Disclaimer: I own nothing you might recognise from the series.
Notes: This request comes from Namacub95. Not a lot here, but I hope it's what was wanted.
Zuko's crazy sister was there, and for a moment Katara wasn't sure she'd manage to make it out. But then Iroh and Aang were behind her, then beside her and the tide of battle turned. Grimly she tuned out the sickening crunches and thuds of their opponents hitting walls and floor and concentrated on fighting her way out. Through it all the feel of bending, of pushing her limits and the feel of the water in the air and in her blood sang to her, beauty that underlay everything she did as a bender.
A feeling of joy shot through her when she saw the last member of their team appear, unharmed. Zuko was there. "Zuko!" she shouted with happiness.
He froze, looking confused. And then Azula shouted, "What are you waiting for?"
. . . Who was she talking to?
Katara hadn't let the interruption slow her, managing to pin Azula and beginning to trap her in ice. But she stopped in shock, confusion and dismay when Zuko freed his sister. "What are you doing?" she asked, aghast.
He stared back at her, those normally expressive golden eyes oddly blank. "What?" he asked, sounding confused. Confused. What in the Spirits' Names was he confused about?
Azula shrieked, "Ignore her! She's just trying to confuse you!"
Katara flinched. She was trying to confuse him? What he was doing didn't make sense. When he sent a flame fist at her, she barely blocked in time.
"I don't even know if my mother and sister are alive or dead because they had to leave before the Fire Nation discovered the enclave in Cheng-Dhu."
"He is," Zuko snapped. "I try to forget that I'm part scum."
"How are you doing? . . . You're a waterbender, and this is pretty . . . devoid of water."
"You don't still believe all that about the war and the superiority of the Fire Nation, right?"
"Zuko, why?" she asked, her voice cracking.
It didn't make sense.
"What are you talking about?" he asked her. As though she wasn't making sense. As though he didn't know her. As though everything he'd seen and done and had done to him didn't matter.
"Why are you doing this? After everything they've done to you, after everything you've said, why would you side with them now?" Katara heard herself pleading. She was ducking and dodging and striking on pure instinct.
For a moment her heart stopped when Azula seemed to magically appear behind Iroh. And then Azula began to airbend at the attacking Dai Li and Azula and her friends. Aiko. For that appearance alone Katara breathed a sigh of relief, even as she shook her head in confusion at the unexpected appearance of Zuko's other sister.
Zuko looked just as confused as Azula, his confusion increasing as the woman tearfully exclaimed, "I guess mother was right, there is no way to redeem a firebender." Then she and Zuko went at each other with a clash like two icebergs colliding and Katara's full concentration was taken up by keeping Azula from getting the better of her.
The relief from her shock and grief at Zuko's turncoat behaviour was short-lived. Aang had reached into himself, somehow summoning the power of the Avatar without it being a matter of panicked reaction, but while everyone froze to stare in awe, Azula attacked, sending Aang flying into the wall, Katara praying that the blackened spot on his chest was just his clothing.
She heard Aiko shouting at her to take Aang and run, Iroh covering her retreat, letting himself be absorbed into the masses of attacking Dai Li to divert them from going after Katara.
From there it all blurred into the swish of water as she sped through the underground, the rumble of stone as Toph took over the burden of rapid travel by bending while Katara desperately used every bit of her internal resources to try to heal Aang, cursing herself for scorning the healers at the Northern Tribe now that she needed those skills.
She was too occupied with keeping Aang alive and getting them all to safety aboard the ship her father's men had stolen from the Fire Nation to say more to the others than a terse, "Zuko turned on us. He's with them now."
It wasn't until later, sat on the deck of the ship, Shuga on one side, Appa on the other and Toph, Sokka, her father and Bato sitting beside them, that she was able to tell them of the fight, of Zuko's turning on her, of Aiko taking on her sister and Iroh's sacrifice to allow her and Aang to escape. "And it was like he didn't," her breath hitched. She wasn't going to cry over that firebending jerk, she wasn't! "It was like he didn't even understand why I was surprised," Katara told them. "He just . . . stared." A tear dropped onto her hand despite the way she'd sternly told herself she wasn't going to cry.
"I don't understand," Toph said blankly. "Sparky promised he'd be here."
Sokka was just as confused. "He hated them. They were the worst people . . . ever. Maybe . . ." he trailed off. Like he couldn't think of a reason either.
The tears came faster and Katara couldn't stop them. And no matter how mad she was at her dad for not being there when they needed him, for Bato to have to take Sokka through his manhood ceremony when it should have been him, for making Sokka think he had to be the Big Man Of The Tribe, for making Gran-gran have to be the chief even though she was old and tired and Katara to be scared and alone and have no one to lean on because Sokka would baby her if she showed any weakness, for all that, he was there, right then. So she leaned into him and sobbed.
Then sobbed all the harder when the unfamiliarly familiar scent of seal blubber and fur, the solid feeling of a heavily muscled body wrapped in a parka and the rumble of her father's voice curled around her. Because it just reminded her of the cinnamon and wood smoke, slender whipcord and inner flame that was missing.