further into insanity then he could ever have imagined. It wasn't a good sign. And, judging by how the waterbender was still letting little sounds of pain escape her when he knew her to be stoic and strong, Azula had really done some damage.
He even felt a little surge of pity twinge somewhere deep inside him - but it was quickly quashed when the Water Tribe girl spoke again.
"You're a terrible person, you know that?"
She spoke quietly from her seat roughly fifteen feet away, but he still heard every word as though she'd shouted it in fury. He closed his eyes and hung his head, staring at the ground beneath him. Oh, I know, he wanted to stay. But he kept his silence.
"Always following us, hunting the Avatar, trying to capture the world's last hope for peace?" She said it almost musingly, as though thinking out loud rather than speaking to her life-long enemy. "But what do you care?" And suddenly, her voice was dark and ominous, a voice that held a million unspoken, unfathomable threats. "You're the Fire Lord's son. Spreading war and violence and hatred is in your blood."
It's in a Azula's blood, not mine! he wanted to shout. I'm different now! I swear I've changed!
But had he changed? Seeing her, the girl for whom the Avatar would brave fire and hell, had made all of his old longings and desires come rushing back. She was right there, right within his grasp; and with her was another chance at the Avatar. At regaining his honour.
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"I don't?" She sounded like Mai; cold, despondent, and waiting for the right moment to strike. "How dare you?" And there it was: the strike. He heard her rise, heedless of the pain those burns caused her, and stalk towards him. "You have no idea what this war has put me through, me personally! The fire nation took my mother away from me!" There were tears in her voice now, and when he turned, still seated, to see her standing over him, her ocean-blue eyes were swimming. The surge of pity tugged at him harder. She had lost her mother, too.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly, meeting her gaze as best as he could. "That's something we have in common."
He sounded so sincere, and when her eyes met his golden ones, she saw only truth there. The tension drained out of her and she let out a slight gasp. He had lost his mother, too.
"I'm sorry," she echoed, almost desperately, stepping toward him and teetering on a slightly uneven patch of earth. "I didn't know- ah!" She let out a cry of pain as she fell, landing badly on her left arm. Zuko rushed to her, cradling her gently in his arms as she screamed through gritted teeth.
"Let me help you," he said quietly, turning her carefully to remove the pressure from her wounds. She couldn't deny him; the pain was too terrible, and his hands were almost soothing against her skin as he delicately raised the sleeve of her Water Tribe robe to her shoulder and deftly tied it there. He sucked in a surprised breath.
"It's bad, isn't it?" she groaned, closing her eyes as though to ward off the pain.
"I've seen worse." Barely. He examined the burns with as much clinical detachment as he could, but he couldn't suppress the feeling of nausea that rose from his stomach when he realized that his sister, his own flesh and blood, was responsible for this. "Did she get you anywhere else?" he managed to ask, forcing the bile back down his throat with difficulty.
She shook her head weakly. "But I'm assuming she'll come back to finish the job."
He didn't doubt that.
"There isn't much I can do." He sighed and rubbed his neck. "I thought you were a healer?" he asked absently.
"I am," she snapped. "But I was saving my water for an escape plan, and then someone destroyed it all."
He hung his head. "I'm sorry."
They sat in silence for a moment, each thinking their own thoughts. Neither seemed to notice the awkwardness of their position - Katara half in Zuko's lap, with one of his arms protectively around her waist and the other pressed lightly against the burns on her upper-left arm. Then Zuko stroked the waterbender's skin very gently with one callused thumb, and the absurdity of the situation came flooding into both of them. Zuko released her suddenly and she climbed jerkily to her feet, blushing furiously and avoiding his gaze.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you before." she mumbled.
"It doesn't matter." he muttered back as he stood up, equally red.
But it did matter. And after he had been so kind to her, she felt she owed him an explanation. "It's just..." she began. He looked at her expectantly, and she blushed deeper and looked away. "It's just that, for so long now, whenever I would imagine the face of the enemy, it was your face."
"My face..." His hand jumped self-consciously to his scar. "I see."
"No, no, that's - that's not what I meant." Katara backtracked hurriedly, all the while wondering what she did mean.
But he smiled. It was a very slight, almost imperceptible smile, but a smile nonetheless. "It's okay. I used to think this scar marked me, the mark of the banished prince, cursed to chase the Avatar forever." She shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot. She knew a little bit about curses. "But lately," he continued, a slight note of pleasure in his tone. "I've realized I'm free to determine my own destiny, even if I'll never be free of my mark."
And then, quite suddenly, she had an idea. A crazy, impossible idea. An idea so completely ridiculous that it just might work.
"Maybe you could be free of it."
She said it so quietly that he could barely hear her, and when his mind finally managed to process the words, he could scarcely believe it. "What?" he asked, hardly daring to hope.
"I do have healing abilities."
So that's what she was getting at. He sighed and looked away. "It's a scar. It can't be healed. Besides," he added, raising his eyes to hers. "You don't have any water."
She reached into her robe and pulled out a small, ornate vial, dangling it before his eyes. "This is water from the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole. It has special properties so... I've been saving it for something important. I don't know if it would work, but..."
"No." He said it so sharply that he almost shocked himself. She pulled back, looking hurt. "No," he said hurriedly, more kindly now. "Use it to heal yourself."
She shook her head. "It doesn't work that way." she told him, staring calmly into his face. "You have to use it on someone else. Someone important."
"I'm... important?" he asked, dumbfounded. She blushed again, but nodded ever-so-slightly. He took one long, hard look at her embarrassed face and determined stance, then nodded. "Okay. Let's try it."
He closed his eyes.
Katara took a deep, steadying breath. What she was about to do would not only be the most difficult waterbending she'd ever attempted, but it also went against all of her instinctual and ethical beliefs. She was about to heal someone from the Fire Nation: a master firebender and the Fire Lord's son! She should be trying to kill him, not trying to heal a trivial, non-lethal injury. For a moment her vision blurred and she imagined using the Spirit Oasis water to kill Zuko. She imagined a viciously sharp ice blade cutting into his skin, spilling his blood over her and -
She shook her head, clearing the gruesome image from her mind. Not only would that be completely contrary to the way she had been living her life lately, but she also suspected that the ramifications of using the Spirit water to kill would be far graver than she could possibly imagine.
Her heart started beating faster and faster as she opened the tiny vial and felt the soothing energy of the water wash onto her hands and into her soul. The power it gave her was far greater than any she had ever felt, but it was a power of creation rather than destruction. She raised one glowing hand to Zuko's puckered, red skin. He winced as the cool water touched him, then relaxed into the feeling of relief. She smiled slightly, then her mind was whisked away into the healing.
She felt a deep, dark heat emanating from the skin behind the scar and dove in to retrieve it. This was more than just an injury, it was a curse: a curse that left behind a thick, black sludge that smelled like death and smoke. She almost gagged, but steadied herself. It was this sludge that she had to remove from Zuko. She felt sure that if she could remove it and replace it with the water from the Spirit Oasis, the exiled Prince would no longer be marred on his face or in his heart.
She felt for the black stuff and was surprised and pleased that it bent to her will almost as easily as water did. Slowly, carefully, she drew it out, drop by drop, until all the enchanted water was gone and her hands were covered in nauseating black oil. She gagged again, but stored it in her water-skin. There was no telling when a powerful curse would come in handy. Then she raised her eyes to Zuko's face and gasped.
"It's gone! Zuko, it's gone!" His eyes flew open and he raised a hand to his left eye. His fingers were shaking as he pressed them to his face and felt only smooth skin, completely unblemished. He gazed at Katara in wonder and noticed the tears of joy in her eyes.
Then they both started laughing and whooping, their glee loud enough to be heard in new Ba Sing Se, miles above them. Zuko grabbed the waterbender and crushed her against him in a bone-breaking hug.
"Thank you," he murmured into her hair, noticing how soft it was against his face. He pulled away and they rested their foreheads together, smiling. Katara was shocked at how... normal Zuko seemed without his scar and with a smile on his face. Then he squeezed her shoulders a little too tightly and she gasped. She had almost forgotten about the burns Azula had left her.
Zuko frowned and took a step back, releasing her but keeping his hands on her shoulders. His right hand slid down to her arm and caressed the ravaged skin with such a tender gentleness that it made tears spring up in her eyes.
"I owe you so much," he said, his rough voice catching. "I wish I could heal you the way you've healed me." His hand slipped smoothly up from her arm to the side of her face and he tilted her chin up ever so slightly until their eyes met. His breath hitched in his throat as he noticed again just how blue her eyes truly were. They were like the ocean, like the sky on a clear day. They were mesmerizing. But then they fluttered closed and he grinned and brought his lips slowly but inexorably to hers.
Their lips had barely touched when the wall behind them exploded, sending them careening away from each other.
"Aang!" Katara cried, racing into the Avatar's arms. The bald boy glared at Zuko as he held the Water Tribe girl, but then his eyes widened in shock.
"Zuko?" came a familiar voice. Zuko grinned and face his uncle fully, without shame.
"Hello, Uncle." He took Iroh in his arms and was surprised to feel the old man stiff and unwilling to hug him back.
"What happened to your scar, Zuko?" Aang hissed as Katara pulled away from him and turned back to face the two Fire Nation noblemen.
"Katara healed it." he said, sending her a look full of admiration and thanks. She blushed and lip her lip to keep from smiling.
"There's no time to discuss it now," Iroh snapped. Zuko couldn't understand why his uncle didn't seem pleased. This was good, wasn't it? Was it not what Zuko had always wanted? "Aang, you and Katara must find your other friends before Azula finds you."
Azula. In the midst of everything that had just happened, Zuko had nearly forgotten about Azula. She would be coming for them, and soon. Aang nodded and led Katara back through the tunnel that he seemed to have blasted in the wall of the crystal catacomb. As she followed the Avatar, she looked back at Zuko with a strange, almost longing expression on her face.
"I thought you had changed!" she screamed, lashing out with her whips made of water to deflect his made of fire.
"I have changed."
She dodged the next blast, and the next, but he wasn't so lucky. Her liquid ropes lashed out and grabbed him by the wrists, yanking him down to the cold stone beneath them.
"After everything I've done for you, you betray me like this?"
Hr broke free and sent a rolling ball of flame after her, which was ripped to pieces by a dancing octopus of water.
"This wasn't about you!" he grunted, evaporating the blades she tossed at him and counterattacking with similar blades of his own.
"Oh yeah?" she snarled, and in that moment he was more afraid of her than he'd ever been of anyone, including Azula. Including his father. Her eyes were no longer ocean blue; they were solidly black and blazed with a maniacal hatred. "Well, it's about to be!"
She washed a wave of water over him so large that he couldn't evaporate it all. He lost his balance and fell to the floor, water filling his mouth and lungs. Coughing and gasping for air, he barely noticed when the water around him froze until he tried to stand and couldn't. She stood over him, and there was nothing in her eyes. No laughter, no fear, no sadness, not even hatred. Just blank darkness. Then she reached to her side and opened the water-skin.
But it wasn't water that flew out under her command; it was a black, evil-looking oil that smelled of death and fear and anguish.
"What are you doing?" he shouted, squirming in the ice but unable to escap.
"Taking back something that you don't deserve."
Then she jammed the black sludge back where it belonged and drew out the Spirit Oasis water drop by drop. Zuko was screaming in agony beneath her but she continued working, her mind focused on one thing. He betrayed me. He has to pay the price.
It was twice as painful to get the scar the second time. The first time, shock numbed the burning. This time he felt it all; the flames searing across his skin, the nerves and muscles buckling and refusing to force the anguish away. But underneath that, a different pain; the pain of his heart breaking as the mark of his shame returned.
Then she was gone, scooping the Avatar up and carrying him away. This time, she didn't look back.
The ice melted and he was free to move again. He raised a hand to his face and let out a scream of fury when he felt the scar, the violated skin. But now it was not only a mark of his father's hatred.
It was also a mark of Katara's.
a.n.
The ending was a bit rushed and it felt a little more angsty than I would have liked, but there you have it; numero uno.
(PLEASE don't bitch at me about how the whole healing/unhealing thing is unrealistic. I know it is. It's called creative license. Deal with it.)