Chapter Nine

Her hands were still outstretched in front of her, feeling for obstacles. She felt another pair of hands capture hers, gently this time. She jumped just a bit and the hands hesitated but then clasped tightly.

"I'm sorry." It was him. He was okay. She didn't know what to say. Her mouth was hanging open and her head kept shaking. She couldn't believe it.

"You better be sorry, you idiot," Djang cut in furiously. "Do you realize how badly you scared her? Who do you think you are?" He was partly right, Katara thought; her heart was still pounding uncomfortably and her head was spinning - but that might partly be from shock now.

"I didn't know!" Zuko's grip tightened on her hands. "Katara, I am so, so sorry. Please - I don't even know what to say, but I'm sorry." His voice almost sounded choked up. She squeezed his hands back, taking another step closer. She pulled her hands out of his grip gently, putting her hands up higher. When they touched his shirt, she took another step, putting her arms around him. She felt him slowly embrace her as well.

And then she was crying. And unless she was very much mistaken, so was Zuko. They stood for a moment. Katara never wanted to let go. Here was someone who knew her, where she came from and who she really was. Someone she had feared dead. And here they were, in this cold, dank dungeon, and she couldn't even see him. Distantly, she registered Djang's footsteps retreating to his own area. Eventually, she felt Zuko's arms loosen. She held on for a moment longer, then stepped back. "Do you want to sit?" she asked awkwardly. What could she say in a situation like this?

There was a pause before he uttered a clipped "oh - yes." Wondering if he had nodded his agreement before realizing he had to speak, she stepped backwards twice, finding the edge of her mat with her heel, and sank down onto it. She turned her head down and away and felt her hair swing down in front of her face. Hesitantly, Zuko brushed it back behind her ear. He didn't ask, though, and she wondered how much he knew about her scars.

She opened her mouth to ask if he had heard the story, but something very different came out. "What do they look like?" Her question was a whisper, shocking her more than it seemed to faze Zuko.

She had run her fingertips over the scars many times. She knew they were mostly smooth, except for her right cheek, which was rippled and puckered, but she needed to know how other people saw her now. "How do you mean?" Zuko sounded unsurprised by her question. She didn't know how to ask. She opened her mouth but closed it again, just shaking her head. She closed her eyes, fighting more tears. There was a beat of silence, then Zuko spoke evenly. "They're shiny and pink, lighter around the very edge and darkest here -" his fingertip traced down the side of her nose and across her cheek - "and here." It continued up along the lower edge of her eye. "Those spots are more red," he added. "The rims of your eyes are not as bad. You got lucky; they're just a little scarred."

"I healed them," she told him. She thought about what he had said, tracing the contours of her scar with her own fingertips. "Thank you." She hoped he knew how sincere she was and how much his honesty meant to her. But then, he must know how it felt when people lied about him to his face.

He said nothing, and she wondered, as she often did when people went silent, if he was nodding at her again. After a moment she asked the question she had originally meant to. "Did you hear about how it happened?"

"I heard bits and pieces," he admitted. "I heard that you fought Azula and that she burned you. I didn't know you were..." His voice trailed off.

"Blind?" Her voice was harsher than she intended. "No, it's fine. It's the truth."

"I thought you saw me when I was running towards you," he apologized. "I didn't mean to scare you so badly." She had been wondering about his unusual display of affection. Now he explained, "I had heard you were injured, and it had been so long since I'd seen you - any of you. Where are Aang and Sokka and Toph? Did you see my uncle before you were brought here?"

"Ty Lee captured me while I was away from camp and they brought me here alone - Azula said they had orders to bring us in one by one. We hadn't made it to Iroh yet, but the others should have arrived more than two weeks ago, I think. But what happened to you? We were so..." She thought a moment. 'Worried' wasn't the right word. "We didn't know what to do," she finished. "They hit us with some kind of gas that really messed us up. By the time Sokka and I could walk around without gasping for breath, we had no idea where to start looking for you. I'm sorry -"

"Katara," Zuko interrupted, "stop. There's nothing you could have done. I was running one minute, and the next thing I knew I was waking up on a ship headed straight for Caldera City."

"What happened then?" She didn't know if he would want to talk about it, but she couldn't stop herself from asking. "Djang said you've been in and out of the dungeons. What do they want from you?"

He took a moment to answer. "They want... different things. They want me to tell them about you and Aang. Did you know you're almost as famous as the Avatar?" His voice lilted a bit with humor. "They don't know much about Sokka and Toph - anything, really. And don't worry, I didn't tell them anything. When we got to the palace, I had a huge gash and a swollen bruise on my head. I think someone must have kicked me or hit me with a rock."

"A soldier kicked you," she told him, "after you fell."

"Ah, good to know. Anyway, it was obvious that I had a head injury and it was already making me nauseous and unsteady, so I just went ahead and pretended the damage was a little worse than it actually was."

"You told them you lost your memory?" She couldn't believe they would believe such a thing.

"Not all of it," he told her. "Just the last week or so before I was captured. I told them the last I remembered we were heading to an Air Temple, but that I couldn't remember which one. I just conveniently forgot to mention that Sokka and Toph existed at all. They keep taking me to different places, trying to make me let something slip about Aang's plans. Usually I'm just kept upstairs in the family wing, but they've taken me to an Earth Kingdom outpost a few times. I think they were trying to see if I was worried they were on to something, and the first time we headed into the Earth Kingdom I have to admit I was nervous. But I don't think I gave anything away."

"Is that where you've been these last few weeks?"

"No." His voice was suddenly bitter. "There was a military tour through the Fire Nation, and I was the royal representative. The Fire Nation thinks I've returned to help my father, so the royal advisers dressed me up and paraded me around to prove it."

"But they're keeping you in the dungeons?" She was confused. "Why aren't they trying to reclaim you for real?"

"They know I won't support them," he said simply. "They want me as a puppet, but my father is scared of what I would do if I wasn't locked up. He doesn't want me up in my chambers, even under guard. No one who knows about it will give anything away; they're too scared of what will happen to their families if the Fire Lord finds out who told."

Katara nodded silently. It was a lot to take in. A tentative touch to the back of her hand made her jump, but she quickly recovered, embarrassed, and reached back down to take his hand.