The plan was perfect, right up until it wasn't, right up until everything began to unravel.

The final installment of the trilogy begun by Drunk and continued by Lullaby. If you haven't read those yet, I highly recommend that you do.

Unravel

THE FIRST NIGHT I SPENT THE NIGHT WITH HER WAS ALSO THE FIRST NIGHT I MET HER, THE FIRST NIGHT I SAW HER. There was nothing strange to it, nothing sexual; she just didn't want to go back to her room. The girls on these trade missions and such are always having flings with locals, she said as they walked back to my room from the little hole-in-the-wall bar we'd had a few drinks in, especially Water Tribe girls, and Jet's too drunk to try again, so no one will notice. I attempted to lighten the mood by making a crack about how it's always the quiet, buttoned down ones you have to look out for. The joke fell flat, because I suck at telling jokes, but she giggled anyways, slid an arm through mine as we walked. I appreciated that, the slight giggle. I've had girls pretend I was funny before, but never a girl simply acknowledge that my hackneyed attempts at humor are little more than amusing. I liked it. I liked her.

I sensed the danger even then.

Nothing happened that night. She slept in the bed, curled up, wearing my other jacket and a pair of my boxers. I slept in the chair I'd left by the window, chair leaned back, feet propped up on the sill. It was bizarrely comfortable.

In the morning, before she left, she told me she'd never met someone who slept as quietly as I did.

Today is The Day. Zuko stood at the open window, one hand curled on the sill, fingers opening and closing compulsively. The other hand brought a cigarette to his lips. He took a deep drag, held it, let the smoke curl from his mouth and nostrils. His entire body was alive, thrumming with nervous energy that crackled like lightning from one nerve ending to another. It was a marvel that he wasn't trembling, assuming that he hadn't just lost the ability to notice.

The view from the window was the same as that first glimpse on a cold winter afternoon. Eight days had passed, and nothing seemed to have changed. His entire life had been turned upside down, but the world outside his window seemed to have taken not the slightest bit of notice. The same rundown apartment blocks, the same dilapidated store fronts, the same dogs barking, dogs that he had, now that he thought about it, never actually seen.

Nothing had changed.

Everything had changed.

Everything.

Her smell lingered in the crisp, cool air. He wondered if he would still feel her warmth, should he press his palm into the bed. Her voice hummed in his ears, soft and gentle, yet hard and unyielding as ice-cold steel. He closed his eyes, shut out the world that seemed content to ignore him, as it always has, as it always will, and it was like she was still there, had not left an hour before. The feel of her in his arms, the contrast of her darkness against his pale skin, the hair cascading like a waterfall down her back, the eyes as blue and as deep as the ocean that she could feel in her soul, the firm set of her jaw, the implacable determination that radiated from every fiber of her being.

Her name, the name he knew he would never forget, just as he would never forget the lullabies she hummed as she washed her hair in the shower.

Katara.

He took a final drag from his cigarette, tossed the spent butt out the window, opened his eyes in time to watch the dying ember twist down into the winter gloom of the world outside his window. He let the smoke out, gave himself a shake, slammed the window closed, turned his back on the world and on his rambling mind.

He set his shoulders, began to gather his things.

Time to get to work.

The second night started much like the first. I waited for her in the lobby of her hotel, openly, without fear, hiding in plain sight. Nothing to see here, I communicated, sitting in a random chair, flipping through a Fire Nation paper. Just a temporary boyfriend, a business-trip fling, waiting for his girl. I wasn't even the only one of my kind lounging around, though I was the most relaxed; the others seemed fixated upon their watches. I pitied them. My girl was better than theirs.

My girl would never keep me waiting, not if she could help it.

Katara would never keep anyone waiting that mattered to her.

Katara greeted me openly, too, hiding in plain sight just as much as I was. I stood up when she entered with a gaggle of other girls attached to the trade mission, returned her embrace, returned her friendly kiss. That was our first kiss.

Our first kiss.

The first sign that I might be in trouble.

Everything went much the same as before from there. I walked up her up to her room, camped in a chair by the window while she changed, my eyes on the windows of other buildings, endlessly searching, endlessly watching, looking for someone like me, another low-level spy, someone on the prowl for someone like them, another cog in the endless game.

I found no one, but that doesn't mean they weren't there.

We went out for dinner and drinks, caught a movie, walked arm-in-arm through a park, our breath misting in the air. I laughed more than I had laughed in years, smiled in a way I didn't know was possible. She was light, easy, carefree, but always, in the corners of her eyes, a brittleness, a fear, a worry, a calmness that came over her being whenever she looked over her shoulder and tried to pretend she was doing no such thing.

She slept in my room that night, too, in my bed. I slept in the chair once more. Neither of us got much sleep, though.

We were too busy talking, too busy smiling, too busy laughing.

Before Katara had left his motel room, Zuko had given her his knife. It was a simple little thing, a plain switchblade, no different from thousands of its brethren that could be found in countless little nooks and crannies all over the world. It was a sign, he thought, of the seriousness of the game they were playing, that, though she was a skilled waterbender, she had taken the knife without question, slipped it into her purse, kissed him deeply before she floated out the door.

Though it was a necessary step to take, both for her and for his own sanity, giving Katara his knife had left Zuko unarmed. Firebender or no, he had to be prepared for any possibility. If he had to fight in the open, firebending would do, but what if he had to fight in a crowd, or in a building, or in a tiny room? Firebending was all well and good for war and industry, but it was as dangerous to oneself as it was to others in the up-close-and-personal world that Zuko lived in. Thus, he needed something more.

Two things more. He needed a knife, and he needed a gun.

The knife was easy. He took the bus into one of the grittier parts of town, walked up to a random drug dealer loitering on a corner, and offered the kid three-hundred won for the knife Zuko did not doubt the kid had tucked in a pocket. The kid had snarled and sworn, accused Zuko of being a cop, started to walk away, so Zuko had offered four-hundred won. The kid had stopped in his tracks, turned on a sen, and asked for five-hundred. Zuko told the kid to go fuck himself and started to walk away. The kid came back with four-fifty, Zuko stuck to four-hundred, the kid came down to four-twenty-five, Zuko chuckled and forked over the cash. What he got was another hideously sharp little switchblade, worth barely a quarter of what Zuko had paid for it, but then again, Zuko hadn't paid for the knife; he'd paid for a weapon that didn't come with a receipt and a sales record attached to it. In short, it was clean, marginally legal, untraceable, and easily discarded.

In short, perfect, and easily worth the price.

The gun was a bit harder. The Service had its connections, of course, its reliable providers of quasi-legal firearms for tolerable prices, perfect for the agent who found themselves in a bind, but Zuko couldn't go to them, could he? He'd already told the Service too much, could feel it in his bones, tickling at the back of his mind. He was playing a risky game, was probably in over his head, could hear his sister's voice blaring in his ears, the fuck did you get yourself into now, Zu-Zu, always jumping without looking ahead. The normal dealers were out; he would have to poke around, take another risk.

In the end, after three fruitless hours of searching and wandering, he resorted to the same tactic that had fetched him his new knife. He walked up to a drug dealer, asked for a gun. The dealer laughed in his face, until Zuko pulled out a thousand yen. The Fire Nation yen was worth twice the Republic won, and four times the Earth Kingdom yuan, so it was an easy decision for the kid to make. Three-thousand yen later, Zuko had a gun, two clips, and the first step was complete.

Now, he just had to get downtown without making it look like that was where he was headed.

The third night, everything changed. During the day, I had dropped in at the Service safe-house, wired No Sale on the Jet thing back home, but mentioned, in the same message, that I might have a lead on something better. While I waited for a reply, I used the secure phone line to call my sister. I told her that I'd met a girl, decided to stay a week or two, have some fun. She'd laughed. About time, Zu-Zu, she said, and I could just see the self-satisfied smirk on her face. Finally decided to take your little sister's advice, eh?

Something like that, I said, and then we chatted for a bit until the teletype machine began to chatter and we exchanged hurried goodbyes and I rang off. I tore the incoming message, decoded it myself, nodded, smiled.

Freedom to pursue lead granted. Proceed with caution. Access to station resources renewed. Good hunting. Your Uncle says hello.

I chuckled at that last bit. Azula must've given Uncle a heads-up. It made sense; she worked in the same building from which he ran the Service, after all, but whatever, it didn't matter. I was clear to enjoy myself, and who knows? Maybe my instinct on Katara was right; maybe she did have treasure.

She did. That night, she wanted to go straight back to my room. That's when she told me she knew what I was. That's when she told me that she wanted out.

I trust you, she said. I don't know why, but I trust you, and you're going to help me.

I agreed. What else could I do?

The plan was simple. Zuko would loiter around downtown Republic City through the afternoon, take in the sights, act like a bored tourist. Katara's last act of business with the trade delegation ended at three, and her flight home was going to leave at ten the next morning. There was a final function, a kind of banquet/end-of-trip-party starting at five, but she was going to skip it, come meet Zuko instead. It wasn't an unusual thing to do, for the younger members of such a delegation to skip the last shindig and go out on the town instead, so she wouldn't be missed. She had a few friends, had let them in the tall, dark, and handsome boy she had met, covered her escape in an air of giggles. She was supposed to meet Zuko in the central square of the city at four-thirty.

That would be the next step.

It was the fourth night that it happened. We went straight back to my room again; neither of us planned it ahead of time, didn't even discuss it. We felt too exposed, out there in the glowering world. On a whim, I'd stocked up on beer from the liquor store around the corner, and we sat on my bed, laughing and talking, knocking back beers, sharing cigarettes, scrapping cheap take-out from flimsy white boxes. I don't remember what we talked about; we just talked. Talked and laughed and tried to ignore the path we were walking down.

I don't know who kissed whom first. I suppose, in the end, it doesn't matter. The kiss was for real this time, not some quick peck for show in her hotel lobby. We kissed and then we were tumbling and falling and I was lost and she was lost with me.

Afterwards, I worried, apologized for taking advantage of her. She rolled her eyes and kissed me and told me that, if anything, she was the one taking advantage of me. She laughed and I couldn't help but laugh with her and then we kissed and one thing led to another and we were falling all over again.

Neither of us got much sleep that night.

Zuko had abandoned much of his gear and belongings by the time he reached downtown around two in the afternoon. He carried little more than a backpack and a tourist brochure that he willfully brandished, making sure to accost random passersby with mangled Hangugeo, his one good eye wide, looking lost and stupid, a lone Fire Nation dork stumbling through a poorly planned vacation. There were thousands like him out that day, taking in the sights, and he blended seamlessly among them.

He had the backpack slung from one shoulder, not the backpack he'd arrived with, a new one, different. Inside was a change of clothes, an envelope thick with money, two tickets for a flight to Miyako at six-thirty, and two new passports. One was for him, Fire Nation, made out to one Kawana Tengo, and the other was for Katara, identifying her as his wife, one Kawana Nerrivik. It was Southern Water Tribe, complete with a Fire Nation permanent resident card. Even the entry and exit stamps were authentic; every year, one of the Station's agents bribed a Republic Customs officer for that year's new stamp dispenser.

Zuko didn't like to think about how much he'd had to reveal to the Service to get those passports, so, instead, he focused on his role. For better or for worse, downtown Republic City wasn't hard on the eyes, and had many things to gaze at. He even spent a good half-hour listening to a busker sawing on a fiddle at a random street corner, tossed the man a few coins.

His hand didn't tremble as he tossed the coins. Zuko was very proud of that.

On the fifth day, after Katara left, I went straight to the Station. I demanded a meeting with the Head-of-Station, threw my name around, leaned on my family connections in a way I never had before. The Head-of-Station was a rotund, short little idiot named Ushikawa, and he protested most strenuously, pointed out that I had yanked him out of a meeting with the Ambassador himself. I waved the objections aside, told him it was serious, that I had a defector on the hook who possessed information, vital information.

How vital? Ushikawa said, mopping sweat from his brow. It wasn't hot, but the man was always sweating, it was one of the things he was known for.

Vital to the survival and safeguarding of the Service, I said, standing at my full height, glowering down at him, using every single one of the good dozen centimeters I had on the man.

Somehow, it worked. He gulped, asked me what I meant. I told him, as little as I could, just enough to communicate just how serious the matter was. He got on the Red Line to the Homeland, asked to speak to Uncle, though of course Ushikawa didn't refer to him as such, instead asked for the Chief. I told my uncle the same bare-bones story that I'd told Ushikawa. Somehow, I got the point across. Uncle agreed that I needed to get this defector out, as soon as was humanly possible. He even greenlighted the passports, had Ushikawa pull the templates from the Station's stockpile of legit escape documents, kept for situations just like the one I was in.

I remember feeling so thankful to Uncle. I'd never been more proud of my people, of my family, of the Service. I couldn't stop smiling that night, as Katara and I lay in bed, wrapped up and entangled with each other, was practically vibrating with excitement.

The excitement was infectious. The next morning, Katara left humming a jaunty, happy little tune.

I hummed that damn tune for the rest of the gods-damn day.

It was around four that Zuko began to feel that something was wrong. He didn't know what it was, couldn't put his finger on it, but something was off. Something. It felt like he and Katara were a thread, and that thread was slowly, inexorably unraveling. Something had gone sideways. He didn't know what it was, couldn't even begin to guess it, but he knew it.

Knew it down in his very bones.

He acted quickly. He went to a public bathroom, locked himself into a stall. From his backpack, he pulled his illicitly bought gun, made sure it was loaded, checked the safety. He stood in the stall, shoved the gun in the waistband of his jeans, made sure it was snug in the small of his back, pulled his coat down over it, patted the coat to make sure there was no tell-tale bulge. Into his right coat pocket, he shoved his new knife, laid it in the pocket in a way that he could pull it out quick, easy, without having it snag on anything. He returned the backpack to his shoulder, hung it from both of them, so it wouldn't bounce around too much if he had to fight, had to run. He took several deep breaths, in-and-out, in-and-out, closed his eyes, muttered bending mantras under his breath. He set his feet, found his roots, focused, felt the heat build, first in his chest, felt the tendrils of flame crawl through his blood and down into his hands, felt the tingle of the heat in his fingers.

He opened his eyes, took a final breath, in-and-out, and nodded.

He was ready.

He took his time at the sink, washed his hands carefully, turning the water on hot so it wouldn't steam against his heated hands. He took a wool beanie from his back pocket, pulled it low over his head. It would make him feel even warmer than he already was, but it would also keep his head from steaming in the cold winter air outside, so it was worth it.

He went outside, calm and cool and collected. He didn't rush towards the rendezvous point, didn't hurry. He took slow, easy steps. He didn't look left, didn't look right. He relied on his ears, on his senses, on his peripheral vision.

He made his way across the central square to a big central fountain. The fountain was dead, turned off for the winter, but it was the meeting point. He found the right spot, leaned against it, hands shoved deep in his pockets. His right hand was curled around the knife, and the cold steel of the gun glimmered as dark as hate from the small of his back.

He breathed slow and steady, slowly turning his head first this way, then that. He was just another random guy, waiting for someone, looking for said someone, who it was, didn't matter.

That's all he was.

Honest.

Like the best kind of lies, it was almost entirely true.

On the eighth night, the last night, Katara asked me what would happen, once we got back to the Fire Nation, once she had shared her secret, once everything was over.

I don't know, I admitted, because I just couldn't lie to her, she even knew my real name by now. Whatever happens, though, I'll be right beside you, no matter what.

She nodded, took that in. She was nestled into my side, her finger tracing lazy patterns on my chest.

Promise? she asked.

I kissed the top of her head. Promise.

I meant that word more than I've ever meant anything in my entire life.

She believed me.

Zuko saw her coming towards him from across the square, but he couldn't believe it. Or maybe he didn't want to. Or both. Or neither. It didn't matter, in the end, because she was there, walking towards him, hands shoved deep in her own pockets, cold city wind ruffling the jet black hair she had piled in the signature tight bun atop her head, thick locks framing her face. She was coming towards him, not smiling, not looking left, not looking right, the same expression on her face as she'd worn at their mother's funeral. She was coming, and then she was stopping, stopping right in front of him, looking up at him, and she was trying to smile, a smile full of pain and sorrow and sadness, the smile they'd given each other far too many times over the course of their lives.

But he still couldn't believe it, right up until she opened her mouth and said his name.

"Hey, Zuko."

His heart broke, broke into a thousand pieces and fell to the ground, blown away into oblivion by the wind. It was gone, never to be retrieved. It was over.

He had been betrayed.

He had lost.

Again.

"What're you doing here, Azula?" He frowned at his voice; it didn't sound normal. Didn't sound right. It was wrong, just like everything was wrong.

Everything.

His sister took a deep breath, let it out, let a hand wander up to brush a few strands of hair from her face, tuck them behind her ears. "I think you know exactly why I'm here, Zuko."

He closed his eyes. He couldn't believe it.

He refused to believe it.

"I…no, Zula, I don't think I do."

A heavy sigh, and he felt his sister move to his side, slide an arm through his own, lay her head on his shoulder.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry, Zu-Zu. I know…" A pause, another breath, one that sounded like it hurt her almost as much as it hurt him. "I know you were just trying to help, trying to do the right thing, just like you always do, but…"

He screwed his eyes even tighter shut. No, he whispered in his mind, no. I won't believe it. I won't. I refuse to.

"Just…" His sister paused, struggled for words, it was so unlike her, he was the one who never knew what to say, not her. "Again, for what it's worth, the girl was telling the truth."

"What?" It was all he could think to say.

"There is a mole, right at the top of the Service, feeding the crown jewels to the Opposition. She was telling the complete, unvarnished truth."

He nodded. He couldn't think of what else to do with his body. The heat was dying in his limbs, in his heart, in his soul. The fire was almost gone.

"But…" He paused, gave himself a shake, still refused to open his eyes. "But…then why are you here? Why isn't Katara? Where is she?"

There was a long pause, as deep and painful and loud as the end of the world, before his sister answered him.

"Because…because the mole has to be there. It's part of the control, the way the Avatar maintains the Balance. The mole reports directly to the Avatar, and then the Avatar passes along whatever they deem fit to the other side. There's someone just like that in the Earth Kingdom's secret service, too."

His eyes were burning, burning with tears he refused to shed, both eyes, even the dead one that hadn't cried since he was fifteen-years-old.

"But…but…but why? That still doesn't…but…where's Katara, Zula?"

"She's…when you talked to Uncle, told him about the information you had, he knew exactly what you had found out. Any nation that tries to remove the Avatar's minions from within their government and their services would be seen as acting to upset the Balance, and would be punished by the entire world accordingly, by the Avatar themselves. He did what he had to do, for the Fire Nation, for our people. The Avatar is at the top of their strength right now, the top of their power; it'll be decades before it's time for the nations to start really moving against each other again. So…so Uncle…"

Zuko didn't need to hear the rest; deep down inside, he suspected that he'd always known. "Uncle…Uncle went to the mole, and the mole sold Katara out."

He didn't have to see the nod to know it was there. "She's gone, Zuko. They took her as she was coming to meet you. It's over. Come home."

Finally, he opened his eye. He tore himself away from his sister, and the abject misery on her face did nothing to assuage his anger, his guilt…

His pain…

"But…but…how can I come home?"

Azula wouldn't look him in the eye, looked everywhere but at his face.

"Uncle cut a deal, Zu-Zu. Just…just come with me, come straight home, let me save you for once, and this will all be forgotten."

That was the word that got him, that last word, like a rock dropped into an empty well.

Forgotten.

On the final morning, Katara paused at the door. She turned to me, kissed me deeply, more deeply than she'd ever kissed me before. We were both breathless by the end of it.

What was that for? I asked her.

She smiled, and it was the most beautiful smile I'd ever seen in my life.

So you'll never forget me. Just…no matter what happens, promise me that, okay? Promise that you'll never forget me.

I didn't even have to think about it.

Never.

He was walking away before he even knew what was happening, had even managed to think about what he was doing. He turned on his heel and started walking. He didn't even remember making the decision.

But then again, it wasn't like there was a decision to make, was there? He'd already made his choice.

He'd already made his promise.

He only looked back once, when his sister caught up to him, grabbed his arm as he started to drop the backpack and the gun and the knife into a convenient trash can. He looked back at her, over his shoulder, ignored her fingers digging into his arm.

"Zu-Zu," she pleaded, tears in her eyes, "don't do this, please, it'll be alright, just…just come home with me, okay? You saved me when we were kids, from Dad, and now I…I can…just…just don't do this…"

He smiled. He didn't know why, or how, but he smiled all the same.

"It's not a choice, Zula. I have to do the right thing."

She smiled, and the smile broke his heart.

"Of course you do…just…why, Zu-Zu? Uncle's going to ask me. Just tell me why."

He shook his head. "If you have to ask, you'll never know." He gave her a final kiss on her forehead, and when he pulled his arm free, she didn't resist, and didn't follow him.

They took him a half-hour later.

They shot us together. I was very thankful to them for that. They seemed to think it was some kind of joke, and they had themselves a good laugh, but we didn't care. Katara and I held each other in the back of the truck, walked hand-in-hand out into the open field, joked with each other as we dug our own grave. They even let us dig one grave, for the both of us, another thing they thought was funny, but we were just thankful.

We stood side-by-side at the foot of the pit, listened to the guns being loaded and cocked behind us. We were holding each other's hands so tight, I could barely feel my fingers anymore.

I love you, Zuko, she said, gazing up at me with a smile on her face.

Always have to be first, don't you? I replied, why, I didn't know, the words just came to me, like I'd said them before, who knows, maybe I had.

Always. She leaned over, gave me a light, lingering kiss, setting off another round of laughter from our executioners. Maybe next time.

I shook my head and smiled. There'll be no maybe about it, my love.

Never could give in, could you?

Never.

They shot her first, probably another one of their jokes, but it was okay, because they didn't make me wait long.

I didn't even feel the bullet.

So, yeah, that happened. And, for once, you guys can't say I didn't warn you. I said that this little AU was going to end in a hardcore gut-punch, and oh boy howdy did I deliver.

I'm actually ridiculously happy with how this turned out. Out of all the prompts I've written so far for Zutara Month, this was the hardest one to write. I must've stopped and started the damn thing a dozen times, and when I finally managed to put it together today, I had to spend several hours trying to get it down until it met my personal requirement of being less than five-thousand words. And then, lo and behold, I pulled the fucking thing off, and I'm feeling like I hit a home run. *does a little dance around the apartment*

Anyhoo, that is, really, all that needs to be said about that, I think. This is definitely a story that speaks for itself. Instead, I'm going to let my wife read this (she's been bugging me all day to get this done), and then, you know, I think we should go out and grab a drink or three. I'm feeling a little stir-crazy tonight.

Moving on! In tomorrow's episode, I decide to take part in the ridiculous number of Star Wars-themed prompts popping up for Zutara Month this year and take advantage of the fact that lightsabers are pretty boss at illuminating things. Stay tuned!