Hey all! I know it's been a LOOONG time since I've done anything with this fic, and, well, I'm not really apologizing for it. This is mostly a writing exercise for me. I like to make plots fit whatever songs happen to be in my head at the time. I've been working on other stuff, so I haven't really thought about song fics in a while. The idea for this came to me as I was listening to a-ha's 'Take on Me'. I got the mental image of Zuko rushing to get to Katara before it was too late…for whatever, and I thought, I bet I could make a short story about that! And this is the result. This has nothing to do with the continuity that I'm setting up for my long Avatar:TLA fic in my other story A Word Between Friends, nor is it a continuation of the last two installments in this fic, so just enjoy this as the stand alone song drabble that it is.
This chapter is dedicated to funnylady, who requested that I take another stab at this.
I don't own anything except the idea of the plot…and even that's questionable at best.
Take Me On
We're talking away
I don't know what
I'm to say I'll say it anyway
It seemed strange to them how fast their friendship grew. To Zuko, the change from Katara hating him to accepting him as another friend to take care of, and in his case, to spar with, was jarring. But it was an easy transition for the two teenagers who, for all their differences, were incredibly similar. After the war ended, Katara was named the ambassador for the Water Tribe and she lived in the Fire Nation in the newly constructed Water Tribe embassy, but loneliness for her home, family and friends drove the young woman to the Palace most days after her duties were done. She was always welcome company to the Regent Fire Lord and his nephew, though most of the time, Iroh was busy with his own duties to spend much time with the young people.
"I don't understand why he couldn't take care of that paperwork earlier," Zuko complained one evening when Iroh disappeared shortly after Katara's arrival. They were in the library and Katara was lounging on the large overstuffed easy chair. Her legs were draped over the armrest and a Fire Nation history scroll was open across her lap. She looked up at him with a quirked eyebrow. Zuko's breath caught in his throat as he realized, not for the first time, what a beautiful young woman Katara had grown into. At eighteen she was a tall, slender, regal looking woman.
"Hasn't he been spending all of his time training you to take the throne?" she asked.
"Well, yeah," Zuko acknowledged. "But it just seems like lately every time you come over, he barricades himself in his office." Katara laid her scroll aside and turned in her seat so that she was facing Zuko face on.
"Zuko, you're going to be crowned Fire Lord soon," she said slowly, as if she were explaining something to a child. "There's a lot of things that he's got to take care of before he hands the whole country over to you. I promise, I'm not offended." Zuko shrugged. It wasn't in Katara's nature to be upset about those things.
The pair lapsed into a comfortable silence. Katara went back to reading and Zuko picked up a scroll of his own and tried to read. He found it difficult to focus, though, and he wound up spending the better part of an hour watching Katara over the top of the scroll instead. Katara glanced up every so often, but didn't seem to notice Zuko looking at her, or so he thought.
"What's on your mind?" she asked with the bluntness that had marked their friendship. Zuko thought quickly of a reasonable excuse that wouldn't completely embarrass him.
"I think I'm in love with you." That wasn't it. Katara and Zuko stared at each other, equally in shock by what Zuko had just said. His face was bright red and burning in humiliation. But he knew in that moment, he wouldn't take it back for anything.
Today's another day to find you
Shying away
I'll be coming for your love, OK?
Three days later, Katara steadfastly refused to discuss Zuko's confession. She avoided the palace for the rest of the week. When she finally showed up again, she pretended nothing had changed. Zuko couldn't though. He had told her the truth. He didn't know when, but somehow during the two years she had been in the Fire Nation, he had fallen hard for her. Now that he had said it, he had to know if there was any way he could make her fall for him, too.
"Are we really not going to talk about this?" he asked after they had exhausted all the meaningless small talk they could. Katara looked startled, but she gathered herself almost immediately. She sat up primly in her seat and sipped her tea.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"You know what I mean," Zuko said, scowling. He gently pulled the tea cup and saucer from her and set it on the "Don't play stupid. It's beneath you." Katara made a futile snatch at her tea, but Zuko pushed it out of her reach.
"Why did you have to do that?" Katara asked. She looked up at him with tear filled eyes. "What's wrong with us just being friends?" Zuko looked away, disappointed. He knew what he wanted to say. That it wasn't enough to just be friends. That of all the women he had ever known, she was the only one who he could see spending the rest of his life with, who could help him fairly and wisely rule his country. But he also knew what he should say, and for once, he decided to the smart thing on his own.
"I can't just be friends with you," he said. Katara's eyes widened in surprise, even as the first tears slid from them. "But if you tell me that's all you want, I'll take it."
"When did you get to be so honest?" she asked him, giving her eyes a frustrated swipe with the back of her hand. She hated crying around anyone, Zuko knew.
"I learned it from you," he told her truthfully. Katara had to laugh at that. She was known for her bluntness. Now however, all of her normal forthrightness seemed to have abandoned her. Zuko could see her searching for a way to change the subject.
"Do you feel the same way?" he asked her, point blank, taking away any chance she had to slither out. Still, Katara said nothing. She stared at him for a long moment, and then, with a blush burning her cheeks, she left hastily. Zuko looked down at his hands folded in his lap. He had his answer.
From then on, he was relentless in his pursuit. For a month, at least three times a week, Katara returned to her apartments in the Water Tribe embassy to find bunches of panda lilies, her favorite sweets, a stuffed polar bear-dog. They never failed to bring a goofy grin onto the girl's face and soon her aides began to notice that the young ambassador seemed to almost float through her day. Katara visited the palace less, but she seemed to bump into Zuko nonetheless. She confronted him one afternoon when 'business' had brought him to the embassy.
"Are you going to keep following me until I give in?" she demanded, folding her arms defiantly. Zuko flashed her a rare, cocky grin.
"That's the idea," he said. Katara glared at him and tried to be annoyed, but she was disturbed to find herself completely disarmed by his smile and the way his messy black hair fell into his eyes. He refused to wear the customary top knot until he was actually Fire Lord. Finally Katara smiled back at him and pushed the hair away from his eyes. Zuko felt as if he would burst from joy at the touch.
So needless to say
I'm odds and ends
But I'll be stumbling away
Slowly learning that life is OK.
Treading the ground of their fledgling relationship was difficult. Katara insisted on keep it a secret for a while.
"What are you embarrassed by me?" Zuko asked, only halfway joking.
"No!" was Katara's firm answer. "But you're about to become the Fire Lord and if it got out that you were with me, it might cause unnecessary problems." Zuko mulled that silently. She was right, he knew. The council of Fire Nation nobles that advised the Fire Lord treated her at best with a cold politeness. They resented the fact that they had to seriously consider Katara's opinion on foreign policy, which was made no better by the fact that she was actually good at it. She was a woman from the Southern Tribe, and a water bender; that was three marks against her, but Katara, rather than being cowed by them, rose so far above their expectations, that they were forced to give her a grudging respect. It made Zuko proud to see her face them down, and he had no doubt that as Fire Lady, she would bring the whole lot to their knees.
"I'd give it up for you, you know," he told her as they reclined on a grassy patch in the palace gardens one day. Zuko turned and stretched out so that his head was resting in Katara's lap. She smiled down at him sadly.
"I wouldn't let you," she replied. She kissed his forehead and leaned back against the tree. They didn't discuss it again that day. Zuko was content to let the future take care of itself, certain that life would be okay if he didn't worry too much.
Say after me
It's no better to be safe than sorry
He proposed to her on her nineteenth birthday, just weeks before he was to be crowned Fire Lord. Her refusal genuinely stunned him. He let the engagement necklace he had made for her dangle from his hand at his side. It's small gold disk reflected the light from the setting sun. He couldn't get out the question he wanted to ask her. Why? But she seemed to have heard him anyway.
"You and I both know that this wouldn't work," Katara insisted. "Maybe if you weren't going to be the Fire Lord…But the Fire Nation needs you and they won't accept someone from the Water Tribe as Fire Lady."
"You don't know that!" Zuko clenched his hands at his sides to keep from shaking some sense into Katara. She tried to smile at him, but Zuko could see the tears she was fighting threatening to spill down her cheeks. She seemed to cry an awful lot lately, Zuko reflected.
"Better to be safe than sorry, right?" Zuko growled in frustration and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes.
"What's the point of being safe when I'm still sorry?" he demanded. He looked at her with such earnest intensity that Katara had to look away from him. She hated how his eyes could sometimes feel like they were piercing her to her core. Zuko took her chin in his hand and gently made her look up at him. There were tears in his eyes to match hers.
"Please let me go," she whispered.
"Don't make me," he whispered back. "Don't do this. You're so much braver than this. I love you! Doesn't that count for anything?" Katara was outright crying now. Zuko could feel her tears on his hand. She reached up and held his hand closer to her cheek. Zuko reached up and wrapped his free arm around her waist, letting the engagement necklace fall to the ground. He kissed her desperately, all of his anger and frustration and loving devotion spilling out in their mingled tears.
Take on me, take me on
I'll be gone
In a day or two
Katara decided to leave her post as ambassador after that. It seemed to be the best thing she could do for the both of them. But as she sat in the room that had been hers for almost three years, she couldn't help hoping that Zuko would burst in and stop her. It was two days before her ship was to set out from the Fire Nation port for the Southern Tribe. Time was running out.
Oh the things that you say
Is easy to laugh off
Just to play my worries away
You're all the things I've got to
remember
Zuko spent Katara's last week in town as far away from her as possible. He was so angry with her that he feared he would blast her with the hottest flame he could muster.
That's not true, he thought. He knew the truth was if he saw her, he would wind up begging her not to leave. Again. He wandered around the palace, trying not to think about her, but almost every place he went had a memory attached to it. Even in his bedroom he had mementos from some dates they had been on. He toyed with the idea of burning the ticket stubs from the play they had gone to see just a day or two before he asked her to marry him.
If he were to be honest, Zuko would have had to admit that he shouldn't have been surprised or even angry that Katara had turned him down. In the months they had spent together, she had tried to discuss with him her anxieties and fears about their relationship and how it would affect his reign, but he would laugh it off, telling her that it didn't matter. But it did, Zuko conceded at last. He should have taken her more seriously on that point, and now it was too late.
Iroh found his nephew moping in his room a few hours later, stretched out on his bed with his arm thrown over his eyes. Zuko was wearing his training clothes, and soot smeared the comforter. The aging general lowered himself creakingly onto the end of Zuko's bed.
"Why aren't you at the docks?" he asked the Fire Lord elect. "She's leaving today." Zuko lifted one end of his arm, so he could see his uncle from one eye.
"I can't," he said. "I'm dying. I shouldn't move." Iroh frowned at Zuko.
"You're twenty one years old," he chided. "It's time you stopped acting like a little boy. Get up and tell me what happened!" Iroh rolled his eyes skyward in exasperation. "After all the trouble I took to make sure you two got some alone time, this is the thanks I get."
In hindsight, Zuko realized he shouldn't have been surprised that all the time Iroh had spent cooped up in his office while Katara was there was on purpose. The old man wasn't one to ignore a guest, particularly one he liked so much as Katara. In the moment, however, Zuko was shocked.
"What are you waiting for?" Iroh demanded angrily. "Go to her! Stop her from making the biggest mistake of both of your lives!"
"I can't!" Zuko said, getting angry right back. "Look, I asked her to stay. I asked her to marry me. She said no." Zuko crossed his arms and glared out of his window. He suddenly looked like the hurt, lonely thirteen-year-old that had been sent away from home so many years ago. Iroh's face softened when he realized just how much this was killing his nephew inside.
"She said no?" Iroh asked, frowning. He hadn't known that Zuko had proposed to her. He had kept it a secret from everyone. Iroh assumed that Zuko had done nothing and let her leave without even trying to get her to stay. This was an entirely new problem.
"Why would she refuse?" he asked, almost to himself. "She loves you deeply. Anyone can see that."
"She thinks she's doing it for my own good," Zuko explained, turning his sullen gaze to the heavily embroidered blanket on his bed. "She thinks the country won't follow me if I married her."
"Is that...!" Iroh closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Zuko had only seen him do that a few times in his life, but he knew what it meant. Iroh was angry. He took a deep breath and looked up at his nephew, his expression caught somewhere between annoyance, exasperation, and amusement.
"You would do well to show up to a council meeting every now and again," Iroh said drily. Zuko looked at his uncle, puzzled. "She was right to be afraid for you leading this country, but not because you were considering marrying her, but because you're an incredible lackwit!"
"What?" Zuko's puzzlement turned to indignation.
"Why wouldn't you talk to me about this?" Iroh asked. He got up and paced a bit. "I had this taken care of and all either of you had to do was talk to me about it. The council members want you married and they are willing to consider foreign born noblewomen!"
Realization dawned on Zuko as the implication of Iroh's words sank in. He checked the time on the clock hanging on a wall. Katara's ship would be leaving soon. Without bothering to change into something clean, Zuko rushed out into the stables and leapt onto an unsaddled ostrich-horse. Iroh watched him leave from Zuko's bedroom window, and silently spurred him on.
You're shying away
I'll be coming for you anyway
Zuko made it to the docks in time to see Katara's ship shrinking on the horizon. Panic rose up in his chest. He was too late. He climbed down from the ostrich-horse's back and fought the urge to sink to his knees in despair. He looked around for another boat. A dinghy. A raft. Anything to get him out to that ship. He saw none and the boat was getting smaller and smaller. Zuko thought for a moment before he hit on an idea. A stupid idea, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
Katara hadn't cried since that day in her room. She was as miserable as ever, but she realized that tears helped nothing. All that was left to her was steely resolve. She would go home to her father and her brother and his family. She would live out the rest of her life as a healer in her tribe, and she would be content to be alone for the rest of her life.
She decided all of this as she stood at the stern of the boat, steadfastly refusing to look back at what she was leaving. That was why she didn't see the ball of flame hurtling towards the boat until the rest of the crew raised an alarm. Katara spun on her heels and was just in time to the ball of flame disperse and Zuko tumble onto the deck of the steel ship.
"Zuko!" she cried. The young man pushed himself onto his knees and shook his head to clear it. He looked around the crew dazedly until he spotted Katara. He stumbled over to her and clumsily dug in his pockets. He pulled out the engagement necklace he had presented her with a week ago. The red ribbon the golden pendant hung on was wrinkled and Zuko's soot covered hand was smudging the silk, but neither one cared.
"Marry me," he said unceremoniously.
"Zuko-" Katara started, but he cut her off.
"Hear me out! I know you're worried. You're scared that you'll make things difficult for me as Fire Lord, but it'll be harder for me without you. I need you with me. I need your compassion and your brilliance. I need you around to tell me when I'm being pigheaded and when I'm on the right track for once. If you leave, I won't marry anyone else. I'll be alone and you know I'm no good when I'm on my own. Please, please stay with me. Be my Fire Lady. Be my wife."
Katara wanted desperately to say yes, but she couldn't bring the word to her lips. All she had were doubts.
"Would they even let us?" she asked him. "You don't have just me to think of. You have an entire country. I want to be with you forever, but I also know that you'd be too great a Fire Lord to ruin it by marrying me."
Zuko couldn't take anymore. He grabbed Katara's shoulders and forced her to look him in the eyes.
"Would you for once in your life be a little selfish?" he demanded. "Forget the country. We can worry about it later. Right now it's just us. Zuko and Katara. I'm here! I want to marry you! Screw what everyone else thinks. Just say yes."
This last part came out as a soft, earnest plea. The last of Katara's defenses melted away as she looked into Zuko's eyes. A lump formed in her throat and she couldn't speak, so she nodded mutely. Zuko's face lit up like fireworks. He scooped her up in his arms and twirled her, whooping joyfully as she laughed. Suddenly the entire crew erupted into cheers and whistles and the couple remembered that they weren't alone on the ship.
"Aren't you going to kiss her?" someone asked. Zuko grinned cheekily and set his fiancée down before he brought her in for a kiss. The crew erupted into cheers once more.
Take on me, take me on
I'll be gone
In a day