…And the Consequences We Face Because of Them
Katara worried the fabric of her traveling clothes while she waited for Zuko to finish his meeting. She took a shaky breath, and held her elbows, trying not to make eye contact with the concerned staff. She rarely showed up in such a state, but she hadn't quite expected to be in the Fire Nation. She'd just finished up a visit in the North asking Chief Arnook to help the South with the recovery effort, and had planned to return home to her family, but she'd been feeling ill lately, and decided to stop in the Fire Nation.
Ill wasn't quite the word. She felt pregnant.
She took another shuddering breath, and cursed her luck as she saw Lady Lis coming down the hall. The official Royal Consort. The Fire Lord's girlfriend. The woman Zuko cheated on. With her. Katara. And now she might be pregnant.
Under different circumstances, Katara and Lis might have been friends, but Lis saw her as a threat. Every time Katara and Zuko appeared in public together, rumors kicked up about them dating, though there was very little evidence. They'd always been careful with public affection, and kept it at a very friendly level, and until that stupid festival, they'd never been together while they were otherwise attached.
"Lady Katara," Lis said coldly as she came to stand opposite her. "I didn't think you were supposed to be in the Fire Nation just yet."
"It's a free country." Katara tried to find the sass, but she was too scared for that. She just wished Zuko would hurry.
"It is. But I imagined you were needed elsewhere." Lis put her hands on her hips and eyed Katara.
Katara tried not to feel guilty. It wasn't like Zuko and Lis even liked each other. It was an arranged relationship, Lis another candidate suggested by his council as a possible match. This was the trial period, to see if they could exist without stabbing each other's eyes out. They had, and the council was hopeful. Guilt knotted her stomach. Lis was tall and pale and elegant with long black hair and green eyes; she was the epitome of Earth Kingdom nobility, and probably had no idea how to deal with the scandal it would cause if Katara was pregnant with the Fire Lord's baby. But then, she was Earth Kingdom nobility, and Katara read the Ba Sing Se society papers. She knew the kinds of scandals that went on there. But that was just justification. She felt horrible.
The door to the meeting room opened, and the council members began spilling out. Katara's heartbeat sped up, and she took shaky breaths and forgot all about Lis, who was tossing her long hair over her shoulders like some animal challenging a rival for the same mate. Which, she was. Whatever. Katara had hair, too. And curves. And Zuko liked curves. Her stomach clenched again. She'd have an extra curve in a few months, and the thought brought shameful tears to her eyes.
Zuko finally emerged, regal in his crown and mantle, standing out in his close fitting shirt and pants while all the council members stuck to the old fashioned cumbersome robes. He was talking to his Chief of Staff, Minister Hau, and Katara wanted to cry from relief and fear.
"Zuko?" Her voice sounded rough and strangled to her own ears, and she clamped her mouth closed because she would not cry in front of everyone, and hated herself for showing so much weakness to Lis and the other council members.
"Katara? What're you… What's wrong?"
He rushed over and hugged her, dumping an armload of papers in Hau's hands. Against him, in his arms, she felt protected and safe, like maybe he would have some genius solution to this whole problem. She sniffled, and instinctively, he wiped away tears that were threatening to fall.
"Your office is empty, my lord," Hau said.
Zuko didn't even look in Lis' direction, just putting his arm around Katara's shoulder and leading her to his office. Inside, he closed the door, and motioned her to a chair, but she shook her head.
"Do you want some tea?" he asked, taking off the crown and the mantle. He sat down in the chair behind his desk.
"Um…" Katara focused on breathing, which took up most of her concentration.
Zuko was looking at her as if he could find that dirty secret written on her face. She hoped it wasn't. Katara's face scrunched up, and she couldn't stop the tears. What if it was on her face, and she'd walked through the capitol, and now everyone knew? She was a homewrecker, and a mistress, and they'd call her all sorts of names. Whore. Slut. Gold digger. Thief.
She hadn't realized she'd started bawling until she smelled Zuko, all cinnamon and nutmeg, and felt him, warm and protective around her. He was stroking her hair and rubbing circles on her back, and she clung to his shirt like she might fall if she let go. Inside his protective circle, Katara thought that he could make things alright, but it took five tries for her to even form the idea into words.
"I think I might be pregnant," she said into his chest when her sobs had quieted.
"What?" But he didn't stop his comforting, even though she could feel him stiffen in her arms.
"That festival… I mean, I thought I was keeping up with the herbs, but maybe I missed a few days." It was very important for her to justify this. "I'm careful about these things. I… I know it would be bad for you."
She was playing with a fold on his shirt, and he sighed, releasing her. Without him, everything felt so cold and vacant, and she wrapped her arms around herself again, trying to ward off the words that had to be coming. He sunk down into his chair and ran his hands over his face, then through his hair. It was agony waiting to hear what he would say. It would be bad. It would be scandal and shame and disrespect to the Earth Kingdom. They would demand some sort of punishment for the Fire Lord breaking a vow. Their indiscretion could launch a war because Zuko would stand up for her, and their illicit love and their illicit love child bastard heir would be on display for all the world to see and laugh and mock. Katara covered her mouth as a wave of nausea made her stomach roll.
"Being a father scares me," he said, pulling her between his legs. He kissed her stomach, the gentlest of touches that sent her bawling all over again. "You'd be a good mother."
She couldn't see his face because of the tears, but she ran her hands through his hair, holding him against her stomach, and she could feel him smiling, and it made her laugh and cry. This was Zuko. He would find a way to make it better. He would divert all the attention to him, keep her and their illicit love child bastard heir—her baby, Zuko's baby, their baby—he would keep them safe. Zuko would fight a war for her, and it scared her and made her feel more loved than she'd ever felt before. A little of the nervousness and fear left her, and she didn't quite feel that dark presence hovering at her back.
"Do you know for sure?"
"No," she said, feeling stronger, and her tears drying, and took his face in her hands. She ran her thumb over his scar. "I was too afraid to check by myself."
He kissed her stomach again. "You know, if you were pregnant, we'd have to get married. You would be carrying the heir to the Fire Nation."
"You've been spending too much time with Sokka," she said, and he kissed the palm of her hand.
Zuko was the pessimist. It was an established fact. He was supposed to be talking about how the council would crucify him, how no one would accept them being together, how the Fire Nation would descend into destruction and cannibalism. But he was being optimistic and hopeful, loving and levelheaded. Sokka was trying to teach him to be less of a pessimist, and perhaps it was actually starting to stick. He'd only been trying to two years. He stood, taking her hands and leading her to the other side of the desk.
"Ok," he said with a deep breath, a determined look, and a nod of his head. "I'm here. We'll check together."
He kissed her forehead, and Katara pulled a tendril of water from a plant in the corner of his office. She leaned her back against his chest and he helped her roll up her shirt and pull her pants down a little, so she could flatten the water on her stomach. She willed it to seep inside, and it did, glowing gently. Zuko put one hand on top of hers, and the other rested on her hip, and she closed her eyes, and they breathed together, and she could feel his heartbeat, a little irregular because of Azula's lightning, but so distinctly him.
She probed, pushed deeper, pulled shallow, for an entire minute but found nothing. He'd said they could get married if she was pregnant, and he seemed so hopeful. Her heart clenched, and mixed feelings washed over her. Happy that she wasn't some hussy homewrecking whore, but disappointed that there was no part of Zuko nesting inside of her. He kissed her neck.
"Anything?"
Katara sent the water back to the plant and sunk back against him.
"No."
"Oh. Well. That's good, right?" He squeezed her, but he did sound a little disappointed.
"You're supposed to be glad. I don't want to be a homewrecker."
He turned her around in his arms and took her face in his hands.
"You are my home. Everyone else is wrecking it for us."
Damn him.
"Maybe…maybe we should, you know, not be…" She gestured between them.
"Oh. Right."
He dropped his hands, fidgeted, then gestured to the door. He opened it for Katara, and Lis was waiting outside, across the hall. She narrowed her eyes at Katara, so Katara turned and threw her arms around Zuko. He laughed and hugged her back.
"Thank you," she said, meaning it. "For everything."
"Of course. I'd be a terrible person if I wasn't there for you."
He almost reached for her hand, but laughed, a low chuckle, instead. Lis watched them from across the hall, and Katara threw her arms around him one more time before leaving.
"Maybe later?" she asked, more than a little hopeful that it could be true.
A/N: This was originally going to be its own two shot, but I thought it fit well with the theme, mask. I went with a less literal translation, and I hope it worked for you guys and wasn't too obscure. I was thinking mask as in hiding, looking over something, covering up. If you've read Pai Sho and Tea, this is the fertility festival referred to, and if you've read The Consequences that Follow, this is the pregnancy scare referred to.
