7. Spark

"How long, exactly, have you been standing there?" Katara snapped just as she was exiting from the room.

He was leaning against the temple's wall casually, just right behind her back, and his hair dangled ever-so-bewitchingly in his eyes, which held a glint of amusement. She both hated and envied his ease, the way he straightened up and walked towards her, his long strides and easy movements reminding her of the grace of a lazy tiger-dillo, hand perched on his hip, next to his two swords. He inclined his head towards her, and she fought a smile, but failed.

"Long enough, Kat." He'd taken to calling her that ever since he'd stepped off the ship, ready to fight for freedom for the long-waited invadion. It slipped from his tongue as easily as though he'd been doing it his whole life, and it fit comfortably, somehow. It's short and sharp and reminds me of a puma-cat, always observing but ready to pounce. "You have him quite the scare. You didn't even have to bend Ba Sing Se's entire water supply at him."

She flushed and continued to glare at him, but more forced. "You deserved it!"

"I won't be a fool to go against you, Kat." he smiled, moving in closer, taking her hand. She felt his warmth through the hand guard, the wraps, and told herself not to blush. "Besides, that bastard Firebender deserves it."'

"What did he do to you? Did you meet?" She asked, as they began to walk down the hallway. It was almost lunchtime.

"In Ba Sing Se." If she flinched at the name, he didn't comment on it. "He lied to me, him and his fat uncle, and we ended up dueling. The Dai Li took me away for causing trouble, so they said."

"Not him?" She exclaimed indignantly. "So it's his fault you were...brainwashed and almost...almost died?"

"I'm all right now, Kat." He smoothly maneuvered her to face him, almost nose to nose, took her hand, and placed it on his chest. "Listen. Strong and steady."

"That doesn't change how you almost died! Do you know how...scared I was? How guilty that I never really forgave you and let you die? And then you showed up with Pipsqueak and The Duke and were just so alive and the same? You were real!" She remembered embracing him, nearly sobbing in front of her startled father and an equally-so Bato and her friends. He was holding her now, close to his blessedly breathing, warm body, and she was breathing in the familiar scent of pines and dust and earth and metal and sweat and musk. His fingers were now smoothing her hair, stroking it lazily.

"I'm still here, Kat." He lifted her chin and kissed her, and she froze. It was gentle and reassuring and was over far too soon before she could fully think, but she knew before his lips moved away that she had kissed him back. "Let's get lunch. I'm famished."

She smiled. "Okay, Jet."


"...And it's all about Zuko now! How Zuko showed Aang a new Firebending trick! How Zuko can spar with swords like Sokka! How Zuko can be Toph's personal ostrich-horse! How he's everybody's best friend!"

"I don't like how he offered to teach The Duke sword-fighting." Jet muttered, stirring the rice for her while she made simple stir-fry, comprised of scavenged vegetables and some meat (a separate vegetables-only for Aang), for dinner. She watched, or rather heard, Aang and Toph's Esrthbending practice always from the courtyard or more delicate structure of the temple. Sokka was exploring with Haru and The Duke and Teo, while she had set Zuko on a task of rearranging the cupboards so she could keep an eye on him.

"Exactly! Those swords are far too heavy and far too dangerous for him!"

"I wanted to teach The Duke myself one of these days. Start him off with perhaps a dagger, transition into a sword if he wants." Jet mused thoughtfully. "He could be a good archer; he's really good at his slingshot." He added with a nod.

"I suppose, but...I just don't like the idea of an eight year old learning how to hurt people."

"I don't either, Kat. But it's war—we're growing up too fast, but we have to learn how to defend ourselves and be strong, so nothing happens to us or the people we love." He kissed her cheek as she finished the stir-fry and she did the same, telling him that the rice was done. She banged on a pot (Jet winced), calling the time, and ordered Zuko to tell Toph and Aang and whoever else didn't hear.

Jet grimaced as Zuko walked away. "I don't trust him."

"Neither do I. He's probably just biding his time." Katara scowled. "He's gaining everyone's trust one by one, then once he has us, he's going to sell us out. Mark my words. He's done that before."

"I can believe that. Especially since he's the Prince of them all. He must have some master tactics. He certainly fooled me for a while. He told me he was starting over and trying to live peacefully in Ba Sing Se."

"You too?"

"Me too? How did he trick you, Kat? From what I've heard, you guys were always on the run from him. Sokka said you got captured by him once—was that when?"

"No. Long after that."

"What did he do to you? I bet he tortured—"

"I did nothing to her." They both started at the raspy voice. Katara cursed his silent tread and herself for not paying attention. Suppose she had the same inattention if he happened to have a dagger or a fireball in his hand?

"You tied me to a tree in front of a gang of pirates, and you stole my mother's necklace and taunted me with it!"

Jet was looking at her worriedly, but with a strange look in his eyes. "Tied you to a—"

Zuko held up his hands placatingly. "I didn't steal it."

"Please!" Katara scoffed. "You did too!"

"I admit I did capture you and try to bribe you, and that was wrong, but—"

"Oh, save it!" Katara whirled away from his lying face and shoved her wooden spoon back into the packed rice pot and dumped a portion of it into Jet's bowl first, then a serving of the stir-fry onto an empty plate. "Jet, can you help me pass out the food?"

Zuko was stepping forward, reaching out, but she ignored him, jerking away from him. "Katara, do you—"

"Just sit down and wait your turn, Zuko." She snarled, smacking down some rice onto Aang's plate with a vengeance.


"What do you want?"

She didn't like the way Zuko was eyeing her, bare feet, loose blue dress without leggings, and painstakingly-combed hair with her crossed arms below her breasts. Katara tapped her foot and waited with an impatient frown. He stepped forward.

"I just want to ask you why I get smaller portions than the others do."

"I don't know what you're referring to."

"Look." Zuko ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation. "I usually forage later on, and I used to have a bit of a stockpile of dried fruits and fireflakes in my room, but that's since run out, and I'm getting frustrated, Katara."

She almost jolted when he said her name, but she kept her face composed, with the exception of a raised eyebrow. "So?"

"I know I've done terrible things. I'm sorry I hurt you. But it can't go on like this; I'm teaching Aang the more advanced Firebending techniques, and it requires a lot of energy that I need to replenish, Katara."

Katara didn't know what infuriated her more—his short and likely insincere apology, his demanding tone, the way he said Aang's name as if they were close friends, his wheedling, how he said her name, again. But she especially didn't like how he refused now to look at her, instead staring at the floor as if in contrition or humility, pah! She shoved a loose lock out of her face and hissed, since she didn't want to wake up the sleeping inhabitants of the Western Air Temple, "Keep foraging, Prince Zuko."

He looked at her calmly, though his fist were clenched. "If you need help cooking or passing out all the food, I can help."

"Jet does that for me." He then slapped her with a colder look. How dare he try to make her feel ashamed or act as if she were below him!

"Do you really know what he does?"

"He's changed." Katara was aware of it was just the two of them, their voices echoing in the dark. "Unlike you."

"He attacked my uncle and me at the teashop in Ba Sing Se, claiming that we were Firebenders."

"You are Firebenders."

"That's not the point!" He pressed his fingers around the bridge of his nose. "We wanted to blend in because Azula was after us. If we were caught by anyone—the Earth Kingdom or Azula—we would be executed."

"She wouldn't kill family—you joined her! You wouldn't have joined her if she was threatening to murder you!" Katara poked her finger into Zuko's chest. "You liar. You're trying to get me to trust you again, bait me—"

"Because I've had that intention that whole time in the cave!" He stepped away from her, pushed her hand aside. "You don't know what Azula's like, what I was like—"

"Oh, I understand perfectly!" The Waterbender made an effort to lower her increasing volume, her fists clenched, mimicking Zuko's stiff posture. "I understand that you took advantage of me, betrayed me—"

"Betrayed you! You betrayed me!" Fire flickered from between his nostrils. It would have been comical if the already tense situation wasn't quickly building up into an explosion.

"Oh, that's rich! That is so rich! I somehow betrayed you? By what? Refusing to heal that horrible scar on your face?"

He brushed past her after a long period of silence, jaw clenched. "Just go to Jet, will you? Spend the rest of the night mocking me, like you always do. That's what your relationship is built upon, right?"


They decide to take a day trip. Everyone is jittery and restless and snappish, and it's only a matter of time before something gives. So Sokka studies a map, with Zuko over his shoulder, and they choose a little spot nearby, secluded and surrounded by trees, but close enough to the Air Temple without having to saddle up Appa. Feeling cheered, they get ready—Katara plans to make a picnic lunch and first dresses in her Fire Nation robe because she wants some change. Jet admires this, but tells her that it would be better if it were blue, the shade of her eyes.

Katara is annoyed that no one notices that most of the food is gone, and that she has to make a quick jaunt to the marketplace because her brother outright refuses to hunt while he's going to be on "vacation." Aang won't, Haru scares the game too much, The Duke takes on Sokka's attitude, and Jet shrugs apologetically. Zuko goes with her, because "he knows the terrain and atmostsphere more," and Jet tags along.

She buys the necessary supplies and bargains down the shopkeepers so they have a extra money set aside for an emergency. Zuko and Jet are arguing again, and she is trying to distract them by asking both to carry some of the food when a loud gong echoes throughout the area. They all freeze, and their hands drop to their weapons, when someone shoves them to the side and tells them to have more respect for the procession.

The gong continues, but drums are added to it in a slow dirge. Then there's wailing.

The man at the head of the procession, an official dressed in what looks like the Fire Sages' garb with a few differences, reads from a long scroll.

"People of Gan Hui, sorrow has touched the shores of the Fire Nation. Agni, the blood that has run through the Royal Family's veins for generations, weeps for the dead lost in the Siege of the North."

Katara gasps, hears a sharp intake of breath at her side.

"The men were stolen by the savage and cruel wrath of the spirit of the moon and drowned in the Northern Water Tribe's chilled sea. They have fallen under the North's brutal assault. We have waited for loved ones to return to us. But there is none. These brave and honorable men have perished. They will not be forgotten, nor will their valiant efforts and deeds." He strode solemnly to the center of the street and raised both hands. The crowd bowed, fist against a raised palm. "We lay these souls to rest, by the power of Agni."

The Waterbender hears nothing else. All she can think of is slamming two Fire Nation soldiers into the frigid seas, the water that was topped with ice floes, the currents that took a little girl who fell through the ice, the waves that hid the cold, the icy knives that stung bare flesh and make teeth grit, even under the thickest parka. She sees Aang, not himself, destroying the ships and raising waves taller than any of the ice palaces—at the time, she felt awed and even a bit triumphant, but all she can think about are bodies under the sea.

And how many people had she condemned? She hadn't given it too much thought until now, but her ice was just as deadly as the Northern Sea and her water blasts could knock over five soldiers. All those people—not just at the Northern Water Tribe...

I'm a killer.

Zuko is paler than she's ever seen him before when the list of the dead is read. It is a long list, but he stands numb when "Lieutenant Jee" pierces through the air like an arrow fired, and all he could do is bow his head. He stares blankly at the ground, and his hands shake. Jet looks dispassionate, almost apathetic, but Katara is nearly trembling from the list, the long list, and the fact she helped make the list that long. She and Zuko glance at each other, and a look passes between them that she can only describe as understanding.

The ceremony ends, and they start to shuffle back to camp.

"What do you call a thousand soldiers at the bottom of the North Sea?" Jet mutters to himself with a smirk. "A good start."

Katara whirls around and punches him. Blood drips from his nose. When the necessary yelling and reluectant healing is over, Jet grumbles, "They were invading your sister tribe and killing your people. They were evil."

"Most soldiers now are forcibly drafted." Zuko interjects sharply. "They're threatened."

"They should desert, then, if they disagree."

"And bring death or worse upon their families and themselves?"

Jet opens his mouth to say something, but Katara cuts him off. "You don't know the situation they're in, Jet." She thinks of the hopeless villagers at Jang Hui, the naive students at Aang's school, the coughing industrial workers, the scrawny children that played in the alley as they shopped. She thinks of Zuko's crew, faceless to her, but wondering if one of those children are one of theirs, raised to hate, raised to kill. She looks at Zuko's dull eyes and recognizes grief, suffering, pain—and knowledge. He's fingering the edge of his basket and not looking at any of them. She wonders if Jee would have made it to the group if he was still alive.

Katara moves her food around her plate listlessly, later, at the little spot, sitting on a thick blanket. She and Zuko sit together, legs touching, silent. Zuko has a double helping of curry, sprinkled with fire flakes. He glances briefly in her direction, and Katara thinks she sees a bit of the sadness softening.


The night is unusually windy, and little droplets are hitting the temple. Aang is looking up at the sky and wondering if he should close the panels that acted like a screen against storms, but they're all waiting for Sokka to return with Chit Sang and Hakoda with some game. They're all tense, and Katara keeps moving so her thoughts don't wander off and tangle as they do when she's worried. Toph is flicking pebbles at everyone, which isn't exactly helping matters, and Jet's trying to get the fire started for the rice and for warmth. The spark rocks snap and spit, but nothing's happening. Toph groans impatiently.

"I'm trying, okay?" Jet huffs impatiently. Zuko, behind him, his face unreadable, is fetching various cooking instruments with barking orders from Katara. The clatter soon echoes against a brief lightning flash. Their eyes dart to look at the sky, then at each other, then at their working hands. Zuko chops the vegetables and shoots Katara a look, which she doesn't see.

Jet exclaims in relief when the wood begins to smoke, but the tiny flames are soon extinguished by the increasing, pelting rain.

He swears, tries again, striking the green stones against each other furiously. Tiny sparks leap on the wood, but never burn.

"Jet, have you got the fire started yet?" Katara asks distractedly, cooking pot tucked underneath her arm and a bag of rice leaning against her leg as she tries to use a wooden spoon to knock down a salt cellar.

"Not yet, Katara," Jet irritably replies. "The spark rocks aren't working at all; the damn wood isn't—"

The small stack bursts into flames, cracking loudly into the chilly air.

"Whew! That feels warm!" Katara sighs just as she turns around. "That was awfully fast, Jet."

"It was Sparky over here," Toph drawls, leaning back at her place around the fire. "It went up in a few seconds."

Katara couldn't understand why the girl's wide smile rattled her.


Zuko lights the fires from now on.

It's odd, Katara thinks, how she used to think when it was Jet's little routine, it was hardly noticeable and just an eye-blink of small gratitude. But when Zuko did, it felt like a provocation and as if a space was opening.

She doesn't exactly dwell on it, but every time she and Jet start to get into insignificant but frequent spats, Katara thinks of the cooking fire. She thinks of Zuko more and in ways that leave her angry and frustrated and tense and wishing. She watches Zuko and Aang's Firebending practices, watches sweat drip down his brow, focuses on Zuko's bare and muscular form, admires how the flames wisp and spin into thin air, offers cool drinks, and touches hands when she holds out the cups. She fights with Jet about The Duke with a new dagger and about being bounty hunters and traveling for years and the necessity of pre-emptive strikes. She and Zuko bump legs when they wash dishes or rinse clothes or put away food or practice bending. She then looks at her father's alert gaze, then at Toph's constant smirks, then at Zuko's soft look that she'd never noticed, then at Jet's hard twist of his mouth whenever Zuko is brought up, and she finally screams at Zuko on a grassy hill after a painful separation and weary air battle. She's being immature, she's not making sense, she's bringing back past hurts, and she feels triumphant and horrified when Zuko's smile breaks down, and she storms away to forget.

He takes her to Yon Rha and holds her afterwards when she cries and wonders if she was a good enough daughter. His fingers run through her hair, and rain pours down on them—herself, him, Appa—but he continues to comfort her. He tells her he's sorry. Jet later tells her he would have done it for her, but she isn't cheered by the sentiment at all. She stares at the blue fabric of her tent, alone, and wonders about the difference between her and him and Zuko.


The play weeks later was a disaster, and Katara actually fights with Jet for the last time. He starts it by demanding to know about the catacombs and she fuels it by snapping at him that it was personal and private and it all goes downhill from there. There's frenzied grabbing and occasional whispering because people are beginning to stare, so they move to a more private spot behind the theater where Jet grips her hand and asks her if she really wanted a future with him, because he did not think he wanted one with her. Katara yanks her hand away and tells him that she wants a world with peace, and it wouldn't happen if he wanted to go gallivanting all over the continent and kill Fire Nation criminals for the rest of his life.

He starts defending his ideals, and Katara remembers a distinct whistle, a smirk, a relentless swing of swords, a flaming arrow, a deep-seeded prejudice that had never ended. Jet is willing to kill, no hesitation, to make the world better. For the greater good. And Katara is tired of fighting, tired of hatred, tried of death. Perhaps her way isn't the best way. Perhaps mercy did get you killed. Perhaps this is way Jet is still alive.

But Katara cuts Jet off and tells him it's over and leaves in tears.


Zuko comes to the kitchen, where she's finished having a long cry and refuses to look at him because she looks like a mess. A blanket is draped over her form, the windows are closed so the night breeze doesn't drift in, and the house is silent as he wordlessly squeezes her shoulders. She looks up at him and sighs and likes how he's quiet at the right moments.

He kisses her brow and lights the stove to brew her some tea, and Katara smiles because she loves him.