Disclaimer: I own nothing you might recognise from the series.

Notes: Kurama's Foxy Rose asked for Katara's PoV at WAT, Castlejune and Kimberly T both wanted Katara's PoV on Toph snuggling with Zuko, but I didn't have much there, so it's kinda folded in at the end.


It was only natural for her to want to check that Zuko hadn't been seriously hurt, given that, even though he was a traitor he was still a person and deserved to be treated that way.

So, she circled around while he was rubbing his rear end and saw his pants torn open and his loincloth clearly visible. It was dark red silk if she was any judge. Very nice. "Well, bruised or not, it's a nice view," she commented. "I think it'll get drafty, though." It was that or yell at him, and she'd done that once before only to feel all guilty after. So, she stuffed those angry feelings down to channel her inner Sokka.

Still, her hand itched to slap him for turning on them, making her worry and for being stupid. Because clearly something stupid had happened that had made him think Azula and the Fire Lord would be decent to him.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't . . . I don't even know what's going on. I . . . a couple days ago I found out my sister had gotten the Dai Li to . . . to take away my memories, to change them into fake ones. I don't even know what's real any more. All I know is that I keep having these memories and they have to do with you. I can't promise you anything. I just want to know who I am." Katara felt her hope surge as he said it. He hadn't turned on them, Hama was wrong and maybe everything could be okay. She felt so jumbled up inside that she didn't know what she felt. "I didn't really expect that you'd believe me," he said after a long pause.

Then Toph said he was telling the truth. Which meant, "You mean, like Jet?" she asked, so used to his being part of the group, even after all this time, she'd forgotten he wasn't there and didn't know about Jet's memory and the Dai Li.

She left Haru and Teo to comfort the Duke about Sokka's insensitivity, pulling water from her waterskin, determined to fix Zuko. She was going to bring him back and make him better. This time, unlike with Jet, she knew what she was doing and was prepared for it. The small flashes of memory through his eyes, the way she could feel what he was thinking, a little.

"Pain and suffering will be your teacher."

"Lee and his bison/ makes me wanna hurl./ We all know that/ it's 'cause he can't get a girl!"

"Oh, Zuzu, pathetic as ever."

A five-year-old girl had screamed as her father, trying to keep soldiers out of their hovel-like home in the Lower Ring, was blasted backwards by the stone fists of the Dai Li, hitting the wall and slumping to the ground with blood trickling from his nose and mouth.

"I just . . . my head started to hurt all of a sudden," Zuko said, baffled. "Then I . . . I think I hallucinated."

"You were a lot less concerned about Zuko before you had the Dai Li take away his memories and put fake ones in their place. Why isn't that working?"

He was screaming. Screaming, and Katara desperately struggled to put the barriers on his memories back into place. Someone had done horrible things to his mind and she couldn't seem to help. On top of that, everything she did to ease his pain seemed to make it worse.

Pulling away, Katara stared down at Zuko, horrified. She had caused him this pain, on top of the pain of everything else he'd been through. His eyes drifted open from where they'd squeezed shut with the agony of his memories and the pain the Dai Li had arranged would occur any time he tried to gain access to his real past. "What did you do?" he asked Katara, sounding accusatory.

Guilt stabbed at her along with a sense of affront that he'd act like she'd try to hurt him. He knew her better than that. She also stuffed down the reminder her conscience gave her that he couldn't remember her, so how could he know her?

"I'd done that before to help someone else brainwashed by the Dai Li. They were more . . . thorough with you," she explained. "It's like they attached pain to your real memories." They hadn't done that with Jet, but given Azula being involved it made sense the pain would be added.

Katara let herself get shoved aside by Shuga, Toph and Sokka, trying desperately not to collapse into a puddle of tears, especially after Toph made it sound like she'd been doing nothing but crying. Annoying little earthbender. But then Zuko started to sit up and Katara shoved Toph aside again. She was the healer in their group and she should be there to make sure that Zuko wasn't going to hurt himself getting up too soon. "Are you sure you should sit up?" she asked solicitously. About to clarify and ask whether he was feeling dizzy or ill, she was prevented by Zuko's answer, which wasn't particularly useful, actually.

"I have to get up sometime," Zuko said with a sigh. He pulled himself up, straightened, then turned to Katara. "I'm okay."

In a flash, all her worry and fear and concern evaporated like water turned to steam, and the anger she'd felt at his defection and treachery exploded like a geyser. Some distant part of her scolded even as her hand reached back, gained momentum and swung around to slap him. She couldn't control herself as all those emotions rioted, exploding and boiling over like a tightly lidded pot on the fire. "That's for nearly getting Aang killed!" she yelled. Then she started hitting him more. "And that's for turning on us! That's for making your uncle sad! How! Could! You! Just! Do! That!" Every word was punctuated with a slap to his arms or chest.

"Ow! I'm sorry! Ow!" He was curled in on himself, flinching away and not responding, even though she knew he was good enough to keep her from hitting him like that. His passivity in the face of her anger broke through the haze of emotion, and Katara realised she was blaming him for something he couldn't be held responsible for. What kind of horrible person was she that she'd do this to him?

Bursting into tears, she fled before she hurt Zuko more, before she made more of a fool of herself and before she had to listen to Toph get snide about how overemotional she was.

The whole evening as they sat beside the fire, she kept trying to think of how to talk to him, how to apologise and explain it was just how worried and upset she'd been, not that she was really angry with him. But he was reticent, understandably after she'd been hitting him for no good reason, and she couldn't think of any way to broach the subject without sound like she was making excuses.

And when Toph plonked herself down next to Zuko at bedtime, demanding that he cuddle with her, Katara felt she deserved the loss of her replacement stuffed tiger seal.

It took her a long time to fall asleep, staring into the dark where she knew Toph lay snuggled up to Zuko.