It could be said that he was a little less than willing to give up on something after having set out to accomplish it. In fact, he could think of several less-kind ways of describing that about him, but decided there was no use insulting himself in the midst of such a situation.
When he had been invited, ordered, to lunch he had expected to find a normal table setting. Instead he found himself sitting cross-legged on a ratty blanket on the floor nearest the windows while the warm spring breezes fled in through the open windows. Across from him sat Sokka and Katara, the latter sitting very demurely with her knees to the side as she leaned against the bed for support.
A picnic. He supposed it was, with little bowls of food and informal plates set out. There were skewers of meat, little vegetables meant to be eaten with the fingers, and a tall and elegant pitcher of juice. She was beaming, had been from the moment he had opened the door until now. Sokka merely looked pleased. If this little deviation from the routine was enough to bring this kind of happiness…
There had been that one waver, when they had sat. He and Sokka had given her a hand in lowering herself to the blanket, and rather than take the close spot near her as Sokka had moved away, he had stepped across the blanket… not so subtly, he imagined, to have a seat facing her.
"Are you enjoying having your brother here?" he asked, deflecting attention from himself as Sokka lowered himself next to her.
"Why wouldn't she?" Sokka asked imperiously, snatching up a meat skewer. "Ouch!"
Sokka rubbed his arm where a hand, quick as lightning, had smacked him. There was a glaring match that was vicious and over nearly before it began. He was fairly sure the loser hadn't been Katara.
"It's always nice to be around family," Katara said, sipping her juice.
A good response, he thought. A polite one. And not one that was any bit against her brother. She was… restless. And Sokka was another hovering presence in her already confined world.
"How about this weather, huh?" Sokka said. "Already hot like this…"
Zuko snorted into his bowl. "Hot? Within a few weeks, this will be nothing. You'll wish there was a breeze in the height of the sun. This is "nice" weather in the Fire Nation. Nice like a cute puppy. For a few weeks each summer we go through the Dragon's Paw. It eats cute puppies as snacks."
Sokka's eyes had widened as he imagined such a thing. Katara merely looked a little ill at the thought. And as usual, Sokka's thoughts came straight out.
"So do you have to wear those heavy old robes even when it gets that hot?"
"Sokka."
"What? Why don't they come up with something better? You're the Fire Lord… Make them let you wear swimming gear or something."
"Of course. It's not about the robes, it's about the respect for the position. And I don't wear them all the time. Only for the most official meetings… so… most of the time. No one wants the Fire Lord dropping dead of heat stroke. And there has been at least one…"
"No way."
"I find ways to get around it. It's not as if anyone can see what I'm wearing under them," Zuko said dryly.
The food in Sokka's mouth barely stayed put at that announcement. Katara looked aghast at her sibling.
"Sokka!"
"What? It's funny! Not that I needed that mental image, but… man, I'll have to tell that joke when I get home…"
Katara's face tightened, and Zuko and Sokka stumbled over each other's words to scramble back from that cliff.
"So…"
"We should…"
"I wish it would rain," Katara interrupted.
"It might," Zuko offered. Not soon, he imagined, if this weather stayed, but it certainly could. He started up at the sky. Clear and blue. Hardly a cloud. No, not even for Katara would it rain soon. He watched their knees bump companionably. He knew what it was to bump knees with her like that, be companionable with her like that.
"Could I go out into it, even if it did?"
"Go out?" the laugh half-tumbled out of him before he stopped it. Oh, he'd put his foot straight into the viper's nest with that response. The balcony off of her room had been fully boarded. These windows only opened because they swung inward, revealing the slatted outside view. The outer doors, that led the conjoined balcony off of his room, were locked.
And yes, her eyes were dark and narrowed as she contemplated her food.
Not even Sokka could lift the conversation after that. It was an awkward silence, but the meal was quick. She accepted his hand as help to stand, but snatched her hand back almost immediately. He wished he hadn't eaten. The food was a heavy burden, and a harsh reminder.
He found the letter in the midst of his reports, an unassuming bit of parchment of which its only unique feature was its fraying edges. When he flipped it open, the ugly words caught him in the stomach nearly before he had processed just exactly what it meant. "Better the child had died than see a mongrel wear the fire crown."
He did not singe his desk as he pushed away from it, though he would have been surprised as he felt the heat there, in every ridge of his fingertips, under his nails, over his palms. One reason and he could have burned the palace into a great pile of ashes. They had made a mistake, a terrible one, in contacting him. He sealed the letter, and with a note, pressed it into the hands of the guard stationed in the hall. He sent the maid with the guard, to afford him some privacy and turned to the door. This was news he could tell Katara.
He recoiled in shock. The latch would not move. He pushed it, twisted it, but it was firmly locked.
"Katara!" He slapped the flat of his hand against the door, hearing the echo in the room. "Katara, can you hear me?"
His heart was a rapid drumming in his chest as he listened in heightening fear. There! He heard an answering call, and shoved harder at the latch. Every muscle in his shoulders had tightened, and he listened hard.
"Katara, can you get to the door? I need you to open the door."
She shouted back again, this time fainter.
"To hell with this," he muttered, and with little regard for the paneling that framed the door, broke through. His shoulder stung, fingertips skimming the ground as he barely kept himself from taking a hard fall.
She sat directly in front of him, seated in a deep, low-slung padded chair that he had shoved into a corner. He rushed to her, kneeling, touching her flushed, sweaty face, her hands that were braced on the wide arms.
"Are you okay? What happened?"
She shoved his hand away. Her face a cross between petulant and angry. "I can't. get. up," she said, biting her words off as she stared determinedly at his collar.
She couldn't… He took in her appearance, her breathing barely slowed down from a pant, her trembling arms… Terror spurted through him like scalding heat.
"Is it poison? I'll call the healers…No, I sent the maid… I'll…"
"Zuko. ZUKO."
He stopped, a mere moment from racing for the door.
"I'm fine. I'm pregnant. The chair is low… and I can't get leverage on the arms. I can't stand up. I just need help getting out of this stupid chair. I'm…"
Mortified, he supplied. Frustrated. A little scared. Each of those emotions flitted across her face. He blinked at her. On her thighs, his fingers dug into his palms as he realized that she was truly all right, and his head bowed, nearly touching the fluent curve of her belly. There was a pause, before cool fingers touched his neck. Her lips touched his hair, and he stayed still, waiting for his composure to return.
He slid his arms around to her lower back, nudging her arms up onto his shoulders.
"Hold on," he said. "And tell me when you're ready."
She tightened her arms. "Okay."
He had a brief vision of losing his balance and tumbling into the chair on top of her, but with a growl of frustration she slowly came upright and they were locked together over the offending seat.
He breathed in the reassuring scent of her as she leaned into him. He could feel the tremble in her, her exertion, her anxiety.
"It's okay," he murmured, pressing his lips to the damp skin of her neck. His lungs flooded as he realized what he had just done. A painful thrill coursed down his body, not unlike biting into something too sweet and feeling it all the way to the jaw. He licked his lips swiftly. If she had not noticed that, then surely his reaction to it had been obvious.
"Calm under pressure?" she asked, her arms not giving any. There was humor in it. He appreciated that.
"You wouldn't be either, in my place."
"You broke the door frame!"
"You were stuck in a chair!"
"I was stuck there for the better part of an hour."
He pushed her back gently. "Why didn't you call for me? I would've come immediately. I would've heard you."
"I had locked the door. If I had called…" She gestured toward the door. "Well, it happened anyway."
"Why was the door locked?"
"I wanted a little control over my environment. That seemed to be the best way to do so. You… made me angry. I didn't anticipate being unable to heave myself back out of the chair."
She still looked a little put out. He gripped her shoulders hard enough to make her eyes flicker to his.
"Don't bar this door against me again."
Her eyebrows rose. "And now what should I say? 'Yes, my lord.'?"
"You have no idea. No idea what kind of danger you faced here. You are safe here… But I need to know that. No locked door is going to guarantee me your safety."
"If you want to be my jailer, that's your choice. I should leave here, soon."
"That's not wise. Your brother and I…"
"My brother does not run my life, and neither do you."
"That's obvious, since you showed up here alone and pregnant."
That incensed her. "Go!" She wrenched herself from him.
He hissed out a breath.
"Katara. No, Katara listen. It's my fault. It's always been my fault. The danger you face is because of me. They think you're my mistress, and they want to make sure a waterbender doesn't come near their throne. We got a letter, today. They made a bad assumption, and you were nearly killed for it. Until you can produce a father for your baby and they see there is no danger, your life is worth little outside these walls."
A strange look crossed her face before it left as fast as it had come.
"So your wife would be confined this way?"
"It's not quite the same. A mistress and unborn child… It's a threat. There is the possibility that I might be swayed by you… to put this child, a possible waterbender, at the head of the Fire Nation. And I stayed with you, "confirming" it in action."
"You should have told me."
"I'm sorry. We thought…"
"To protect me, I know. I'm gestating, not broken. And it's not only your fault. Each of us played a part. Not to mention whoever did this, the bigoted, narrow-minded fools who would kill a child because of its mother's identity."
Out of her mouth it sounded harsh, and yet because of her spirit he grinned, and she surprised him by smiling back.
"Would you still want to leave?"
"You must have a chance of finding whoever did this. And this is a safe, controlled environment. Which," she said, lowering herself into a higher, firmer chair with ungainly grace, "is still a jail to my mind. Not to sound ungrateful, but you would not appreciate it either."
"No, I wouldn't. But between the two of us, I saw you covered in blood and I don't… want to imagine that will ever happen again. If I thought I could help you more from a distance, I would."
"Even a guard visits his prisoner. Were you really so busy yesterday?"
She had missed him. She was angry with him, yes, but… she had missed him.
He put a hand to the door frame.
"I'll get something to fix this," he said. "We'll fix it."
It was one thing he could fix.
