Leaves from the vine falling so slow
Like fragile, tiny shells drifting in the cold
Numb.
That's all he can feel.
It's as if everyone is held behind a thick curtain, their voices muffled and their faces blurry. He can't hear the whispers or see the sympathetic looks— not that he'd want to anyway, because if there's one thing he doesn't want, has never wanted, it's sympathy. Sympathy is for the weak and the impaired and those unable to help themselves. He's never had time for it. And he certainly doesn't want it now.
Or at least that's what he tells himself.
The numbness is welcome though. It's better than the rage at least. The rage and pain and raw anger that bubbled up and boiled over and left half his room burnt and charred and blackened with ash, more anger than he'd ever known before, even in his younger days when he was lost and desperate and wrong. He hadn't cared about the room. He didn't care about anything, really. None of it mattered. Nothing mattered, nothing mattered, nothing mattered. Those two words repeated like a mantra in his head, a beat, the numbness spreading through his limbs and through his chest, a weight and a heaviness that never left.
He knew they were getting worried. They were all grieving, they said. And he knew they were. He'd even found Toph— strong, stubborn Toph who broke her wrist and didn't flinch when she popped it back into place, who took the hardest hits and gave them right back— crying her sightless, blank eyes out a week after the announcement. That had shaken him a bit, at least. He'd never known Toph to cry, not really. Not like that, a high, keening animal sound that seemed to well in his chest as he listened to it come out of hers. A sound of pain, a sound of grief.
Zuko didn't keen. He'd always been the suffer-in-silence type he supposed. But this suffering was eating him from the inside out, gnawing away at his stomach and his chest and his heart and eventually it would rip him limb from limb leaving him shredded and useless.
Outwardly, he was expressionless, aside from the occasional bouts of anger. He was blank and dumb and blind to everything.
Even through the sickness that led him on a search for any cure he could find, even off in the remote areas of the Water Tribes to bring healers back down with him, despite the fact that they had one of the world's best healers right on hand.
Even through being told there was nothing he could do.
Even through that last, terrible night, when none of the palace really slept, when heaviness hung over the place like a storm cloud just about to let loose, weighing down everyone in its path.
Even through the words that left him spinning, made him feel like he was falling down, down a dark well he would never be able to climb out of.
"He's gone, sir. I'm sorry."
"Zuko?"
He didn't turn at her voice, but she must have known he heard her. She'd always been able to read him well. Why, he didn't know. Maybe because she was perceptive like that. Or maybe because they were, in a strange way, just alike. Alike in their struggles, in their flaws, in their tempers. In their losses. The gentle swish of her skirts approached, and she came into the sight of his good eye, the darkness fortunately masking most of her face. He didn't know if he could handle any pitying expression right now.
"What are you doing out here?"
"I'm fine." It was an ingrained response, automatic and robotic, something he'd made himself repeat time and time again over the last few days. His expression didn't change as he said it, and anyone watching would know that it was a lie.
"That's not what I asked," she replied, not unkindly, her voice soft, almost lost in the drift of the wind. He opened his mouth to respond… finding she'd struck him dumb. He didn't know what to say. He just stared at the pond in front of him, the small creases in the water made by the wind. This pond, the pond that held so many fond memories for him— memories of light and laughter and turtleducks and his mother's warm arm around him— looked so odd and out of place paired with his emotions at the moment.
"Zuko…" she tried again, reaching out and touching his shoulder. Part of him wanted to flinch away, but he didn't want to upset her. He knew that never turned out well. "I know you're hurting. It's hard for all of us. But you can't keep blocking us out like this."
She was right, she was right, she was right… He didn't want to admit it. "I told you, I'm fine. Don't worry about me. I'm dealing with it." His voice came out gruffer than intended, but he was starting to feel that twisting in his stomach, and that was not going to be allowed.
"Cutting everyone off isn't dealing with it." Her voice was soft, empathetic, and suddenly anger surged again— anger at her, anger at himself, anger at the world for taking every single thing he loved away from him. His fists balled, fingertips heating and tingling reflexively.
"You don't know what you're talking about." The words leave his mouth before he can fully realize it, and for some reason his mind flashes back to another time he said those words to her, stuck in a cave, angry for a very different reason.
"I don't? How dare you!"
"Yes I do." How different her words are now, years later, when they're both older and grown and so, so different. But, really, they haven't changed far too much. He's still the lost, lonely boy with the scar and she's still the brave, spirited peasant they were in that cave, during that time. He's still angry and she's still comforting and they're both still so alike, even if they don't quite realize it, even now. "I know what it's like to lose someone you love so much— who you love even more than yourself sometimes. And I know he— I know Iroh— meant so much to you. He was like your father. And losing a parent is never easy." Her voice quivers at the end.
The twisting in his stomach has extended up to his throat, where it lumps and blocks and makes it hard to breathe. His vision is fuzzy and hot and he feels warm liquid falling in droplets onto his arms and hands… He's crying. How long has it been since he had cried? It was always anger and rage, not tears… And before he quite realizes it he's being pulled into the circle of two warm arms, and his face is in her shoulder and he's glad, because she's the only one who really understands this, the pain that rocks through him like waves and leaves him shuddering and cold, breaking him down from the man who's a ruler of a nation to a small, motherless child again.
"He was the only one who— who ever really cared about me, Katara," he managed to rasp out. "He stayed with me through so much and I caused him so much pain and… and I never felt like I got to thank him for it." There. There it was. All the pain and the numbness and the fury out in a sentence. He felt her fingers run through his hair, a comforting gesture, and the stroking and the smell of her neck and the feel of the shoulder of her dress against his cheek remind him of a happier time, a time with his mother, a time of light and peace and naivete.
"I know, Zuko. But he loved you. He loved you like the son that you were to him. I don't think I've ever seen someone love someone else that much. And he's still here, still with you. He never really left. You know that right?"
He knows.
Little soldier boy come marching home
Brave soldier boy comes marching home