Bliss

Chapter 4: Heart to Heart

After spending an afternoon trapped in the storage compartment with her thoughts, and then with her brother which was an even worse situation, Katara was almost glad to be free and roaming the airship, still trapped in her thoughts but with much more ample moving space. There was, of course, no way she was going to get away from the resentment, confusion, sorrow and general angst she felt at the idea of being married to Zuko. She'd be carrying that around with her for a while.

She could, however, alleviate a bit of her anxiety by confronting Toph.

No, Katara mentally reminded herself, not confronting. She just wanted to talk with Toph. A confrontation was exactly what she didn't want if they were going to mend any fences. She'd avoided everyone long enough and it seemed to be making her situation worse. If she took Sokka as an example, which was a dangerous thing to do since her brother couldn't be seen to be the norm in any circumstance, all her friends needed was to talk through their issues and maybe cry a bit.

So Katara did something after supper that she hadn't thought she would do in a million years, let alone that day – she searched out Toph.

She found the Earthbender slouched on one of the heavily cushioned chairs on the observatory deck set up in a heavily windowed room. Watching the clouds part in front of the ship was awe-inspiring and would be terrifying if she wasn't used to Appa. The best thing she could say about the view considering what she was used to was that it wasn't cold. Clouds had a tendency to stick to one's skin until they were chilled to the bone and it was a much more pervading chill than the frozen tundra of home.

Toph looked so tiny and helpless on the chair, something Katara would never dream of mentioning to her, and she felt like a horrible person for putting herself and her issues before her friends. Toph hated flying and not being able to feel the earth beneath her feet. It made her truly blind. It also made her helpless, which was not something Toph readily admitted to – in fact, Katara thought Toph was too stubborn to ever be helpless, but she did think that if Toph ever had high stress levels it would be because of an overly large, vibrating airship. While Toph could bend metal, and could see to a certain extent on ships, the vibrations of the ship's power always overwhelmed her.

"Hi," Katara said quietly as she took a seat beside her diminutive brawler friend. The greeting was so Toph would know she was there, and be able to pinpoint the location exactly.

Toph turned away from her, but it seemed to Katara that it was more of an action of regret than of anger. If Toph was still furious and being hateful, her movement would have been more jerky.

So Katara did what didn't come naturally to her and she remained silent until Toph relaxed her neck and looked towards her.

"I overreacted," Toph said quietly. "But as long as Aang is unhappy with you, I'm still angry."

That was about as much of an apology as Katara was going to get. "They were going to make him marry a child. It was either that or an old spinster twenty years older than he is. Zuko didn't deserve that. I just reacted. I didn't think."

"You never do," Toph agreed, but there was no venom behind the words. "It isn't me you need to talk to."

"He's not talking to me," Katara said quietly.

"It's hard for Aang to talk to you when you're avoiding him," Toph responded congenially, not even pretending to be antagonistic anymore.

Katara shook her head ruefully. "I'm not the one doing the avoiding."

"The first step is admitting you have a problem."

"And your problem is that you're cheeky."

"I readily admit to that."

Katara felt a good deal of the weight drop from her shoulders. This bantering was more familiar, and while it felt a little forced, it was far more natural than Toph's pure aggressive hate. Toph ruined it by opening her mouth again.

"I'm serious about this. I'm on Aang's side Princess. He has my allegiance, so if you don't fix this with him, you haven't fixed it with me. Do you understand?"

Katara nodded and then realized Toph wouldn't be able to see it. "Yes," she croaked, fear and sorrow sticking in her throat at the idea of losing their friendship.

"So stop sitting here and go fix it!" Toph urged and Katara fled to find Aang, though she didn't feel ready to face her boyfriend yet.

She found Aang walking in the hallway. She stopped in front of him, chewing uncertainly on her lip. "Aang?" she said, her voice coming out as little more than a whisper.

His eyes didn't register her presence, and he side-stepped around her, leaving her in the hallway of the moving ship. There was no where he could go to avoid her except his own mind, and that was what he was the most skilled at.

x.x.x

Zuko found her on the upper observation deck. It had been converted into a landing pad for Appa, but on a regular trip it would contain smaller balloon ships used for emergency evacuation. A few of these were now kept to one side of Appa, but the majority of them were in the storage compartment in the hull. He didn't say anything, just took off his shoes and sat with her, his legs dangling over the side of the ship. The bridge was below them, a sheer drop into the water from where they sat. In the center of the observation deck was the balloon the ship had been retrofitted with.

"This is a beautiful ship," Katara said politely, not really meaning it.

Zuko snorted. "I've been thinking of painting what is left of the fleet white. Far less terror-inducing these days, don't you think?"

Katara shrugged.

"Or maybe a pretty pink," Zuko continued. "And then we'll fly off into the sunset together without anyone noticing."

"Sounds good," Katara said wanly.

"What is it?" Zuko asked, lips turning back into what he probably thought was an empathetic smile, but looked more like a grimace. "Katara?" he gave her shoulder a little shake. "What is it?"

Katara faced his supposedly comforting grimace and flinched away. "Don't smile like that, it's creepy."

All expression quickly dropped from his face.

"Only because it looks like you're trying too hard," she said quickly, realizing her mistake. He'd never try to be comforting again if he thought she'd turn away from it. Usually he was decent at this, but she thought that today neither of them would be very good company. "And I'm a little out of sorts right now. Aang won't look at me. I can't tell if he's angry or if he's somehow managed to erase all traces of me from his mind altogether. Do you think that's possible?"

"No. Don't worry," Zuko told her, her hand in his. "He won't stay angry with you forever."

"He's Aang," she said with a sigh. "And I was supposed to be his girlfriend."

"He just feels betrayed right now," Zuko promised, squeezing her fingers. "Soon reality will hit and he'll realize it isn't your fault. That you're the victim here and this whole thing is hurting you just as much as it is hurting him. Possibly more."

"That sounds nice in theory but Aang can hold a pretty good grudge."

"I don't know," Zuko disagreed. "I'm not sure anyone can hold a grudge better than you."

Katara snorted and pulled her hand out of his now that he was offering teasing instead of innocent comfort. "Yeah, and look how that turned out. We ended up married."

"But not out of any desire to be wed to one another," Zuko pointed out. "We both had our separate lives. You Aang and me..." he cut off. "Well, let's just say I expected to have a long engagement and marry when I was a little older."

"Mai," Katara supplied, looking at him keenly. "I'm sorry Zuko, I didn't even think. Here you are trying to make me feel better and we're in this together, aren't we? Will she be terribly upset?"

Zuko reflected for a moment.

They sat side-by-side on the uncomfortable settee in her mother's sitting room, both with hands on their laps. "I don't think this is going to work out," Zuko informed her honestly.

"I don't think this will work either," Mai said huskily, leaning forward for a kiss.

Zuko leaned away from her, putting his hands on her shoulders with the pretence of looking into her eyes. Really, he just didn't want to kiss her again. Now that he was content with his life, their passionless passion for each other just felt cold. "No," he told her slowly, so she wouldn't misunderstand. "I want to break up."

"Oh, good," Mai said with a sigh as she stood up. "I met someone in jail. I don't not care about him."

"Ah, no," Zuko said finally. "I don't think Mai will be particularly concerned if I return with a wife."

Katara looked at him suspiciously. "That sounds like one of Sokka's harebrained judgement calls he makes on the female mind."

Zuko sighed and crossed his arms across his chest, returning her glance with one of his own, and he was glaring slightly. "When have I ever given you the idea I'm as touched in the head as your brother is?"

Katara thought about it for a second, reflecting on all the crazy things Zuko had done over the years. She remembered the time he had tried to steal Aang away by running deeper into the frozen land of the north, and the various betrayals he learned to regret.

Zuko gave her a hard look and something akin to a pout. "You shouldn't have to think about it."

"Well, you're not always as smart as you think you are," she rationalized. "You're hotheaded and sometimes you don't think things through entirely before making a move."

"Hotheaded?" he bellowed. "Me? I'm not... I haven't been tempermental or volatile for years."

The fact he was yelling at her, clearly touchy about this subject, didn't seem to help his case. It didn't help that since they were sitting on top of the airship, their voices were raised to shouting decimals just to be heard, so for him to noticeably become louder was an accomplishment. Of course Katara wasn't being fair, she realized all at once. Every time she wanted to pick a fight with him, she brought up how Prince Zuko had been when they first met. It was the best way to push his buttons, and she met his defiant stare with contrition. "Sorry," she grimaced. "It's unfair for me to keep bringing that up."

"At least you realize it," he told her, looking away from her. His eyes looked down, beyond the ship to the water far far below them. They were so high up that Katara could barely feel the vast ocean below her, the sense of power from the water just a flicker in the back of her head, almost beyond her reach. From here she couldn't control any of it, but there were far closer sources of water.

"There's going to be a storm tonight," she told him and knew it was true as soon as the words emerged from her mouth. She could taste it in the air and could feel the storm clouds on the horizon like she could sense the ocean. They were in the distance, not visible to her eye yet, but they were vast and heavy with rain. "It will be a bad one."

Zuko looked out over the horizon and didn't ask if she was sure. "I'll alert the captain. He'll probably know more about it than I do."

"How long has he been flying?" Katara asked. "This ship can't be too old, it's a new technology right? So he doesn't have the experience in the air that the captains of your navy do."

"True," Zuko responded thoughtfully.

"He should consult with Aang as to the best way to avoid the storm. You know Aang is the only person who really understands flight. I think we should try to get above the storm, but Aang might know better."

Zuko was nodding. "I'll make sure it happens." He suddenly looked at her, his golden eyes intense and direct. "Katara, we need to have a serious talk about our marriage."

"Now?" she asked, inwardly grimacing at the whiny tone in her voice. "I was hoping to put it off for a few more years."

"If we put it off we could end up married permanently. Now is a better time than most, there's no one up here and very little chance we can be overheard. Once we reach land that will become virtually impossible."

"I thought we were already married," Katara said slowly, trying to remember what he had said right after the tribunal. She had been so upset at the time that the only thing that really perforated her brain was the following:

1. Zuko and Katara were married. For real.

2. It was her fault, because while he hadn't been entirely hotheaded for years, she still was; and,

3. Zuko promised to fix it, but never elaborated. He probably hadn't been able to get a word in edge-wise over the sound of her wailing.

"Yes and no. The tribunal has promised us some leeway before it is officially announced. They want a big Fire Nation ceremony. We've still got some time," Zuko promised. "I don't know how yet, but I'll find leverage to get us out of this marriage."

Katara nodded mutely, still staring at her hands. She couldn't look away from them, and her fingers were clasped together so tightly that her fingers were turning white. "I understand that," she said sullenly. "But I don't understand how we can put it off. The members of the tribunal are expecting a wedding, so how can we possibly not have one? That was kind of a condition."

"I've always made it very clear that there was one thing I had to do before I was willing to marry," Zuko reminded her, his voice disembodied from her focus of concentration. Katara dared not look up from her fingers or the horizon of blue ocean beyond them. If she looked at him, she thought she might dishonour them both and cry, and she had done enough of that for the both of them.

She was not having Zuko think her weak. Not again.

"Your mother?" she asked, knowing it was more than a guess. He had mentioned something similar to her once, about how he couldn't consider the war over until he found his mother, or at least conclusively knew what happened to her. She didn't think Zuko expected Lady Ursa to be alive. Chances were he was right, but Katara was enough of an optimist to hope he was wrong.

Zuko nodded, and Katara noticed the harsh movement in her periphery. He was just a dark shape, his hair hooding his eyes so all that was really visible was his mouth and jaw. He had moved closer to her at some point, his arm braced behind her back, his fingers tight on the metal edge by her hip. It was close enough to be an embrace without touching her, and his nearness comforted her though she still couldn't look at him.

"I'll find my mother," he promised, "and then I'll reinstate her into the position she deserves."

"Fire Queen," Katara said, turning to face him, eyes shining with idea that the responsibility wouldn't fall on her shoulders. It was a relief. Though she hadn't voiced the concern yet, she didn't think she was suited to helping him run an entire country, especially the Fire Nation. They had been warmongers for far too long to change overnight. Katara knew they weren't all bad people, and many of the citizens were just as disillusioned by years of war and hardship as everyone else and welcomed peace. She couldn't help but wonder how many of them would be unbiased enough after a century of hate to welcome her as their queen.

The thought made her queasy.

If his mother could take over that role, it would alleviate a lot of worry in her mind. She knew the people loved Lady Ursa, and the time directly after Ozai married her was the closest to peace the world had seen before now. Even as far as the Southern Water Tribe it was known that the Fire Lady was well-loved.

Zuko shook his head, giving her a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "No. Dowager Fire Lady. The title of Fire Lady belongs solely to my wife."

Katara turned away from him, the panic reinserting itself in her mind.

Zuko's hand fell heavily on her shoulder. "Hey," he said, pulling her towards him for a brief sideways hug. "No one said it had to be you."

Katara pulled away, but did turn to look at him, balancing on the ledge so one of her legs dangled off the side and the other was curled between them. She felt much better once she was able to see him, more like herself and less disconnected from the situation. She wondered why she thought turning away from him was a good idea. "Ah, the Tribunal of Four Nations, composed of about every king, chief, or very important person in the world pretty much said so."

Zuko shrugged and smirked. "What do they know?" he asked rhetorically.

She grinned. It seemed like an impossibility considering how tense she was, but there was something about the way he casually dismissed every leader in the world with his usual arrogance that made her smile. She couldn't help it.

He continued. "They won't grant us forever, but they can probably be persuaded to wait a few months. I'll tell them I want to find my mother, when really I'm just buying us time to find a loophole. Not," he amended, "that I won't be trying to find my mother at the same time."

"How do you plan to find her?" she asked, focusing in on the only safe topic they could talk about without the panic welling in her chest at the idea that in less than a day they would reach the Fire Nation. The Fire Nation where she was now queen, according to The Law of Four Nations. There was no way she could possibly get away from acknowledging her responsibilities, or from the rumour of the Fire Lord's union from spreading throughout the capital.

People would be kowtowing to her left and right. More than they were now.

Either that or they would be hating her with the strength of a thousand suns and throwing tomatoes or rocks at her.

The idea of being respected pleased her in a way it shouldn't, so she didn't think about it too carefully.

"I can't see any way to expedite the process I already put into motion. In three months I will be leaving the capital and touring my kingdom. I was going to use that time to search for my mother using clandestine means, bribery, and possibly bullying-"

"As yourself or as the mysterious Blue Spirit with the ninjutsu training?" Katara interrupted him to ask.

He gave her a levelled look that spoke volumes, saying 'what do you think' without answering her question.

"Before," he started, pausing as he considered what to say next. "Before all this happened I was going to ask you to accompany me. My people in the outlying villages will need a capable healer, and of course I could use your skills myself."

"I doubt you're talking about my healing skills," Katara retorted, teasing him.

"We work well together," he responded, leaning towards her slightly. His eyes danced with amusement like flickering flames. Their height and precarious perch was forgotten by both of them as they chatted and plotted. "Your skills compliment mine. You can keep up with me, you know when to be silent, and you can be very intimidating. I need to find my mother and I can't have mistakes."

This was possibly the best compliment she had ever received, even if it was expressed in Zuko's semi-awkward stilted phrasing he sometimes had when he was trying to say something difficult and had thought too much on how to express it. What it came down to was that he trusted her to help him get the job done, and she blinked at the realization. This wasn't the first time he had picked her over everyone else in the gang. The fact that they worked well together was something she had always taken for granted, but if she had to choose someone to help her with a mission of consequence, she wasn't sure Zuko would be her first choice.

Why not? He was less likely to screw up than Sokka, he didn't see things as black and white as Aang did, and he had Firebending skills Suki could never possess.

Zuko interrupted her serious self-reflection by continuing his train of thought. "Of course now that you are my wife, or as far as the Fire Nation is concerned, my intended, you're expected to escort me as a mark of honour."

"I would have said yes, you know," she told him with a glower. "But now I'm considering leaving you to travel on your own."

"You won't," he said with surety.

She really wouldn't. It had nothing to do with honour or courtesy or even the fact that he trusted her to help him find his mother, which was possibly the single most important task of his life. She owed him for helping her face her mother issues, but even that wasn't enough to get her to go with him.

The Main draw was how much fun it could be, and she grinned at him with the realization. After years of independence and adventure, peace was starting to become boring and confining to her freedom. "It'll be fun," she agreed.

Zuko grinned, and they were both smiling at each other, sitting together on top of the airship as though they were the only two people in the world, and in that moment everything melted away and they were.

x.x.x.x.x

Katara awoke in the middle of the night with a start and she immediately knew something was wrong. There was something about the rapid beat of her heart and the adrenaline already coursing through her body that reminded her of how she would become alert when she was in danger during the war. Something was definitely wrong, and she didn't know what it was yet.

The fog through her window was thick and she couldn't see anything outside. They were in the clouds, which was wrong. She could feel the storm surrounding them though it wasn't visible at this level. By this time they should be above the cloud coverage. Quickly, Katara slipped on her dress and ran towards the door, the floor sloping beneath her feet as she moved. The entire airship listed to the side.

The unbalance wasn't very noticeable, and she wasn't sure she would have known the ship had moved if she was still in bed. Her heart skipped to her throat as she threw the door to her bedroom open. The unease she was experiencing became more pronounced as she realized there was no one in the hallway. The night before when she had slipped from her room to relieve her bladder there had been guards in the hallway and night staff were cleaning the floors. Tonight the hallways were empty.

The cold chill settled somewhere around her heart as she rushed across the hallway and knocked on Sokka's door. Suki answered it, already half dressed. "Something's wrong!" Katara exclaimed.

"You feel it too?" Suki asked.

"Wake everyone up, I'm going to go check the bridge," Katara told her, already running down the hallway. The metal of the floor was cool on her feet, but she could feel every motion of the airship as it lurched forward. Something was wrong with the ship, and if she was reading the sloping direction correctly, it was going down.

Once she neared the bridge, she could hear the commanding yells of the captain first, and then the sound of people rushing to fulfill orders.

"Evacuate the ship," the captain yelled just as Katara reached the entrance to the bridge and she was able to see the chaos firsthand. All the Firebenders were blowing fire up into the large central balloon, but it seemed to be collapsing inwardly. Men were balanced on ladders, attempting to simultaneously mend the rip.

They were definitely about to crash, but at a gentler decline than most rapid descents from the air. That just meant they had minutes rather than seconds, but either way it ended with the ship crashing into the water.

No one knew better than Katara what exactly that could mean.

"You can't be here," one of the Fire Nation soldiers told her, grabbing her elbow and dragging her back down the hallway. "We're evacuating the ship now. The emergency lifeboats are this way."

"Save the boats for people who need them," Katara told the man, wrenching her arm out of his grasp. "I have to go get my friends, and we have Appa."

"My orders are to escort you-"

"I'm ordering you to let me go so I can prepare my own evacuation. You go make sure Zuko and his entourage are safe." There were definitely bonuses to being a person in power. She was now able to get what she wanted easier and with less of a fight.

The soldier looked hesitant for a second.

"We'll be fine," Katara urged him. "There's no need to worry about an Airbender and a Waterbender in a storm."

He still looked uncertain, but turned towards the upper accommodations, headed for Zuko.

Katara felt accomplished as she hurried towards her friends. "We're going down," she told Aang and Suki as she ran down the hallway towards them. Her voice was so loud that Sokka stuck his head out the door, still half-dressed.

"WHAT?" he shrieked, shoving his arms into his shirt. "Where's my sword?"

"A weapon isn't going to help you fight your way out of this one," Suki told him, completely deadpan.

"Get Toph," Katara told her, ignoring her brother. She then turned to Aang. This was the first time he faced her without flinching away in days, and that was because his face was concerned, with that look of subtle determination he got on his brow when he wanted something. "Go prepare Appa for flight."

Aang was already moving before she finished the sentence. Katara raced into her room and grabbed her mother's necklace, casting an eye around for anything else of importance. Her clothing didn't matter, they were replaceable, and the scrolls denoting her marriage to Zuko could definitely sink the bottom of the ocean.

"Do you have your boomerang?" Katara asked Sokka, pausing in the doorway to her brother's room. He had his sword on his hip, boomerang on his back, and his zeboar skin purse looped around his neck. He had on one matching boot and was crawling under the bed, probably searching for the other.

Katara could sense the ocean getting nearer, and knew there wasn't time for him to search the room for a missing shoe.

"Sokka, it isn't important!"

"These are one-of-a-kind, hand stitched by master artisans in the-" he cut off with a strangled gurgle as she grabbed the bag and pulled him out from under the bed with it. His fingers clutched the missing shoe and he started hopping on one foot trying to get it on. Katara yanked it from his grasp and pulled the water from the cup next to his bed, freezing her fingers around his arm as she shoved the boot back into his free hand, her face scowling in determination.

"Ah! Cold, Katara. Cold!" he yelped as she dragged him from the room.

"You are the stupidest, most idiotic," Katara grumbled, breaking off this train of thought before she really laid into him. "In less than five minutes this entire ship is going to be at the bottom of the ocean. We. Are. Crashing. Now."

That seemed to get through his thick skull because he stopped forcing her to drag his skinny butt down the hallway and started to run, pulling her along with him. If there was one thing Sokka was really good at it was running away from danger.

No, not an entirely fair assessment, but not completely inaccurate either.

By the time they climbed the two flights of stairs up to the observation deck, Katara could feel the extreme power of the roiling ocean waves greet her. It was so close she could pull the water to her and harvest all that force for herself. With a single glance she could see that all the lifeboats were gone. When the Captain said to evacuate, his people did so quickly. Her hand came free of Sokka's arm as they both scrambled onto Appa's back.

"Wait!" Aang exclaimed as they all settled into the saddle on Appa's back. "Are you sure there is no one left on the ship?"

"They were all getting into lifeboats when I came downstairs to find you."

"Lifeboats?" Sokka asked. "But we're in the air."

"Not for long!" Toph exclaimed, giving Aang a meaningful glance as Appa shifted uneasily on the falling airship.

"They're boats attached to airballoons. You've seen them before," Suki explained to Sokka.

"AANG!" Katara yelled impatiently. "There isn't much time. Get Appa in the air and we'll circle the ship for any stragglers."

Aang shot her a disheartened look, knowing just as well as she did that if there was anyone else left on the ship, the chances of them standing close enough to any open spaces where Appa could reach them were slim. Irrationally, Katara felt the need to apologize for trying to make sure they all survived. Aang was the type to go down with the ship if he thought he could save just one extra life. Katara liked to think she was more pragmatic than that.

"I WANT TO LIVE!" Sokka was screaming melodramatically, almost drowning out the sound of someone left on the airship yelling for them to wait.

"There's someone there," Toph intoned, gesturing towards Appa's side.

Suki, the only one of them still with any amount of reason, reached over and hauled the man onto Appa's back.

Aang looked satisfied he had been proven right. Katara gritted her teeth, trying not to show how frustrated she was that they were still on this ship. She almost missed taking a good look at the man.

He was the one who stopped her in the hallway.

"Where's Zuko?" she asked, the unease and worry in her stomach suddenly coming to a head. He didn't respond and Katara jumped across the distance between them, hauling the man towards her by the front of his black shirt. "Where's Zuko?" she emphasized, her voice steady but menacing.

The man looked stricken for a second in the face of her fury. "He was on the first lifeboat."

Katara sat back as her friend exchanged glances. She watched the man carefully, noting the sweat on his brow and the beat of his heart. It all felt wrong, beyond terror of the situation. Something was definitely not right.

"Zuko wouldn't leave without us," she proclaimed, suddenly gaining clarity of thought. Before anyone could agree or disagree with her, she jumped off Appa, landing on the metal sheeting of Appa's landing pad. Katara rolled to her feet, turning to face her friends. They were all staring at her with various expressions of shock. "Go!" she urged. "GO! I'll be fine."

Without waiting for them to comply, she took off at a run down the stairs, the angle far steeper than it should be because of the descent of the ship. Her mind kept a constant link with the ocean, and they were so close she could breathe in the scent of salt and call the water to her with little effort. The hallway leading to Zuko's room was pitch black, none of the wall torches still lit. Katara lurched forward, finding the doorway to his chamber through touch. Luckily it was the only room with elaborate scrolled carvings and heavy metal doorknobs.

The left door crashed open at her slightest touch, falling forward with gravity. Katara stumbled into the room, the torches here still lit, smouldering around the curtains hanging from the ceiling next to them. Katara didn't pay the slightest worry to the fact this whole room was about to ignite into flames. It wouldn't matter considering it would be flooded with water in less than a minute.

Zuko was still asleep on his bed. For a flash of a second Katara felt validated that she had been right and the next moment she realized he never would sleep through something like this.

"Zuko!" Katara shouted as she vaulted on top of him, the slope towards his bed too steep to do much more than jump. He didn't move when her body crashed into his, and the moment her hand touched his chest she knew his heart wasn't beating, but he wasn't cold yet.

There was still hope.

Tears welled up in her eyes as her hands pressed on his chest over his heart and she pulled on his blood in time with her own pulse, listening as it pounded in her ears. With her mind she reached out and touched the ocean.

Katara screamed as the ship collided with the great body of water. Her arms tightened around Zuko's body as they were propelled through the air with the force of the crash. She smashed into the wall first, tumbling and falling.

The ship crashing into the ocean wasn't a smooth impact or the gradual sinking of a ship meant for water. The airship shattered on impact, shards of metal flying apart with the brutality of water. Ice cold ocean water surged through every crevice, engulfing everything in the room.

Yes, that is a cliffy. I am evil.

This chapter almost kicked my ass. It still is, actually. I think I need a Beta on this fic, though I've never needed one before. Anyone want to offer their services?

My thanks to TrumpetGeek for taking the time out of her busy schedule to do a quick and dirty edit of this chapter when I felt myself pulling out my hair.

On a less serious note, Zuko's going to be so pissed someone tried to assassinate him (yes spoiler included, I know none of you really want to wait for the next chapter to find out. Or actually believe I would kill him off).