Disclaimer: The Avatar world and characters belong to Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.
Thank you so much for the reviews and the support!
Also I'm sorry if people think this chapter is too similar to the canon; I'm following the season 3 storyline and this chapter just wasn't part of my plot that will diverge from the canon storyline. Please appreciate it as a chapter building up for the next chapter, I'm just trying to move my story along.
Everyone was in high spirits when they landed at the safe point to make camp for the night. The group pitched the tents which had been stored in Appa's saddle, and Katara started cooking the rice for dinner by the fire whilst Sokka put up her tent. Everyone seemed happy as they had managed to survive Azula's attack.
But Katara didn't share the same sense of relief; she was still stewing over the fact she had finally begun to resolve issues with her father only to be separated again. All this war ever did was rip her away from the people she loved. The bitter string of being separated from her father yet again had reminded her that she would never be reunited with her mother.
"Wow, camping. It really seems like old times again, doesn't it?" Aang commented to the group over dinner, breaking Katara out of her dejected reverie.
"Well this is my first time camping with you guys. If you really want it to feel like old times, I could, uh, chase you around for a while and try to capture you," Zuko joked.
Everyone around the campfire laughed except Katara. They were about a fortnight away from the arrival of Sozin's Comet, and Zuko wanted to make jokes about how he used to try and capture the world's only hope?
"Ha, ha," she remarked sarcastically, staring into the fire as the pot of rice simmered below her. Sokka's laugh faded into an awkward sigh as he ignored his sister's bad mood. He held his drink up to the centre of the group.
"To Zuko," Sokka toasted. "Who knew that after all those times he was sort of an ass-hole, today he'd be our hero!"
"Hear, hear!" Aang, Suki and Toph toasted back, raising their drinks. Toph punched Zuko not so lightly in the arm as he sat there, stunned.
"I'm touched," Zuko admitted, blushing slightly. "I don't deserve this."
Katara could feel her blood boiling. He didn't deserve it at all! It was Zuko's fault that the Air Temple had been discovered, since it was his psychopathic sister who had found them.
Zuko brought trouble with him, whether he meant to or not, due to his messed up and evil family. She shuddered to think that she was, by law, part of that very family now. Katara grit her teeth and fought the urge to physically shake her head at the thought; she could never be tied to the fire nation - they had murdered her mother.
It would have been hard enough for Katara to accept Zuko into the group as it was, but it was ten times worse with them being married. For so long, Zuko had been the face of the enemy. Zuko had been their actual enemy for the better part of a year! In Katara's mind, Zuko represented the whole of the Fire Nation, his royalty making him a symbol of their people, even if he was on their side now. How could she be married to someone who was part of the culture that had destroyed hers? It disgraced the memory of her late mother. Why on earth did the others feel like celebrating him?
"Finally, something we agree on," Katara muttered as she stood up from her seat on the ground and left the group without another word.
Everyone stared after her in confusion.
"Ugh, what's with her?" Sokka asked.
"I wish I knew," Zuko answered, standing up slowly before following Katara.
"What's with him?!" Sokka asked in confusion.
Zuko followed Katara to her seat by the cliff edge. The sky was dark and cloudy, but the nearly full moon shone through at intervals. Katara glanced up at the sound of an intruder. When she saw it was Zuko, Katara glared at him. She pushed herself up once more, and began to stomp away.
Zuko's patience had reached its limit. He knew better than to follow Katara in one of her bad moods and bait her but he couldn't take it anymore! Every time Zuko thought that he might finally be moving in a positive direction with Katara, she turned around and found a way to hate him even more.
Zuko knew that Katara maintained that she had plenty of reasons to hate him: his actions in Ba Sing Se, trying to capture Aang, marrying her, having sex with her on their wedding night, being from the Fire Nation. But hadn't his actions in the past month made up for any of that?
"This isn't fair!" Zuko flung his arms out wide as he called after her, exasperated. "Everyone else seems to trust me now! What is it with you?"
Katara did trust him. That was the problem. He had helped Aang, had helped Sokka, had rescued Suki and her father, and had saved her life as well as facing off against his own sister.
It had hit Katara the morning Zuko had gone to her room to wake her up and help her escape -she trusted him again. But it wasn't because he'd come back for her; no, she realised it when he had picked up her shoes and when he had stopped during their escape, risking both of their lives, just for one of those stupid rings. He'd thought of the shoes and rings before she did, and it had shown Katara that when it came down to it, in a moment against his family and the Fire Nation, he had cared about her more.
She trusted him. And Katara was furious at herself, because she didn't want to trust him again. She had let her guard down with Zuko before, and it had ended horrifically. Yet she'd been unable to stop herself from giving him her trust again regardless.
If Zuko could just be the horrible person he used to be, then everything would be so much simpler; Katara could justifiably hate him and not have to feel bad about it. She was angry because his actions challenged her perception that the Fire Nation was inherently evil, and that he was evil, and those challenges made everything so much more confusing. Why couldn't Zuko just leave her alone? Why couldn't he accept she didn't want to be friends with him, and that she would prefer to hate him?
"Oh, everyone trusts you now?" Katara turned away from the sea view to snarl at him. "I was the first one to trust you, remember? Back in Ba Sing Se, and you betrayed me! You betrayed all of us!"
Zuko scowled at the memory. His decisions under the crystal catacombs had not been his finest moments. How long would it take to make up for his mistakes there? Would she ever forgive him?
"What can I do to make it up to you?" Zuko had grown up knowing that his parents didn't love each other. He decided that if he was going to have a loveless marriage with Katara, then at least he could try to have a marriage where his wife didn't openly hate him.
"You really want to know?" Katara began to step towards him. "Hmm, maybe you could reconquer Ba Sing Se in the name of the Earth King," She took another few steps until she was face to face with him, her head tilted up so she could glare up at him. "Or, I know! You could bring my mother back!" She shouted in his face.
Zuko sighed when Katara shoved past him. Was that it then? He could risk his life countless times trying to save her, her friends, and her family, but Katara would never forgive him for his actions in Ba Sing Se? He had betrayed the whole group with his mistake, Aang in particular – the boy had nearly died! But they had forgiven him. What was holding Katara back from doing the same?
Zuko spun around, grabbing her by the wrist to whirl her back towards him.
"So you blame me for your mother?" His voice was low.
"What?" Katara blinked at him in surprise.
"You're mad at me because of... your mother? That's why you won't trust me?" Zuko rephrased the question. He was trying to understand, not throw her mother's death in her face. It was the second time she had brought it up with him; he remembered her mentioning it in the Crystal Catacombs in Ba Sing Se. Could it be that she had connected her anger over her mother to her anger at him?
"I'm mad at you because you betrayed me in Ba Sing Se, and… and you're Fire Nation! You're the Prince of a country that has destroyed my culture and my family! That's why!" Katara spluttered defensively.
"What happened to her?" Zuko asked, his eyes brimming with sympathy.
Katara wrenched herself from his grasp and hurried away. With the back of her hand, she wiped away the angry tears that had sprung from the corner of her eyes as she walked, hot against her face in the night's cold air.
It had been a long day, Katara justified to herself. She was allowed to cry; that didn't make her weak. It wasn't weak of her to admit to herself that the grief still ached like a hollow hole in her heart. She knew that she could be strong even, if she still felt incomplete without her mother. Katara swallowed the lump forming in the back of her throat as she walked through camp and headed straight to the privacy of her tent. She undressed down to her bindings and climbed into her sleeping bag, where she laid in the dark, staring up at the tent ceiling. While she waited for sleep to overcome her, occasionally Katara wiped at the tears that dripped down her cheeks.
It had been so long without her mother, Katara could no longer tell if she clung to the pain of losing Kya, or if the pain clung to her, like a second skin. They were so interwoven at this point, Katara wasn't sure if she could be distinguished from her quiet pain now.
Zuko had stayed by the cliff edge, sitting down to process their recent argument and debate his new choices. Things between him and Katara had to change; Zuko knew that they would struggle to win the war if they couldn't all work together as a team. But, finally, he had an idea about how to help Katara move past her anger. Zuko made his way towards Sokka's tent.
In the morning, Katara emerged from her tent to make a start on breakfast. As she stepped out into the sunlight, Katara stared in disbelief at the semi-conscious Zuko sitting in front of her. He was perched on one of the low rocks, with his elbows resting on his knees and his head dropping at a slight angle. At the sound of her movement, Zuko's head quickly snapped up.
"You look terrible!" Katara criticised as she walked past him briskly. She reached into her bag for her comb and began brushing her hair, her back to Zuko in an attempt to ignore him and start her day.
"I waited out here all night," he told her, standing up. Katara tried to not let her hand still on the comb in her hair as she processed Zuko's words.
"What do you want?" She refused to let any pity colour her voice.
"I know who killed your mother," he declared from behind her. Katara's whole body froze at his words. "And I'm going to help you find him."
Katara turned around, staring at Zuko cautiously. Part of her wanted to jump at his offer immediately - this was the closure that she had thought she'd never get. But another part of her brain reminded katara that she shouldn't let Zuko get her hopes up. He'd let her down before.
She tilted her head up to stare directly into his tired eyes.
"Don't make promises you can't keep," she warned him.
Zuko stared her down. "Let me help you, Katara. I can help with this."
They stood like that, staring hard at each other, until Katara spoke again.
"Okay, but we do this my way," she said firmly. "Do you understand?"
Zuko nodded. He explained that he had figured out which soldiers had attacked her tribe using the information that Sokka had told him the night before, and that he knew how to find the Southern Raiders from military meetings with his father.
Together, they made their way towards Appa, Zuko with a bag of supplies slung over his shoulder. Aang was already awake, feeding a content Appa, and he waved at them as they approached.
"I need to borrow Appa," Katara told Aang.
"Why?" Aang asked as he turned back to the sky-bison. "Is it your turn to take a little field-trip with Zuko?" he joked.
"Yes. It is."
Aang swung back around to Katara, confused by her serious tone.
"Wait, what? What's going on?" He asked, concerned.
"We're going to find the man who took my mother from me," Katara declared.
Sokka had just exited from his nearby tent, and looked over in alarm at his sister's words.
"Sokka told me the story of what happened. I know who did it and I know how to find him," Zuko explained.
Aang frowned at them both. "Um, and what exactly do you hope to accomplish by finding this guy?" he asked sceptically.
Katara looked away, her shoulders slumping slightly and she walked past the avatar. "I knew you wouldn't understand," she grumbled.
"Wait, stop!" Aang called out, nervous about upsetting her. "I do understand! You're feeling unbelievable pain and rage. How do you think I felt about the sand-benders when they stole Appa? How do you think I felt about the Fire Nation when I found out what happened to my people?"
Katara wanted to turn around and tell Aang that she had been with him both of those times; she had seen him in his states of incredible pain and fury, and had let him express his emotions. She'd only stepped in when Aang had posed a serious threat, putting herself at risk to provide him with comfort and support both times. But she didn't need to turn around and say any of that because before she could open her mouth, Zuko had already jumped to her defence.
"She needs this, Aang," Zuko argued. "This is about getting closure and justice."
"I don't think so. I think this is about getting revenge," Aang disagreed.
"Fine! Maybe it is," Katara admitted angrily, spinning back to face him. "Maybe that's what I need. Maybe that's what he deserves."
This wasn't about bringing her mother back; Katara knew that it was impossible. And she knew that second to having her mother alive again, nothing else would really compare - nothing would satisfy that loss. She had been so helpless when her mother died that Katara couldn't pass up on the chance to get some sort of ending to it all. She couldn't leave the situation as it was.
Sokka stepped forward, his face frozen in a horrified mask. "Katara, she was my mother too," he said. "But I think Aang might be right. This won't bring her back, and it's not going to make you happy."
Katara gaped at her brother. How could he not want justice for their murdered mother?
"How can you say that?" She yelled at him. "Then you didn't love her like I did!"
"Katara!" He looked stricken.
A silence hung in the air between the four of them. Katara wanted to take her words back; she hadn't meant to hurt her brother. But she couldn't back down now. She was right about hunting down this man.
Aang closed his eyes, disappointed. "The monks used to say that revenge is like a two-headed rat-viper: while you watch your enemy go down, you're being poisoned yourself."
"That's cute. But this isn't Air Temple pre-school. It's the real world," Zuko cut in.
"I'm talking about the real world!" Aang urged. "Think about it! Sozin's Comet is fast approaching, we can't afford any time wasting distractions. We don't have time for you both to go away on a field-trip, I need Zuko here to keep teaching me firebending."
"This is not a time wasting distraction!" Katara yelled.
"He'll still be there after we end the war, why don't you wait a few weeks to cool down and then make a decision about the man?" Aang suggested, scratching his head nervously.
"Now that I know he's out there - now that I know we can find him, I feel like I have no choice," Katara told Aang and Sokka, her voice firm.
"Katara, you do have a choice. Forgiveness," Aang pleaded.
"That's the same as doing nothing," Zuko argued.
"No, it's not." Aang replied softly. "It's easy to do nothing. But it's hard to forgive."
Katara stood next to Zuko and tried not to snap at Aang and Sokka. She just wanted them to understand. She wished she could do as Aang was suggesting- let go of her pain and forgive the man who killed her mother. But she couldn't. The notion was absurd to her. Zuko was right; just as Aang wasn't raised in a small family with a mother figure like she was, Katara wasn't raised on air-temple principles, and thus what Aang was suggesting wasn't an option for her. Aang wasn't looking at the situation from her point of view - he couldn't understand.
"It's not just hard. It's impossible," Katara told him.
"I won't let you use Appa for this. It's wrong!" Aang cried. "I know what he did was wrong, but that doesn't justify revenge. We need to focus on the war. Don't go," Aang tried to order her.
Katara thought about walking away to just sneak back later and steal Appa. But she didn't want to wait any longer.
"I need to do this. I'm going to do this. If you stand in my way then I will still find a way to go and it will just take me even longer to do it. So you can either delay this or you can just support me," Katara snapped.
Aang stared at the ground for a while, and then looked back at Katara.
"I'm not going to support revenge. But I won't stand in the way," he said. "I can see that this is a journey you need to take. You need to face this man." Katara nodded at him, and began to climb up onto Appa. "But when you do, please don't choose revenge. Let your anger out and then let it go. Forgive him," Aang advised.
Zuko climbed into the saddle with their supplies as Katara took hold of the reigns. Sokka watched them both, standing next to Aang wordlessly. He was clearly too stunned by Katara's earlier comment to intervene any further.
"Thanks for understanding, Aang," Katara said, even though she wasn't sure Aang truly understood how much she needed this. "Yip, yip."