ARC 4: They Built A Path To Be Together
DAY 25: Shower
The bloodshot sky fades into a deep, dark blue. Stars twinkle, clouds move in and douse the Fire Nation with an unexpected summer shower. Katara sits by the turtle-duck pond and tries not to cry.
It's strange that she still remembers her way to this little sanctuary, stranger still that it has not changed at all. It would be easy to forget that the war had ever occurred, standing in the place where a little girl once befriended a lonely prince. Katara touches the last remnant of her beloved hair sticks, the worn and faded, scorched turtle-duck tip. It's been worn smooth by her fingers, and by Zuko's. One day, she knows that their daughter will reach into her pocket and trace the smooth edges for comfort.
Katara sighs.
She doesn't know if Aang confronted the Fire Lord, only that it's all over now. If they won, they won. If not…she desperately wants to believe that the Avatar did meet the Fire Lord, that he did not disappear when the world needed him most.
For so long, she has hoped and hoped and hoped. But for once she cannot muster the strength to believe that this will be alright in the end. Ozai could be on his way now and Zuko is still far too weak to travel. They're sitting turtle-ducks.
Katara smiles wryly and stands up. The heavy shower drenches her instantly, but she breathes in the wonderful smell and continues on her way (it's fitting, she thinks, that Sozin's comet has been followed by this deluge. Almost as if the Fire Nation has been put out, their flames of war simply washed away).
She pads through empty palace halls, not a single soul in sight. The kitchen is easy enough to find and she prepares a simple meal in the grandest kitchen she has ever seen. Katara wanders back, though she nearly doesn't find the royal family's hall. Zuko is stumbling out of his room when she rounds the corner.
"Spirits," he swears, the tension relaxing in his shoulders, "I woke up and thought you were—
"I made food." She interrupts (she won't let him finish, because if Ozai does come back then they really will be dead).
She ushers him back into the room, feeds him when he claims he is not hungry. Zuko seems to understand that protesting will shatter the fragile calm she is clinging to. He eats his share and pulls down onto the bed when their stomachs are full (rather, he ineffectually tugs at her until she follows).
Katara feels small against her husband, one of his arms wrapped around her shoulders and another around her waist. He faces her, smiling.
"It's raining outside." Katara says.
She misses her baby, worries for her friends.
"Everything will be fine." Zuko tells her.
She cocks an eyebrow.
"Okay," Zuko admits, exasperated, "I'm worried too. But Aang will come through…he will, alright Katara?"
They'd argued, on the way to the Caldera City, whether the Avatar would come back. Zuko was cynical, Katara was hopeful. But sometimes, she thinks, being in love means believing in something you know isn't true, if only for the sake of a Water Tribe girls.
"If we lost," Katara says, "Then I want to spend my last hours with you."
She kisses him and while Zuko might be weak, she is not. They savor the silence and banish the worries away with love.
At least they're sleeping when their friends finally find them (Sokka clutches his impromptu crutch and looks vaguely green).
Iroh arrives a day later, just as people are beginning to trickle back into the capitol and Zuko is to be coronated. In his arms, he holds a smiling baby girl.