"Katara? Hello? Are you even listening to me?"

"Huh? I'm sorry, yeah?"

Suki sighed. "I was asking if you could watch the boys while I'm at work. The sitter cancelled on us."

"Sure, no problem," she said, sitting up from the couch, "Where are they?"

"I just told you. They're taking a nap. I fed them breakfast. You just have to give them their lunch. It's in the fridge," she appraised Katara. Half of her hair had fallen out of her top knot. Her sweater was covered with grease stains from last night's dinner. Or maybe it was from dinner the night before that? She couldn't remember. Suki took all of this in and asked, "Are you sure you can handle this?"

"It's not a problem. I got it."

"Alright. Well Sokka and I both have a busy day ahead of us. If you could also do the dishes while you're here that would be great." Suki picked up an apple from the table, put it in her work bag, and headed towards the door. "Okay, I'm out. Have a good day!"

"Bye…" Katara laid back down on the couch and closed her eyes again. She figured the boys would probably wake her up when they needed her.

She woke up a couple of hours later to Wei peaking his head over the edge of the couch and poking at her cheek.

"Wei, what is it? Can't you see I'm sleeping?" she asked him, opening one eye.

"Hungry! Can we have lunch?"

Katara forgot. "Shit, right. Yeah. Let's get you some food." She stumbled up to her feet. Kaskae, Arluk, and Wei all followed her into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and looked at its contents blankly. "Right. What do you guys want to eat?"

"I don't know!" Kaskae called.

"Chicken nuggets!" Wei responded.

"Mashed potatoes!" Arluk yelled.

"Well we don't have any of that. We have… frozen ribeye?" She looked at the boys questioningly. They looked up at her as incredulously as toddlers could. Right. "How about I order pizza?"

The triplets cheered.

An hour later, lunch was served. The four of them polished off the entire thing in one sitting.

Katara had it handled. Good for her! She fed the boys like she was supposed to. Proud of her work, she lifted the boys out of their high chairs and let them go play in their bedroom. As a reward, she went back to binging true crime documentaries. A couple of episodes later, Suki came home. The house was completely dark, except for the blue light from the TV screen.

"Hello? I'm home!" Suki flicked on the lights and came into the living room.

"Oh hey!" The bright lights blinded Katara. Suki looked down at her.

"Have you just been sitting here all day?"

"Well no. I fed the triplets lunch. Like you asked!" Katara defended, pausing her movie

The triplets barreled in. They danced around Suki, while shouting "Mom, Katara let us have pizza for lunch!"

"What?" she looked down to Katara, "I told you their lunch was in the fridge!"

"No you didn't…"

Suki sighed, "Did you at least do the dishes?"

Katara didn't answer. Suki looked disappointed. Katara quickly responded, "I'm sorry! I can do them now?"

"It's fine. It's too late now. Just… go back to your show."

Suki dropped her bag and stormed into the kitchen. She heard the water running. Katara kicked herself. Why couldn't she do anything right? She got up to go into the kitchen and apologize.

Before she entered, she heard Suki on the phone with Sokka. Katara stood around the corner, listening intently. She overheard something about how "you need to talk to her tonight" and how they "needed to get back to living their lives at some point." The phone call ended. She heard Suki coming around the corner, and Katara quickly maneuvered back into her bedroom.

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They enjoyed a tense dinner that night. Suki was alarmingly quiet. She wouldn't look at Katara. Sokka diplomatically carried on a polite conversation with her. He asked her how her day was and likewise, told her all about his. When they finished eating and the boys were excused, the tone of their conversation took a turn, just as she had expected.

"So Katara... we were thinking about everything that has been going on and we wanted to see if there is anything we can do to help you get back on your feet again." He folded his arms, "I know things haven't been easy for you as of late, but I do think it'll make you feel better if you had something to do during the day. Then you could get a space of your own. I think it would help you feel more like yourself."

Dammit. She wished Sokka was angry with her. If he would just be honest with her and chastise her for being a piece of shit and a waste of space, then she would be able to get mad. Or feel spiteful. Feel something. Instead, Sokka was being gentle with her. He obviously had a stake in making her move out. Suki clearly orchestrated the whole thing. But there was an edge on genuineness that disarmed Katara. She should at least try to do what he wanted. For his sake.

"I'm sorry I've been so disruptive," she responded morosely.

"We're just worried about you, 'Tara. I hate seeing you like this." He reached out and placed his hand atop hers.

She felt guilty. "I guess I could try to get myself back out there again. I just have to update my résumé."

"Sure, yeah!" Sokka lit up, "That would be great. I think it would be good for you to get out of the house and get some work done. You could go to that one tea shop you always used to go to while we were at BSSU?"

Images of Zuko drinking jasmine boba tea flashed through her mind. "Yeah, maybe…"

"Great! And, of course, we're all here for you if you need help with anything. I'm glad we had this chat." Sokka looked proud of himself. She noticed Suki squeeze his hand.

"Sure. Thanks, guys."

She helped clear the table and made her way back to her room as soon as it was socially acceptable. The last thing she wanted was to come off as rude or dismissive of their conversation.

Katara felt small. She hadn't relied on her brother this heavily since they were kids. She never liked being told what to do. It wasn't his fault though. Clearly, it was becoming increasingly difficult to pretend that everything was alright. How could she expect them not to notice? This whole thing felt stupid. It was just a break-up. Not even really a break-up. They weren't dating! It simply reinforced themes in Katara's life that she wasn't prepared to face. For one, everytime she got close with someone, something had to go wrong. She didn't understand why. Was she broken? She always saw it as a result of her exes never understanding her need for independence. They perceived her ambition as cold or unloving. When she was with people like that, it had always been easy to write off the relationship and their collective problems as a "them" problem. But Zuko had never been like that. For the first time, she didn't feel like her need for an independent existence came off as a threat to her partner. He delighted in her success and empathized with her shortcomings. If Zuko wasn't like her past exes, and if things still ended the same way they always had, then she was the only commonality. She had to be the problem. Why did she always demand so much? Couldn't she just let herself be happy?

All she knew was that it was unbearably lonely being this way. What good did it really do her in the long run either? She came back here and lost her job anyway! In her fight to keep one of the things she loved, she lost both.

It went far beyond Zuko too. The heartbreak picked at her. She missed him. Of course she missed him. But she also missed her job. It gave her purpose. She liked feeling productive and like she was making a difference. It kept her sharp. More than anything else though, she missed herself. Through her adolescence, she prided herself on her elasticity. Throw anything at her and she bounced back, no questions asked. She didn't know who this new Katara Katara who couldn't be bothered to care if she was covered in filth and hadn't showered in days. The Katara who threw in the towel and opened her arms wide to gnawing self hatred and defeat. Small things, like getting out of bed, became impossibly difficult. It was for this reason that Sokka's request that she leave the house, brace the entire world, and expose herself and all of her vulnerabilities to rejection again felt so insurmountable. Her elasticity had run out.

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Sokka went with her to get her job applications out for the first time. Well, she could use the company, Katara supposed.

After some excuse about how the tea shop by BSSU was closed, they went instead to the local public library. Sokka brought the boys along and sat them to play in the children's book section. After they were settled, Sokka took her over to a secluded table and they got to work. He chatted with her pleasantly and had her pull her computer out. She hadn't used it since she was in the Fire Nation, so it needed time to charge.

Once it came on, Sokka worked her through a résumé workshop. She hadn't done much to it since she started at EKPR and so it was quite lacking. While they were at it, he had her update her LinkedIn. It took several hours, and by the end of it, all of her professional materials got a nice facelift. The boys began to get antsy about wanting food and so they had to leave, but not before Sokka made her bookmark some job applications for later.

As they were leaving, Sokka patted her back lovingly. "Look at you! You're going up in the world!"

"Uh-huh," she responded absently.

"We got so much done!" Sokka continued, enthusiastically, "It's only a matter of time before someone picks you up. You'll see."

She tried to smile encouragingly. He was excited for her success. She convinced him. She chastised herself. What a fraud.

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She tried to follow through on her promises for Sokka. She had a good start too. The next day, she showered, and packed her bag with essentials for the day. She took the train out to the library. On her way out of the house she noticed that the reporters, who had made themselves at home on the front lawn, were gone. Thinking back, she didn't recall them being there when she left with Sokka the day prior either.

It bugged her. She didn't know why. She hated it when they were there. They stalked her. Their behavior bordered on harassment. They didn't care about how it made her feel when they dug up old painful memories and yelled them at her. They just wanted to find a story. She didn't have a story anymore. Now the reporters didn't care. They had moved on. Seemingly everyone had moved past it except for her. She didn't matter anymore.

She hadn't given them much to work with, admittedly. She only left the house to retrieve her food from take-out delivery drivers. What kind of headline would that be? "Spurned Journalist Orders Fried Rice for the Sixth Time This Week." A headline like that wouldn't sell. She had to admit, she didn't do much of relevance.

That was the problem, wasn't it? She lost her spark. She had her chance to do work––real work––and she blew it. Why would anyone care about what she was doing now?

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She arrived at the library in a sour mood. Still, she found a private table and opened up her laptop. She opened up a browser and searched for one of those recruiting websites. She glazed over after reading through the third job post that was for some secretarial position.

Music would make this more bearable, she figured. Pulling up her playlist, she skimmed through the home page. None of the "Recently Played" recommendations called to her. The ad at the top of the page switched. She recognized the logo. "The Burning Questions," it read, "Tap to listen." Before she could think too much about it, she clicked on it.

It took her to the episode library. She scrolled through the list and found what she was looking for. It was the last episode she ever made. She put in her headphones and clicked play.

Katara's own voice rang through her headphones. She was chattering on about how valiant and brave Zuko was like some sort of lovestruck schoolgirl. She cringed at her own delusion. How could anyone have taken her seriously? She realized that the popularity of the podcast wasn't because of its political accuracy or historical relevance. It wouldn't have become such a pop-culture phenomenon if that was the case. Its popularity came from people's sick interest in watching the downfall of a journalist who was crossing lines and getting too attached to her subject. She was the last person to realize that she had based her career on making herself the butt of a longstanding joke.

She listened to the podcast in a sad silence. It came to a close, and before she could hit pause, the next episode auto-played. Hong's grating voice blared through her headphones, "WELCOME FOLKS to this episode of The. Burning. Questions!" He changed the intro music to a much more upbeat, almost pop-like score.

Ugh. No, thank you. She went to turn off the episode. "My name is Hong, I'll be your host, of course! Now, let me introduce you to the one and only Fire Lord Zuko!"

"Er, hello," came Zuko's voice. She moved the cursor away from the pause button.

Hong continued, "Now, I know all of you listeners want to know all of the delicious details of what went down at the Beifong party, and who am I to disappoint? Plus, the fire lord was more than willing to divulge. We'll be releasing more details through the course of the next few episodes, but I would be remiss not to give you just a taste… I asked the fire lord what it was that he said to Katara immediately after his famous smooch and well, I'll let him tell you himself! He told her to––" Hong's voice was quickly replaced with Zuko's.

"Please refrain from touching me."

"OUCH! Now, I won't give you more details now, my beautiful listeners, but stay tuned because I have more where that came from."

The podcast carried on. Katara wasn't stupid. Zuko wouldn't have said that. He didn't. She would know. She knew that Hong wasn't above partaking in botched journalism. He had no qualms with snipping bits and pieces of audio to spin a sellable story. It almost brought a smile to her face to think of the real context in which Zuko told him that. More than likely, he aimed his comment at Hong directly.

It was mostly offensive on the basis that EKPR considered Hong to be a suitable replacement to Katara. If she could be classified in the same group as him, then why should she care so deeply about journalistic integrity? Hong rose to her level by lying and cheating his way to the top. Katara couldn't have been much better.

They didn't bring Katara up again. Zuko talked at length about the Southern Water Tribe's independence movement. When he spoke of her father, he did so in a removed, desensitized sort of way. That couldn't be explained away by Hong's flimsy sense of morality. It was just how he talked.

She didn't know what she expected, but she had hoped for him to sound more morose. Was that awful? She wanted him to be able to move on, surely. He didn't do anything wrong. He deserved to be happy. Still, it stung to think that she was the only one hung up over this. She didn't matter as much to him as he mattered to her.

She hit play for Hong's next episode, her job applications long forgotten.

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The most inconvenient part of convincing Sokka that she was on the mend was that she had to act the part. And let's be honest, the whole "fake it till you make it" bullshit mantra doesn't work.

They wouldn't let her stay home anymore. She was supposed to be out finding a job. Which meant that she had to go out in public. And going out in public meant she had to get dressed. She found a great compromise: leggings. Her go-to look had become a pair of black leggings and her old BSSU sweatshirt. She packed her laptop and headphones. She never used them, not for work anyway, but still, she brought them. They would sit heavy in the bottom of her backpack all day. She would leave the house and find creative things to do during these little field trips.

Sometimes she took walks. She would put in her headphones and make her way through the middle ring of Ba Sing Se. It made the day go by quickly. She would blink and realize it was dark out, and then have to catch a light rail back to Sokka's house to make it for dinner in time. Sometimes she'd go to the movies. Nothing really piqued her interest; it was mostly just an easy way to waste a couple of hours.

Most of the time she would leave the house just long enough for Suki and Sokka to leave and then she would return once they were gone. She'd change back into her pajamas and lay around the house in peace. More than once, Sokka had come home and caught her fast asleep in her bed. Katara made some sort of excuse for why she wasn't out. She wasn't sure if Sokka bought it, but she at least had plausible deniability.

She couldn't really remember why she cared so much about what they thought, anyway. What was the harm in taking it easy? She deserved to cut herself a break. It took far too much energy pretending to be good at what she was doing to try anymore. Besides, she knew that they were too polite to kick her out. If she didn't cause much of a fuss, she could continue doing this for the foreseeable future. At least she was imagining a future, right? It was the best hope for her.