The Avatar world and characters belong to Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.
So I know it's been a long time since I last updated. I'm a little out of practice with writing and with my own story so this chapter could very well reflect all of that. But I figured since I found the enthusiasm to write again, I might as well share it rather than waiting until I felt like it was absolutely perfect.
So I hope you enjoy it; flaws and all.
"Zuko…"
Zuko's shoulders tensed at the warning tone in Katara's voice. He was prepared to fight her on this issue though; it had been bugging him for weeks. Determined, he pulled his arms out of the soapy water and crossed them as he turned to face her.
They had had this argument before. Weeks ago when he had tried to help her with the dishes and she had accused him of trying to 'sneak' their marriage onto her.
Katara frowned at him from the kitchen doorway of the holiday home on Ember Island; crossing her arms in response to Zuko's defensive position.
"You have already prepared and cooked for all the meals today, and every single other day. As your friend, it's not nice to see you doing all the work. Let me do this," Zuko argued, trying to remind her that yesterday she said she would be nicer to him.
"But I don't mind doing it. And you're doing your bit to help already; you're training Aang!" Katara countered, stepping forwards.
"It's not the same thing and you know it, you help Aang with his waterbending practice too! I want to help; you're not being fair."
Katara paused for a moment. "You really want to help do the dishes? There isn't anything else to this?" She checked.
Zuko scowled; what did she think he was going to answer? Yes Katara, doing the dishes is part of my master plan to trick you into being my wife. Oh wait, you already are technically my wife and you already agreed that you wouldn't deny the existence of that fact anymore. So really this is part of my other master plan to… trick you into forgetting how to do the dishes.
"I just want to help," Zuko answered instead; having learnt that a sarcastic retort wouldn't help him convince Katara of anything. "It sounds odd but I know Uncle would be disappointed to see me letting you do all the cooking and cleaning. He taught me better than that."
"But…" Katara began, trying to think of a way to argue. Finally, she opted for just telling him the truth, "I just like to keep busy; it's my way of coping with all of this."
Zuko sighed. "That doesn't mean you have to do it all by yourself. We can both do it."
Katara gave him a hard stare while she mulled the idea over. "Fine. I'll rinse and you can dry."
Zuko picked up a nearby cloth from the marble countertop and towelled off his dripping forearms. He figured that even though he hadn't convinced Katara to take on less of the chores, at least she hadn't screamed at him for trying to help. It was progress.
Katara looked into the bowl of dishes and then back at Zuko. "I didn't think royalty did the dishes." She remarked with a question in her tone.
"Me and Uncle were busboys at a tea shop in the lower ring of Ba Sing Se," Zuko shrugged as they stood side by side.
Katara nodded but didn't respond, instead she just began cleaning at the bowl in front of her using her bending.
Zuko assumed it was because she was uncomfortable with the reminder of Ba Sing Se and his betrayal. In truth, Katara had been struck by the realisation that although she was married to Zuko, she knew very little about him.
"I miss it sometimes," Zuko admitted quietly. "Working in Uncle's tea shop."
Katara looked over at him in surprise. "Really?"
"Yeah. Before Azula… summoned us, I had really started to enjoy my life there. It was peaceful," He explained wistfully.
"I have to admit, I hated living in Ba Sing Se!" Katara scrunched up her nose. "There were so many rules."
They grinned at each other and at the odd sensation of making pleasant small-talk while they worked. Katara was almost disappointed when she handed Zuko the last dish to dry.
"I slept in this morning," She told him and he nodded, listening as he ran the cloth over the bowl. He looked up at her when she didn't carry on with her story. "Normally, well, I guess I'm used to waking up at the sound of you and Aang getting up," She explained.
"Ah," Zuko realised. "The rooms are much more spread apart here then the sleeping quarters of the Western Air Temple. It's harder to hear other people."
Katara nodded. "Well, I was starting to like getting up early… would you mind waking me up too next time?" She asked.
"Of course." He placed the bowl on top of his stack of dishes and moved to place them away in the cupboard while Katara deposited the clean chopsticks and utensils back into the cutlery drawer.
"Thanks, Zuko." She smiled as they made their way to rejoin the group in the grand living room. Aang and Suki were playing a game of Pai Sho, while Toph sat next to the board laughing as she listened to Aang slowly losing the game, again. They were sitting on the floor, with Suki's back leaning against the sofa that Sokka was lounging on as he read a scroll from the library.
The next day, Katara temporarily regretted her request when Zuko knocked timidly against her door which was half open. She liked being up early, but the actual waking up part was horrible.
Katara struggled to open her eyes and squinted at Zuko from across the room.
"Uh… Morning," He awkwardly cleared his throat.
"Okay," Katara grumbled, remembering that she had literally requested this. By the time Katara managed to pull herself out of her bed, she could faintly hear the sound of Zuko and Aang making their way down the stairs.
While the boys practiced their mediation and training in the courtyard of the villa, Katara headed down to the beach. She had learned how to fashion herself a surfboard out of ice using her waterbending and began hitting the waves. For someone who was a self-taught surfer she was rather proud with her progress.
But Katara was more surprised after breakfast when Zuko insisted on helping her dry the dishes again. She had assumed it would be a dinner-only thing for some reason.
"This is getting excessive," She told him when she found him in the kitchen after lunch with the dishes.
Zuko smirked at her. "Yeah, your chore-load is excessive."
Katara rolled her eyes and flicked some of the dirty dish water at him.
And by some miracle, that became their routine. He would wake her in the morning and insist on helping her clean up after every meal. Katara found herself taking longer and longer to wash the dishes after each meal, enjoying the conversation too much to focus on the task.
On their fourth night on Ember Island, Katara noticed Zuko rather hurriedly clearing the plates and cutlery from the table. She watched him warily as he piled up the dishes into his arms. With a mischievous glance over at Katara; he dashed away to the kitchen.
Suspiciously, Katara followed him, which made Zuko walk faster. Katara started to chase after him.
"Hey! Zuko! What are you up to?" She rushed into the kitchen after him and found him standing by the sink. He flashed her a grin as he tossed the drying cloth at her across the space. It hit her in the face lightly as her arms flailed and failed to catch it.
"I'm afraid you have been demoted."
"No way! That is not how it works!" Katara complained playfully, smiling as she gripped the cloth between her hands.
"You snooze you lose, you can dry this time," Zuko teased her. Grumbling to herself, she joined him at the counter.
There was a moment of comfortable silence before Katara spoke up. "I still find it weird that we're hiding from the Fire Lord in his own house."
"I told you, my father hasn't come here since he was actually happy. And that was a long time ago."
Katara still couldn't fathom growing up in a family like Zuko's.
She wondered at how Zuko felt living with their group now. A group of people so different to that of Azula and her clique. The gang were a group of caring friends, somehow finding a way to laugh together as they held what felt like the weight of the world on their shoulders.
Though, the group hadn't exactly always been caring and friendly to Zuko while he'd been travelling with them.
Or more specifically, Katara hadn't been friendly to Zuko while he'd been travelling with them. Not until this week at least.
"I'm sorry for the way I treated you when you first joined the group and for a long time after that too. You've made real changes and I'm sorry it took me so long to trust you when everyone else could see it," Katara told him.
Zuko's hands stilled in the water as he looked over at Katara. He was surprised by her change in topic and surprised further by her unnecessary apology.
"Katara, you don't need to apologize. I understand."
"No, Zuko. I was awful to you because I couldn't let go of my prejudices," Katara shook her head at him as she hugged the tea pot that she had been drying to her chest.
Zuko frowned at her. Why, even when she was being nice to him, did they always have to argue?
Zuko let out a sigh and returned to scrubbing at the pot in front of him while he spoke. "Listen to me. You had good reason to hold on to them, Katara. You trusted me once and I let you and Aang down. I mean, did I spend those weeks severely wishing that you would get over it? Yes. But I also knew it was important for you to let your anger and disappointment out, and that you had to work through your feelings on your own terms rather than bottling them all up. I know you're a good person, Katara. But you don't belong on a pedestal. We all need to let out our rage and frustration sometimes and we don't always want to be nice to people we consider our enemies. You're only human."
Katara felt relief at his words, but she still couldn't shake the guilt that had begun to plague her recently. Gran Gran had always taught her that it was important to own up to your mistakes. With the comet only days away it felt more important than ever to make sure she had made her peace with her mistakes.
"You don't have to say that because we're…. friends now. I was a bitch to you," She admitted as she placed the teapot down before hopping up onto a clear space onto the marble countertop. Her legs dangled over the counter and her hands gripped at the edge of the marble as she frowned at him.
Zuko scrubbed harder at the pot, even though it was clean now.
"When I returned home after Ba Sing Se, I was so irritated and mad with my family and my friends. Even though going back to my old life was something that I had craved for years, once I got there… I was miserable.
And I knew that my father and sister were not good people, but Azula was, in her own twisted way, sort of looking out for me. They were treating me like family but I was still furious and unhappy. It took me a long amount of time to acknowledge how angry I felt and even longer to realise why. I was angry at myself for the choices I had made; for making the wrong choices.
I'm not telling you this because I want you to feel sympathy for me at a time when I didn't deserve any. I'm saying it because I've been in that position before, where you bottle all of your emotions and I know how painful it is.
As frustrating as it was that you were not nice to me. I knew where I stood with you, I knew that you were mad at me and I knew that that wasn't a game or a trick. That was how you genuinely felt. You're never afraid to show your actual emotions, you don't suppress them or hide them and I guess you don't know how rare that is for me to see in a person. I'm not used to it. So even if I hated that you hated me, I could respect that those were your feelings."
Katara nodded, letting his words sink in for a few moments. She wasn't sure how to respond. Slowly, she pushed herself off of the counter and stood at his side, gently placing her hand on his upper arm. Zuko turned to face her gradually, offering her a small smile.
Katara took this as a sign that it was okay to hug him and she wrapped her arms around his waist, leaning her head into his chest as Zuko brought his arms up around her in return.
"I'm glad we're friends now," She told him.
"Aghh!" Aang roared as he finished off a firebending technique. Zuko stood, watching his form with his arms crossed and one hand cupped to his chin. Zuko nodded, grudgingly.
"Better but it still needs to be more ferocious! Run through it again," Zuko told him.
Aang let out a sigh of exhaustion, but reset his stance to begin the form again.
They were training in the courtyard of the Fire Nation's holiday home again. The island was adorned by several hills and mountains made of a dark granite stone that slanted out of the ground. The royal home was fitted at the bottom of a small mountain, providing excellent cover away from prying eyes. The forth side of the courtyard was backed by the granite hill which meant that it was the perfect spot for the boys to practice their training.
They had been on Ember Island for five days now and Zuko still couldn't shake how surreal it was to be staying in his old family home with the Avatar's gang while they waited to face the potential end of the world and hopefully end of the 100 year war.
It had felt a little weird over the past few days. But this afternoon, he was particularly distracted. His conversation with Katara from the previous night kept popping back into his head.
It all felt surreal because the people Zuko was with now, and the person Zuko was himself, were so vastly different to when he was a young boy spending his summers in this extravagant villa. It was even weirder because Zuko felt incredibly different to how he'd been when he last visited the island so recently with Azula, Ty Lee and Mai. Back when he was pretending to himself that his family's side was the right side to be on and that being the perfect prince was his destiny.
His conversation with Katara about his time after Ba Sing Se meant that today he couldn't help but think back to an evening on Ember Island that he had spent with his sister and her friends after a terrible house party. Where they had sat around the fire and Zuko had tried to confront his irrational deep-seated anger. Zuko could still hear the creepy voices of Lo and Li re-introducing the island to them: "Like footsteps being washed away from the sand. Ember Island gives everyone a clean slate. Ember Island reveals the true you."
Zuko knew that he could never truly have a clean slate for the things that he had done in his life, but he hoped that the person he was now was the true him. For the first time in a long time, what he was doing felt right at least. But that didn't make the experience of staying in the villa and grappling with painful memories of his childhood and family any less weird.
Aang began to work through his firebending set again and Zuko was brought out of his reverie by the movement, trying to refocus on the young Avatar.
Katara and Toph were sitting on the steps to the left of the courtyard, lazing in the shade of the veranda. They had both spent the morning practising their own bending. Katara had gone ice surfing when she first woke up and moved onto practising her waterbending forms by the sea whilst Toph perfected her sandbending. They were both now avoiding the hot sun when Sokka burst into the courtyard excitedly with his arms full of groceries and Suki trailing behind him with an amused expression on her face and a piece of parchment in her hands.
"You guys are not going to believe this," Sokka announced, interrupting the practice. "There's a play about us."
"We were just in town and we found this poster," Suki explained as Sokka gestured to her to brandish the poster at the group.
"What? How is that possible?" Katara asked in confusion as she and Aang moved towards the poster for a better look. Zuko used the break from training to sit down on the stone edge of a fountain that had not been used in many years and wiped away his sweat with a cloth.
"Listen to this!" Suki turned the poster towards Sokka for him to read it aloud. "A Boy in the Iceberg is a new playwright brought to you by the critically acclaimed Ember Island Players –."
"Ugh!" Zuko interrupted. "My mother used to take us to see them. They butchered 'Dragons in Love' every year."
"Should we go see it?" Aang asked.
"I mean, is it really a good idea for us to go see a play about ourselves?" Katara worried.
"If you want to ruin your evening watching a most likely inaccurately written story about us, which will be wrecked further by terrible actors that will leave you feeling miserable, then you should go watch it." Zuko griped.
"No thanks," Toph grimaced. "I have sat through enough boring, stuck-up theatre performances for an entire lifetime."
Aang kicked at the dirt with his feet. "We never get to have fun anymore," He grumbled quietly, Katara standing next to him put her hand on his shoulder.
"We can do something else fun," She suggested.
"Okay!" Aang beamed up at her. Aang glanced back over at Zuko sitting at the fountain. "Can we do something fun now? Can we take a break Sifu Hotman, please?" Aang pleaded.
They really didn't have time to be taking 'fun' breaks in the middle of their training sessions but Zuko felt bad for shooting down the play so forcefully.
"Sure," He conceded.
Aang jumped in the air with excitement. "Okay! What should we do? A fun game… oh! I know! The monks and I used to play this game called 'Hide and Seek' where while one person counts to a hundred with their eyes closed –."
"We know what Hide and Seek is, Twinkle Toes," Toph remarked with a sly grin. "I'm in."
"There is no way that that is fair!" Sokka complained as he handed Suki the bag of groceries so that he could freely point at Toph. "Toph will just be able to sense everyone in a matter of seconds!"
"Come on Sokka, the challenge will just make it more fun," Aang tried to persuade his friend.
"I do like a good challenge," Sokka's chest puffed out a little as he scratched his chin fondly. Suki rolled her eyes as she headed in the direction of the kitchen.
"Alright, is everyone in?" Aang asked once Suki had returned. Everyone nodded.
"I'll count first," Toph volunteered. "Get hiding. 1…, 2…, 3…, 4..." Toph began to count and everyone immediately sprinted away.
Katara spotted Sokka and Suki making their way down to the beach, probably hoping to use the sand as a cover from Toph's all seeing-feet. Aang was already trying to scale a tree. Katara had an idea and headed up the stairs to her bedroom.
She swung open the wooden closet in her room, hoping to seek refuge inside. But the wardrobe was already filled to the brim with boxes, Katara tried to move one of the boxes, but decided that they were too heavy for her to shift them in time. She rushed back into the hallway and into the next room.
She twisted the handle on the wardrobe in Zuko's room but was disappointed to find Zuko himself already sitting inside.
"Sorry, this spot is taken." Zuko teased as he tried to shut the wardrobe door from Katara. "Find your own spot."
"Nuh uh," Katara pulled the door back open, she could see there was a little space left in the closet next to the firebender. "I'm running out of time, let me in or we'll both just get caught."
"Fine," Zuko pouted but budged over. Katara climbed inside and tried to sit down whilst she shut the door. With the door firmly shut, she suddenly felt very squashed. The closet was a lot smaller than she had realised.
Katara felt her cheeks turning red as she tried to shift into a comfortable sitting position but kept elbowing Zuko as they were squished together.
"Stop moving," Zuko complained. "Toph's going to hear you."
"She doesn't have super hearing, Zuko," Katara giggled as her eyes gradually adjusted to the dark. Zuko could feel the vibrations of her laughter in the small space.
As her laughter quietened, Katara became very aware of how silent it was in their dark and cramped space. Perhaps it was the adrenaline of the game, but she could feel her heart beating quicker. She worried that Zuko would be able to hear it as each heartbeat felt unnecessarily pronounced.
She wished she could breathe quieter too; she was breathing so loudly in this small space. Maybe because it was so small and quiet that just made her breathing sound louder.
Zuko's hand brushed against her fingers and she felt a little jolt of excitement race through and up her arm.
Katara blushed harder as she turned to try and look at him in the dark. She couldn't really see his face but she could vaguely tell that their faces were not far apart.
For a moment, she forgot everything going on outside of their wardrobe; she pushed the war and the worries out her mind and was distracted by the sound of her breathing and the feel of his hand next to hers.
Rather than shying her hand away, Katara's fingers gently crept towards the palm of Zuko's hand. She felt a little lightheaded, this was all so unfamiliar to her but she felt encouraged by her own rush of giddiness. Their shoulders were already touching but Katara felt herself leaning into him slightly.
She could hear Zuko's breathing now. She could hear how close he sounded and in the dark she could see the shape of his face hovering just by hers. His face became closer and Katara was unsure of which one of them had leaned in further; perhaps they both had.
Their foreheads pressed against one another's and Katara felt as their noses lightly collided. She savoured the moment as they shared the same breath. Her eyes had closed in the dark, and she reopened them to look at Zuko. She realised he was waiting for her to make the last move, to signal that it would be okay to kiss her. Katara began to tilt her mouth closer, to finally close the gap between them.
Toph flung open the closet doors. "Aha! I found you!" She cried as Zuko and Katara sprung apart, they both sat there slightly dazed in the sudden light.
"Hello? I can hear your breathing. I caught you."