A splitting headache wakes Zuko from his stupor; the back of his head feels like it's been split open, and it takes him a moment to move his awareness past the pain. As he comes to, the sound of Katara's heavy sobs prompts him to peel his eyelids apart, and what he sees is enough to make his stomach drop straight down into the floor. Katara is curled up on the floor a few feet away from him with her knees to her chest and her head buried in her arms. Her weeping is strong enough to shake her entire body, and his heart clenches as he rouses his body to move.
"Katara?" Her head snaps up, and she meets his eyes; hers are red and puffy, and there's a wetness covering her cheeks that she hasn't bothered to wipe away.
"Zuko!" The way his name spills from her lips reminds him of the time he had seen a house catch fire back in Ember: all ash and soot and pain. He opens his arms, and she crawls over to nestle herself between his legs. "I didn't mean to— I didn't want her to— she was going to kill me! And she was going to kill you and—" Small, shaking hands fist into the remains of his shirt, and he can feel her lips move against his chest, thankfully not on the relatively shallow wounds Hama had inflicted on him. He brings his hand up to stroke Katara's hair as his eyes wander around the space before catching on—
Oh, no. Hama lies not too far away, face up and unmoving on the cold floor. There's dark blood trailing from in and behind her ear, and the glow from her unblinking eyes is still visible in the shifting light of the sconces. He winces and pushes through the pain to raise his arm and embrace Katara as she continues to sob into his chest. It had been a baseless hope that Katara would come out of this quest unscathed, but he had hoped nonetheless. There's nothing he can say to console her, no words that will soften the jagged edges of guilt and horror that come along with taking a life, so he does the only thing he can. She shakes and sobs in his arms, and he strokes her messy hair and cradles her head to his chest, and prays to any god that will listen that Katara's heart won't be leadened by this moment forever.
After some amount of time— possibly minutes, maybe hours— Katara has quieted to the occasional hiccup, and he feels her breaths growing more even with each shaky exhale.
"Let's go upstairs." She nods against his chest. "Can you stand?" Logically he's the one that should be having trouble, but Zuko is no stranger to physical pain, and he's much more concerned with the wobble of Katara's legs as he helps her rise. "Don't look." He keeps his hand on her hair, moving it to shield her eyes even as she turns her face fully into his chest.
They take small steps— he's careful to keep her angled so that there's no possible way for her to see the haunting image of Hama's lifeless body. After they manage to round the corner, he lets Katara take a few deep breaths before conjuring a small flame in his palm to light their way up the stairs. The journey is slow; his path down these stairs had been stilted and jerking as Hama had taken joy in bending his legs and forcing him to descend into her hellish basement. Katara walks in front of him by just a single step, and he keeps his hand on her back to ensure that she doesn't fall. Her legs still shake, as does her breath, and her arms are wrapped around herself in a gesture that makes her look small and fragile. His heart breaks for her with each step.
Eventually they make it to the first floor. Zuko closes the door behind them, sealing off the dark portal and leaving the demons of the night behind the heavy wood. Katara jumps at the sound, and in a flash he's back by her side with his arm wrapped around her waist. He guides her to the main room and lowers her gently onto one of the plush chairs before lighting the hearth.
"I'm gonna get us some water, okay?" She nods silently. "I'll just be right there," he says, and points over to the kitchen area. Katara's head doesn't move. "I'll be right back."
He loathes leaving her alone for even a second, but he knows that he needs to at least have something with them for her to eat and drink, even if she won't do it. Thankfully there's a kettle already full of water, and he grabs the whole thing before rummaging around for any type of crackers or biscuits. He wraps what he finds up in a cloth that looks clean enough, and shoves it unceremoniously into his pocket. Katara sits in the same exact place as he left her, and despite the heat of hearth, her body mimics a leaf in the cold winter wind, fragile and quaking and on the edge of a dangerous precipice.
Wordlessly he moves to her side; she flinches when he lays his hand on her shoulder, and when she looks up at him her eyes are wide and bright and wet. Slowly she rises, and his hand gravitates back around her waist as they head for the second floor. The hearth winks out behind them with a wave of his hand,and the house goes dark. Katara pushes closer into his side, and her hand searching for purchase on his shirt reminds him that he still has untended wounds that need to be cleaned. He stops them outside of the room he had been staying in and grabs his pack before guiding Katara to her own room.
She sits on the edge of the bed while he pulls off his shirt with a wince and rummages through his pack for the first aid supplies and for his mug. He finds them both without too much effort and sets the mug aside next to the kettle. The bed dips under his weight as he sits next to Katara and opens the first aid kit.
"Are you hurt?" he asks, tentative and worried. She shakes her head, and he bites his lip. "Are you sure?" She nods. "Okay. Here." He pours some water from the kettle into his mug and guides it into her shaking hands, curling her fingers around it under his. "Drink some water if you can." She nods and brings the mug to her lips before taking a miniscule sip. Better than nothing. The mug is handed back to him, and he rests it on the night table before pulling the mostly-crumbled crackers out of his pocket and setting them down with the mug. The contents of the first aid kit are somewhat sparse, but there's enough alcohol and bandages for his wounds. He'd say that he counts his lucky stars, but the sky is devoid of any light outside the small window.
"Can I help?" Katara's voice is scratchy and raw, and the sound of it makes him jump.
"Are you sure? You don't want to rest?"
"I need to help." There are tears in her eyes, and something inside of him melts as he recognizes the suffering housed within the glowing blue. "Please."
"Okay," he sighs as he nods and hands her the cloth and alcohol. If she were anyone else, he wouldn't be letting her help, but it's Katara; he knows that she needs to feel like she can still do something good after all that she's been through tonight.
She dumps the alcohol onto the rag, and he does his absolute best to bite back the hiss of pain that the contact with his open wound brings. They both stay silent as Katara works to clean the gashes on his chest. They're not that bad, and will probably only require a few handfuls of stitches. She has trouble threading the needle with her shaky hands, and their eyes catch as he takes it from her as gently as he can before threading it and handing it back to her. No words are exchanged between them while she stitches him up, and after a while she snips the last thread and ties the last stitch.
A breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding escapes his lungs, and he clears everything off of the bed before guiding Katara up towards the pillow and underneath the blanket.
"Stay." It's nothing but a breath, but her single word is enough to make him feel like he's breaking all over again. Her voice is so strained, her eyes are puffy and red, and he wouldn't dream of leaving her alone like this.
He nods and throws on a clean shirt before making his way underneath the blanket. As soon as he lies down she's there, pressed up against his chest as lightly as she can be while still being in contact with his whole body. She curls into him, buries her head in his shoulder, and as her exhaustion takes her, he lays a kiss on her forehead before drifting off into a dreamless sleep.
Xx
When he wakes up the next day it's well past morning. Katara is still curled into his arms, and in the light of day he takes note of her splotchy cheeks and the heavy purple marks under her eyes. It breaks his heart to see her like this; he's seen her angry, he's seen her sad, but this is something else all together. It's guilt and shame and self hatred and horror all stirred together into a poison, and it's pumping through her veins with each beat of her heart. He knows that there's no way he can really help, but he'll be damned if he won't try. The stitches in his chest tug uncomfortably as he brushes a stray lock of hair out of Katara's face with a sigh; the world is too cruel for people with hearts like Katara's. Hearts that are brave despite their softness, those that endure the worst but still manage to be sensitive, that are efficient but kind to a fault.
He maneuvers his way out of bed, somehow managing not to wake her, and heads to the washroom. In the mirror he takes in his own visage; hair mussed and sticking up in places, eyes laden with heavy bags, maybe even some new lines etched onto his forehead. The water he splashes over his face does nothing to wash away the years he's aged simply overnight, but his pain isn't important right now. The stairs creak under his weight as he makes his way into the kitchen to cobble together some sort of breakfast for himself and Katara; he knows that she most likely won't eat very much, but he has to try. Nobody had been there for him when he went through this himself, and he wouldn't wish that suffering on anyone, especially not the woman he loves.
Katara is thankfully still asleep when he returns, but as he sits down on the floor she begins to stir. Her eyes peel open, lids parting around irritated pink that contrasts sharply with the glowing blue of her irises. It must have been a heavy sleep, because her eyes take a moment to focus before landing on him, and when they meet his own he sees the memories flood back into her. She moves to prop herself up on her elbows, and he realizes too late that there's still blood on her clothes. Whether it's his, hers, or Hama's is beside the point; the dark stains on her pale green shirt will be upsetting regardless of the origin.
"Hey." He keeps his voice as gentle as he can, but finds that after his greeting he's at a loss for words.
"Hey," she replies, barely a mumble. Heavy silence fills the space between them for a beat.
"I made breakfast..." he gestures to the bowl perched on the nightstand. "If you're hungry."
"Thanks." She doesn't outright refuse, so he takes it as a good sign, but she doesn't reach for the food either. "I think—" her hands catch in her shirt, and she twists it around in her fists. "I'm going to clean up first."
"Of course." He scrambles to his feet, not knowing what to do, but knowing that he needs to do something. "Do you want me to heat up the water for you?"
"Sure." The strange flatness to Katara's voice rings loud in his ears, and he goes to pull her a hot bath. She shuffles in a while later when the basin is full and the room is filled with steam. "Thanks."
"No problem."
He waits for her back in their room, busying himself with repacking their bags and double checking their supplies. On his way downstairs he hears Katara's sobs coming from the bathroom, raw and unfiltered and haunting. His fingers trace down the length of the door, his skin barely brushing the cold wood. Obviously he can't go in, but he longs to comfort her, the sound of her cries painful in his ears, and he has to force himself to continue to the main floor. He'd feel bad about rummaging through Hama's cupboards if she hadn't tried to kill him, but as it stands, he's willing to take whatever they might find useful on their travels from the woman's kitchen. When it comes to survival, it's imperative to take advantage of whatever resources are available, but he vows to not tell Katara where the few supplies he finds came from.
He's just managed to pack up the last of their things when Katara returns to the room, hair already dry and hanging loose around her shoulders,and he's glad to see her blue tunic free of nefarious stains. Her eyes are more red than pink, and she's sniffling at frequent intervals; it takes all he has not to pull her into his arms and never let go.
"We can leave after we eat, okay?" She nods and sits down on the bed beside him.
The bowl of food sits in her unmoving hands, and he's surprised when she actually manages to eat almost half of her breakfast. It's easy to forget that Katara is made out of tougher stuff, her heart soft but encased in ice from the early traumas of her childhood. He wishes desperately that this was a world where they could be safe like everyone else, but their lives have hardened them, their skin coal under pressure for all of their years until finally turning into diamond; unbreakable and cold.
He laces his fingers into hers before they leave the bedroom, and she sticks close to his side as they walk through the house. It isn't necessarily cold, but Katara shivers the whole way through. Finally they step out into the fresh air, the winter chill carding through his hair with a light breeze, and he hears her exhale beside him. They pause on the doorstep before continuing on; Katara's grip is tight on his hand, and as soon as they're out of view of Hama's home, she breaks into tears. All he can do is hold her close to his chest, pump up his body temperature to try to comfort her, and pray to any god that will listen that Katara makes it through all of this with her kind heart intact.
Xx
For the next two weeks, Katara wakes up at least once a night due to a nightmare. Zuko is there to hold her when she cries, to stroke her hair and rub her back until finally she falls into a boneless sleep. Needless to say they're both exhausted, but there's no way in hell that he'd leave her to deal with this on her own. He's been making sure that she eats and drinks plenty of water. He's been doing his best to keep her mind occupied with (admittedly awful) jokes, and when he sees a real smile on her face for the first time since they've left Hama's he thinks he might cry. She doesn't talk about how she feels much, but when she does he makes sure to be there for her, to give her his undivided attention, and to take note of what she needs, whether it be a distraction, a hand to hold, or just a warm hug.
Thankfully about three weeks after they left Hama's, Katara is acting more herself, even if she still has nightmares most nights. There's more warmth in her eyes, more life in her body as she walks beside him. Her smiles come more often, although for the most part they're not as bright as they used to be. But Zuko will take whatever he can get; if it means that she's healing, or at least starting to, he's glad for it.
"Does it ever go away?" They're curled into each other in the tent, sharing their body heat in the cold winter night, when Katara's voice breaks the silence.
"Does what ever go away?"
"The guilt," she sighs. "The anger, the pain."
He pulls her hands into his and shuffles a little closer to her. "It won't ever really go away." Her eyes drop; he hates making her upset, but he won't lie to her. "But it gets easier. The thing about it, Katara," she looks back up at him, "is that it was literally life or death. Do you remember when I told you about that assassin I killed?" She nods. "Do you judge me because of that?"
"Of course not."
"Do you think I should have let him kill me?"
"No!" She sounds affronted, and he continues before she can get the wrong idea.
"Right, exactly. You can't beat yourself up over this Katara." He finds the bravery somewhere inside of him to reach up to her face and brush a long strand of hair behind her ear. "You didn't have any other options. And on top of that, it was an accident." She sniffles as he returns his hand to hers. "You're not a bad person just because you've done a bad thing. If that were the case, I'd be a terrible person, and so would everyone else we know."
"I know." Her voice is quiet in the dark tent. She moves closer to him, and there's barely even a few inches between them now. "Thank you, Zuko."
"For what?" A small smile graces her face, and his heart swoops dangerously in his chest.
"For being here for me." Now it's her turn to brush his hair out of his eyes, and he feels his skin get hot where her fingers had grazed it.
"Of course I'm here for you. Katara."
"I know, but I mean, like—" She looks right into his eyes. "You've been here for me through so much, and I just… I don't think I'd be able to do this without you." His face softens, and she smiles again. He's been trying to shove his feelings away these past few weeks, knowing that there is a time and place for them and now is not it, but the air crackles like lightning between them, and he feels the familiar tingle in his bones as he looks into her eyes.
"I'm glad that I can be here for you." She pulls her lip between her teeth, and he tries his hardest not to look. He fails. "I care about you, Katara." He doesn't know why he says it; of course it's true, but the words fall from his lips before he can think about what they really mean. But she smiles anyway, and this time when she brushes his hair away from his eyes, her hand comes to rest on his face, her palm laying on his scar and sending a heat through him that has nothing to do with his heightened body temperature.
"I care about you too," she whispers to him, a secret confession shared only in the ease of darkness, and he latches onto the words and stores them in his safebox heart.
His eyes dart between hers, and down to her lips as she wets them in the minute space between their faces. The wild animal that is his heart is flailing around in his chest so rapidly he thinks that it might burst straight out of his skin, but he can't make himself care. All he cares about right now is the woman he loves, who is less than two inches from his face and seems to be moving closer at a speed so slow it almost doesn't even seem real. Is she moving closer, or is he? It doesn't matter, and when their lips finally come together, the rest of the world melts away.
It's different from both of their previous kisses, maybe because this one is organic and pure and real, something neither of the others had been, at least not really. It starts off slow, barely a press of lips, but it's everything he's ever wanted and more, and when she comes back to him for another he doesn't dream of denying her. Her lips are softer than he remembers, softer than he'd ever imagined them to be, and the tip of her nose is cold against his cheek. He pulls her into him by her waist, gentle but desperate, and her cold hand weaves through his hair and sends a shiver down his spine. His senses are flooded with Katara; her plush lips working his, the light scrape of her nails as she pulls her hand through his hair, the soft curves of her body pressed up against him. She's sunlight and thunder and crashing waves all wrapped up in the most beautiful person he's ever seen; she's passion and grace and bravery all stuffed into the softest, kindest heart he's ever known, and he'd do anything, anything, to lose himself in her.
She sighs and melts against him with her lips still locked with his, and fire courses through his veins as her hand trails down from his hair onto his neck. The kiss is slow and languid and hot, and he wants every part of her, body and soul and heart and bones. There's not many layers between them, and he can feel the dip of her spine when he runs his hand up her back. He feels her ribs expand around her lungs before she takes his lip in her teeth, and the shudder that runs through him has nothing to do with the cold. In fact, the air inside the tent has become stuffy and warm, so much so that he's starting to feel sweat bead on his forehead. She pushes up into him, and hot sparks shoot through his body before he reluctantly breaks their kiss. No need to embarrass myself this fast.
Heavy breaths fan out in the space between them, barely an inch separating their faces as they come back to earth. There's no excuses this time: no "we had to" or "we were drunk." It's all them, and it finally hits him that Katara actually wants him.
"We're so dumb." It's not what he wants to say, but she laughs in his arms and he decides that he doesn't even care.
"We really are, aren't we?" She looks happier than she has in weeks, her smile stretched far across her face and eyes crinkled with mirth.
"So, all this time, we could have been…" he looks between them, "like this, but instead…"
"Instead we were insecure and scared and blind? Yeah, I guess so." They laugh together, and Zuko pulls her back into his chest. He feels lighter than he's felt in years, like his heart is full of air and he might float away if he doesn't stay anchored to Katara. "You know what that means, right?" She's wearing a devilish smirk, and the spark in her eyes sends fizzling heat along his nerves.
"What does it mean?" His voice comes out lower than it usually is, and Katara bites her lip and moves just close enough that he can feel her lips on his when she speaks.
"We have a lot of time to make up for." He can barely huff out a breath before her lips are on his again, more insistent this time, and he feels the world melt away yet again as he lets himself get lost in her.