It's been a while since she had seen him in fire nation clothes. The red dye in his fabric brought the color in his cheeks. The color she had associated with trouble for so long. Her gut churned. A hiss formed in the back her throat; one that was made of anger and fury and spread across every inch of her skin. Her limbs went ridged. The chains reminded her that they were there with their furious clanking when she pulled her arms.
"I've come here to make a deal." Zuko said grimly. He stood tall and crossed his arms over his chest.
"Not interested." Katara snapped. He rubbed the back of his neck anxiously.
"Katara." Zuko lowered his voice. "Just by coming to talk to you I'm committing treason."
"Bullshit." Katara said surprising herself with her vulgarrity.
"I know you have no reason to trust me, but just hear me out."
"Not only do I have no reason to trust you, but anything you say I will regard as a trick."
"Okay, then I will say my piece, then I will free you." Katara narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "If you don't believe me then you can leave. The guards will catch me and Azula and my father will have me executed for my crimes."
"There are guards listening in from the hallway, aren't there?"
"When I let you out you can see for yourself."
"I'm not showing you Aang's location."
"If you want, you don't even need to get him involved. All I need is help from someone who is not a firebender but can still bend."
"You're pathetic if you think I'm going to fall for your tricks again." Katara remarked, crinkling her nose in disgust. The edge of her cuff dug into her wrist as she tugged against them, wishing to leap up and snap his neck.
Color blossomed on Zuko's cheeks. He exhaled sharply. Uncrossing his arms and holding his hands in front of him, palm up, his eyes pleaded with her desperately. "Please," He began with a hushed tone, glancing behind him into the hallway. "When I agreed to help Azula I didn't think things through. My uncle was imprisoned for treason when all he was trying to do was help me. He is currently being held at the Main Street Prison for political prisoners that need to be kept close to the capital, so there's no way they would expect a waterbender."
Katara's skin crawled. "You disgust me." She spat. "Iroh was a good man who treated you like a son. How could you betray him like that?!" Her arms pulled against the chain furiously.
His face was beet red now. "I want to help him. I've had time to sleep on my decisions, and all they've brought me is tribulation. Please Katara, if there's one thing I've learned from my life, it's that I can't do this may be my last chance to get help. I'm sorry for what I did to you and your friends, I really am, and I'm sorry I've stooped so low to beg for help from someone whom I should be trying to atone, but you're my last hope." His confession streamed out of his heart like tears. He collapsed on the floor and lowered his head. "Please."Katara's head swarmed with conflicting feelings. Toph had taught her signs to look for when people were lying. Since Katara was no earthbender, Toph had tried to teach them what gestures to look for when people were attempting to perform deception. While Zuko was unable to look her in the eye, what he said seemed sincere. Still, the disbelief gnawed at her sympathetic feelings and clogged the logic she needed to make a good decision.
From his kneeling position on the floor Zuko peeked up to receive her response. However, this time it was Katara's turn to avoid eye contact. Zuko pulled out a tiny key, about the size of his thumb, and reached to Katara's left arm. With a faint tremulant series of clicks her arm dropped to the side. When the same happened to her right arm, Katara leaped up. She darted past Zuko into the hallway, prepared to defend herself if necessary. The hallway was empty. On a whim she choose to run to the left, her feet make making noise as they slapped against the floor. When she came to a hallway running perpendicular to hers, (connected like a "T") Katara stopped. She check both ways. Once again the hallway was empty, except for two guards that lay slumped against the wall. Katara oogled at them, her mind piecing together the facts.
Zuko had caught up to her. Empathy and resentment mixed together in her gut like two battling demons. About to explode from frustration, Katara whirled around and socked Zuko in the face.
The strike was made out of emotion, so it collided awkwardly on the left side of his face (the side with the scar), where his hard cheekbone meet the soft fleshy part of his cheek. He doubled over and put his hands up.
"Damn it." Katara muttered. She had never sworn so much in her life. "Damn it, Zuko." For a couple of seconds they just breathed. Neither of them said a word.
"When you first came in you said you were going to make a deal with me. Yes?" Katara demanded.
"R-Right." He stammered.
"What do I get out of this. All you did was beg me to help you. What do I get out of it?"
Zuko looked confused. "I helped you escape." He said cautiously.
"You said you were going to do that whether I helped you or not. What do I get if I help you?"
"Uh- This is for Iroh, not really for me…"
"Are we going to make a deal or not?"
He met her eye and said steadily "I'll do whatever you want me to do. I'll forever be in your debt." Well wasn't that the words every girl wanted to hear.
Katara huffed. "Aang needs a firebending teacher to defeat Ozi."
"I-"
"Not you. We never will accept you as a teacher."
Zuko straightened up. "I understand. But Katara, I can't make promises for other people."
"Iroh will understand; I'm certain of it." Katara held a high respect for the man. In fact, she assumed he would accept the role as Aang's firebender anyway, that is if Zuko and him didn't bail the second he was let out.
"Alright. Iroh will become Aang's teacher." Zuko confirmed. Katara stood there, her heart pounding, think of what to do next.
" I still distrust you, and I think that this may all be a clever trap set by Azula to lead you to where Aang is." The more Katara thought about it, the more it made sense. The guards a couple of feet away from her could be pretending to make Zuko's story seem more real, but if this went through correctly, Aang would have the perfect firebending teacher.
"Then don't show me." Zuko said. "I doubt the warden of Main Street Prison is equipped to deal with a powerful waterbender. Especially if we go at night. You see in two nights there is a full moon…"
Suddenly an idea hit her over the head like a rock. My God… she thought to herself. I could, I could…
"The guards are prepared to fight fire benders, because only they would be able to get so far in the main land. I could distract…"
"Alright." Katara shut him up. "First we need to get out of here." Zuko's face light up.
"You mean you'll help me? Katara, thank you so much.."
"Is everything alright down here?" A husky voice thundered from their left above them. Katara and Zuko froze it was time to think fast. For the first time in his life, Zuko thought of a good plan. He grabbed Katara's wrist.
"Fight him. I will smash your chains and make it look like you broke out. I will hide while he drags you back to your cell, then afterwards I will take you out to 'go to the bathroom'-since the bathrooms are near edge of the ship, then we will jump out."
"Jump out? How high are we?" Zuko thought that one through.
"Uh- pretty high, but we're over water right? So we should be okay…" Katara rolled her eyes. At the height she figured they were at, water would feel no different than rock, but with her bending the two of them should be fine. "Alright- go!" Zuko tore off down the hallway. And Katara put her hands up and backed around the corner.
A meaty looking engineer walked down the hallway. "Asuna? Lee? C'mon, we found the leftovers from dinner you guys are missing o-" Katara leapt around the hallway. She bended the sweat from her's and meaty's bodies to bend and cut open some skin on meaty's arm. Meaty jumped back in surprise and called down the hallway. Then lept at her, hand out. In a frenzy Katara tried to slice the extended palm up, but it seemed to have no effect on him. His other hand smacked her in the stomach and sent her flying back. Since her jobs was to stall and not escape, she winced in pain and tore off down the other direction of the top of the top 'T' to spend time. Meaty tore off after her. She hadn't made it five steps until she was caught in a sea of firebenders. Strong hands on her each of her limbs, Katara was dragged back to her cell. A huge pressure was lifted off her chest, but anxiety settled into her stomach. While it was a relief to see the chains successfully smashed (with Zuko nowhere near the crime scene), the last thing Katara wanted was to be crammed in this cell again.
With no chains to put on her wrists, the just door was slammed shut leaving Katara alone in the dark. Again.
