disclaimer: disclaimed.
dedication: wweh.
notes: whines whines whines winter whines whines whines cold whines whines whines i hate snow ok
notes2: WE'RE GETTIN SO CLOSE TO THE END I CAN TASTE IT also go thank songs/anorable for this update bc she reblogged my fav piece of zuko/katara art ever and i realized i hadn't udated in like a month so ye
chapter title: playing in the shallows
summary: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.
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They crashed headlong into each other in the middle of the hallway.
Katara knew him before she'd seen his face—there was no one else in the palace who ran hot like Zuko, nor had the width of his shoulders—and she clung to him hard enough that her knuckles went white.
"I realized—Mai said—I'm sorry I—" she managed to get out, gasping for air and heat and the steady volcano mass of him. He was solid beneath her fingers, and real; maybe he was the last real thing in the entire universe. Through Airbenders and poison and the sight of blood, thick and red over her hands, he was real. Through the sway of bloodbending over the pound of his heart, through the quiet way he loved Azula, through the violence and the hatred and the death of a nation, he was real.
These were the things she knew about him.
All his kindnesses.
All his scars.
And she'd wasted so much time.
The words swelled in her throat, ready to burst out of her chest and leave her insides all over the floor, squalls of red and grey like the wind over the ocean. And Zuko was holding her like she was the last real thing, too.
Spirits.
She looked up at him, and then curled her fingers around his cheeks.
"Katara? Are you—?"
"I'm fine," she murmured, fingers dragging at the sensitive skin at the edges of his scar. "Are you?"
"Toph was grilling the council."
"Is she as good as me?"
"No one's as good as you," Zuko sighed. He wrapped himself all around her, breathed her in, held the knowledge of her gentle like a flower in his mouth. Katara curled into it, breathing. Breathing.
She couldn't tell him, not yet.
There was still—there was still Aang, Aang who was sleeping in her bed, exhausted and wrung out and who could barely keep himself together on a good day. Aang, who may or may not have still been in love with her.
But if there was anything Katara had learned, from her time in the Fire Nation, was that forever was a misleading word.
Forever was her bending in her hands, not a person.
You can't make homes out of people, Katara remembered Gran Gran telling GranPakku, voice rough and pained as though once upon a time she'd tried and been burned for it. She'd said she never learned that, though maybe she wished she had.
Katara had never understood that, as a child.
But she hadn't been a child in a very long time.
People changed, and that was why people couldn't be forever.
Katara had never wanted a person to be her forever.
There were so many expectations, with forever.
Spirits, Aang was going to hurt. The thought of his face, still round with baby fat but slowly sharpening into adulthood, made her heart clench. But the thing was, happiness was already such a fleeting thing, and in a world ravaged by a century-long war, taking what you could get was something that everyone learned early.
And Zuko made her happy.
It was sappy, but there it was.
He made her happy.
I love you, she looked up at him and thought but didn't say.
The words sat just beyond her lips, stuck in her craw. It wouldn't be long until they left her, with or without her permission.
But she needed to finish things with Aang, first.
She cupped a hand around Zuko's cheek, thumb pressing into the tiny smile that lit his face. He was so awkwardly lovely, and no one had ever had the time to tell him that, or the inclination. Banished Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation was a long time behind the man wrapped around her.
"Katara?" he asked.
"Hmm?"
"I love you," he said.
She didn't really have any words for that. Except these, grinning mischievously: "Do you think you can make it back to our room faster than I can get your clothes off?"
Zuko turned an unattractive shade of puce. "Katara—!"
She laughed outright, the bone beads braided into her hair clicking merrily, and hitched herself up to wrap her legs around his waist tight as she could "Get moving, Fire Lord, or I'll strip you right here! Think of what all the servants will say!"
"You are a menace," Zuko sighed, and bodily moved her so that she was clinging to his back. His hands came up to curl around her thighs, palms sliding against silk over warm skin.
Katara giggled, and kicked her feet. "What did I say, Zuzu?"
Zuko groaned.
But he didn't drop her, so.
They snuck through the palace, Katara giggling into the nape of Zuko's neck every time they only barely managed to avoid getting caught. She had a feeling that the servants were only humouring them—the servants saw everything, especially errant Fire Lords and their lady loves—but that was okay, too.
Master Katara was seventeen and in love, and that was all that mattered.
A long time later, Katara breathed in her courage. She pressed her face into the back of his neck, and said into his ear "I can't say it back yet."
"It's okay."
"It's not," she said, an edge of fury to her words. "It's not okay, I should—but I—there are obligations, and I—"
"I know, Katara. I wanted you to know."
"I do know," she said. "I do."
She thought, a little tiredly, that it was a good thing his hands were there to hold her up. She didn't know if she could have stood without his help. Her legs felt like jelly, and so did her heart.
(She wanted to say it back. She wanted to say it back so much, because it was true, it was the most true thing in the world. She loved him, and she couldn't tell him. Not just yet. Not just yet.)
Spirits, this emotional whiplash was going to kill her.
"I love you," he said again, and a tiny little thrill went up her spine. "I just wanted to tell you first."
She laughed softly in his ear, tightening her arms around his neck.
"Take me to bed, Fire Lord. I can't say it, but I can show you."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Oh, yeah."
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tbc.
