Zuko is a locked vault. Iroh finds the key in the Si Wong Desert.
DAY 9: LOCK AND KEY
In hindsight, Iroh could not pinpoint the exact moment in which the change had bloomed. But he was confident that the seed was planted when they found the Avatar's waterbending companion stumbling in the sands of the Si Wong Desert, alone and dangerously dehydrated.
It had started as a cautious, mutually-beneficial agreement. The three of them would travel together; make it to Ba Sing Se in one piece. Then part ways, the waterbender not revealing their identities in exchange for a cease-and-desist regarding the hunt for the Avatar.
Zuko had been less than thrilled with the arrangement. In fact, Iroh was almost certain he had no intention of holding up his end of the deal—based on the open hostility he exhibited toward the young Master Katara.
It, too, crossed his mind that Katara might report them to the authorities the moment they arrived at Full Moon Bay.
But it was a long, long way to Ba Sing Se.
Iroh was a patient man, but even he could admit that the first few days of their time together were…grating.
"Don't eat that, Uncle. She probably poisoned it."
Iroh paused, berry halfway to his lips, glancing between his nephew and the now-fuming Katara.
"You just watched me eat one!"
"You could have switched out the good ones for the poisonous ones in my uncle's portion!"
"If there's anyone here I'd poison, it's not Iroh."
"Uncle, did you hear that? She wants to poison me!"
With a sigh, Iroh popped the berry into his mouth.
"Why don't you two try to channel your anger with each other into a friendly spar?" he tried one afternoon, pinching the bridge of his nose to quell the oncoming headache. They'd been locked in verbal blows over who would fetch the firewood for much longer than Iroh would consider reasonable.
Zuko whirled on him. "And why would we do that?"
He held his hands up placatingly. "I just think you could spend your energy doing something more productive." Katara looked to Zuko and shrugged, but the young man next to her kept his sharp glare pointed at Iroh. "You could use the practice, Nephew," he added.
The waterbender's smirk was almost as loud as his nephew's indignant spluttering.
The sparring became a nightly ritual—one that made their travels much more bearable. Some days, Iroh would follow the kids to a secluded clearing and watch, sipping his tea and offering Zuko corrections where needed.
Other days, he would lie back on his bedroll, listening to furious yells and the sizzling of opposing elements meeting from somewhere over the trees.
Eventually, his nephew would march out of the woods nursing water whip welts on his arms and face. Katara would emerge shortly after, unscathed thanks to her healing talents. They returned to camp in sullen silence most nights, retiring to their respective bedrolls without a word.
They fell so mechanically into the routine—walk all day, set up camp, spar, sleep, repeat—that Iroh almost didn't notice when Katara began healing Zuko's wounds, too.
If there was one thing Iroh knew intimately, it was that cold silence bred loneliness. So it did not entirely surprise him when, at some point in the final days before they arrived at Full Moon Bay, the cold silences became companionable. And in between the companionable silences came companionable conversations.
Iroh learned much about Katara of the Southern Water Tribe. And despite his best efforts to convey his disinterest, the ever-stoic Zuko kept his head quirked, eyes flicking, as Katara regaled them with the stories of her people.
When they made it beyond the passport checkpoint at Full Moon Bay and stepped aboard the ferry that would take them to new beginnings, something shifted.
And when Katara stood at the railing overlooking the sea, telling tales of ice floes and canoeing with her mother, Zuko stopped pretending he wasn't listening.
The sun had just kissed the horizon when across the bay, the great Outer Wall of Ba Sing Se appeared in Iroh's sightline.
Next to him lay two empty bedrolls.
Their arrival in Ba Sing Se's Lower Ring was a jarring reminder that the young girl who had traveled this far with them was completely, utterly alone. So naturally, Iroh offered her a place to stay—just until she found her friends.
He wondered if her reluctant acceptance had anything to do with the whispered conversation he'd found her and his nephew engrossed in that morning on the bow of the ferry.
During the days, Iroh and Zuko worked in Pao's tea shop while Katara searched the city for her friends. She would return in the afternoons, always a bit more dejected than at the onset of the day.
It didn't escape Iroh's notice when his nephew perked up the moment she entered the shop, nor when he began swiping cups of chamomile to bring to the secluded corner table at which she sat late into most evenings.
But he would be careful. He would not upset the balance of this delicate thing that had formed somewhere between Zuko's furtive glances toward the corner of Pao's tea shop.
The wall separating the two bedrooms of their tiny apartment was paper-thin. So thin that Iroh was jolted awake the first time Zuko snuck into Katara's room.
"Katara, are you awake?"
"Hey. Couldn't sleep?"
"No. I…I'm sorry I woke you. I don't know why—"
"Zuko, it's okay. You can stay."
"…What?"
"You can stay if you want."
He did his best to tune them out after that, but he couldn't help the grin that stretched his face in the darkness.
On a rainy evening, Katara strode into the tea shop, holding a damp piece of parchment with her face on it. The Avatar was looking for her—a development Iroh had expected for weeks. And given his recent observations, he wasn't surprised at the matching stricken expressions painted across both his nephew's and Katara's faces.
But the determined set in the waterbender's jaw when she looked Zuko squarely in the eye and said, "Come with me," did surprise him.
And when his beloved nephew looked to him and offered him the tiniest of smiles, his heart swelled against his ribcage.
Zuko turned the full intensity of his gaze onto Katara and nodded resolutely.