Author's Note: Thanks so much to everyone who has reviewed this story and who has taken the time to read it. You guys flipping rock!! It really means alot since this story has been kicking my ass. I hope to finish it in the next day or so. Thank you for your patience!
ps I don't own ATLA if I did Katara would out angst Zuko hands down
It is raining by time Katara finishes what she knows to be the first of many healing treatments. It is just a light drizzle but she can see the heavy dark clouds in the distance, feel the ice cut across the wind, hear the hungry rumble of the approaching storm silencing all other sound in the open space around her...the gathering of her element is imminent.
Katara would not be able to make it back to the temple on her own. She knows that as well. She had been so intent on watching Zuko's every move that she had not given attention to exactly where they were going. She could stumble around a bit. Find a path back but that would mean leaving Zuko unconscious, out in the open, defenseless.
Maybe she should leave him now… just as they should have left him then. A life time ago in the snow and ice of the North. If they had she wouldn't have come so close to losing Aang...she wouldn't have lost Jet. But even as Katara knows she can leave him, probably should leave him, she won't.
Zuko needs her.
Aang needs a fire bending teacher.
Katara needs to be able to face herself in the morning.
Her only option is to stay with Zuko, wait out the storm, wait till morning. Sokka and Aang would find them. Well Momo would and everyone else would be close behind. She could do it. Get both of them someplace safe. She has a vague memory of a cave half a mile back. She can make it there. It will be raining harder soon anyway and any one who has the gall to attack a master water bender during a storm deserves every bit of what they get. She can make it.
And she does.
It's raining cold, blinding, unforgiving drops by time Katara collapses in a breathless aching heap besides Zuko. Dragging him and a nights worth of supplies proved to be a more difficult task than she was prepared for. Her hands, her arms, her shoulders burn from it. Her back feels broken by it. All she wants to do is close her eyes and let the ache dissolve away into her dreams but Zuko whimpers, once, softly and she is on hands and knees slowly, mechanically, painfully collecting water and starting a fire.
It's only after Katara completes a second pass over Zuko's wounds and rebinds his back in the freshly cleaned rain soaked fabric of her tunic that she tries to get some rest.
She can't do it.
She can't because all she can do is think of how all of this is his fault. Because of Zuko Katara has spent most nights of the past year just like this. Hiding in foreign forests or dark, damp caves. Hunted and hungry. Because of Zuko Katara has left friends to die in twisted underground catacombs and because of Zuko Katara has been more than willing to kill in the name of peace, in the name of righteousness... and even though she loathes to admit it she has been all too willing to kill in the bitter name of vengeance.
Just when she had found hope, just when she found a way out, just when she had found a way to heal he came crashing in. Into her village, into her world, past a wall of snow and ice, dragging with him all the awful memories, the worst of memories. When Zuko, a monster with a head full of horns snatched Gran Gran away from her it was mother all over again.
Zuko made all the broken jagged pieces of Katara's shattered world screamed out in a hungry, blind rage that she fights desperately to control and hide from every else.
It surfaces in every nightmare, with every conflict.
Katara had felt it most when she battled Zuko. With each blow exchanged it would come to the surface, lick at her skin, surround her, push her forward.
Make them pay. It would whisper sweetly into her ear.
Make them pay… make him pay.
It whispers now.
And maybe it's the lack of sleep, the sharp coldness in the air or lighting ripping across the night sky that is a painful reminder of Azula but she listens to it.
She thought that it would be more satisfying. She had imagined that the knotted ball within her would loosen, that the pain that squatted in the base of her skull would dissipate. That the held breathe within her lungs would release so she could finally breathe. But she doesn't feel that. All she feels is the muscles of his abdomen harden involuntary and the cold clamminess of his skin as the top of her foot meets full force with the softness of the unconscious prince's stomach. All she hears is the dull thud and a yawning moan that echoes into the emptiness of the cave… A death's knell for the innocent child she should have been
She kicks him a second time just to be sure and a third time out of sheer frustration before she crumples in a defeated heap besides him.
The voice still whispering in her ear. Taking long sweeping strokes up her back as she sobs.
Make him pay… it is not enough… it will take a way the hurt… it will satisfy you, soothe the ache. Make him pay. Do more. He deserves more, you deserve more.
But the smaller voice deep within answers in return.
Don't move
And she doesn't
Don't move
And Katara stays there with her tears raining onto the swollen and blistered skin of Zuko's back.
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Zuko's back is so cold that it aches. He can hear a voice filtering down to him. He can't understand what it is saying. There is softness below him pressed against his chest. There is a low growl and a slight vibration and he knows he is laying on Appa. His momentary relief is quickly replaced by an engulfing wave of nausea. He forces himself up, knocking the hands away in the process and crawls forward trying not to heave on Appa. The coldness that leaves his back is replaced with a searing pain. His hands go from under him. He collapses back.
There is a louder growl below him, a stronger vibration. It doesn't sound threatening, he knows what that sounds like. This is calmer, concerned. A sharp contrast to voice which sounds vastly annoyed to, at and with him. Appa growls again. And for Zuko it is surprisingly soothing. He feels the coolness engulf him again. He fights to remain conscious and get a bearing on his situation. He wants to stay awake long enough to find out what happened to Katara and make sure that she is okay. But as the hands wash over him, as the voice softens and moves within him he is swept back into oblivion his unspoken words following fast and forgotten within his wake.
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Katara's wide awake as soon as Zuko begins to thrash besides her. She reacts quickly pining his arms down with her legs to keep him from rolling over onto his back. She struggles to keep him still as she checks the bindings on his back. The skin is not fully recovered but it doesn't seem to be infected. Its cool to the touch neither clammy nor hot. She can't figure it out and Appa's growling isn't helping much.
"Zuko stop!" Her voice comes from her with more severity that she means it to. He doesn't. He is screaming and it's too familiar a sound.
Mother had died in that firenation raid. But it wasn't the wound that killed her. It was the infection that set in afterwards.
The raid had come in the middle of a harsh winter. What ever herbs that survived the flames were impotent anyway. There were no waterbenders. There were no healers. Katara wasn't then what she is now. It was a long and difficult death and well before the end of it the woman that she had known as mother had long since passed away from the world.
Mother died in a fire nation raid… only her screams remained.
"Please... please stop" She leans forward her hair brushing his shoulder, her breath warm against his neck. Close to his ear. She wasn't going to lose her. She couldn't lose her. "Please... please... please." She says over and endlessly until her throat hurts and her voice is a ghost of a whisper. "Please stop"
She continues. Long after he is still, long after he is calmed. Long after his breath begins to rise and fall evenly in a deep and peaceful sleep. She is trembling by time she pulls herself off of him. She is weeping as she tries to get control of herself.
But before she can move away completely Zuko's hand catches her right wrist. "Don't leave me." His grip tightens as his hand becomes uncomfortable warm. "Mother don't leave me."
Katara's heart stops painfully in her chest and she wants to tear herself out of his grasp. Instead she reaches down with her left hand and brushes Zuko's hair away from his face. She winds her fingers around the dark dark strands and grips them a little to tightly as she tells him exactly what she wishes someone had told her. Years before... on a dark dark night under a full pale moon as a small ship was pushed to sea guided by a flickering lantern to join the stars above.
She tells him what she wishes her mother had told her. As she leaned over the edge of that tiny boat one last time. Her slight weight making it tip just a little, just enough for her hand to grip the softness of her mothers midnight hair. She didn't want to let go.
"I won't."
