Part 4: Chapter 25
"What do I owe to you
Who loved me deep and long?
You never gave my spirit wings
Nor gave my heart a song.
But oh, to him I loved,
Who loved me not at all,
I owe the little open gate
That led through heaven's wall."
-Sara Teasdale, "Debt"
"Zuko, it's nice to see you again," Katara said stiffly. She sat at the tea table, and Kazia climbed into her lap. Iroh quietly poured them all tea.
"Katara. I, uh, wasn't expecting you," Zuko replied. His palms felt sweaty and he wiped them on his robes. He briefly worried what his hair looked like.
"I know, I know, I should have sent a hawk. Kazia and I decided to visit the Airbending Academy at the Eastern Air Temple. I wanted her to get a chance to meet all her half-siblings." Katara stroked her daughter's hair.
"The airbenders?" Zuko asked. He saw his uncle shovel soufflé into his mouth as if to avoid the conversation.
Katara seemed to suppress an eyeroll. "Yes, Zuko. Kazia seems to have taken after me in terms of waterbending, but I still want her to know Aang's other children."
"So… Aang is her father?"
. . . . .
Katara watched Zuko as he appeared to count backward in his head.
"Yes, Aang is her father," she snapped. Kazia looked up at her with concern. She softened her tone. "When we got to the academy, we ran into Grand Lotus Iroh, and Kazia glued herself to his side. Like she was a long-lost granddaughter."
"I asked them to come with me to the Capital," Iroh interjected. "I didn't want to have to say goodbye so quickly. Little Kazia has brought much joy to my days."
"Oh." Zuko looked like he wanted to ask more, but instead he piled food onto his plate. Katara broke off a piece of bread and handed it to Kazia, still marveling at how much she was growing every day. She grabbed chopsticks and plucked a dumpling out of a bamboo steamer for herself.
"How long do you plan on staying?" Zuko asked after he took a sip of his tea.
"Till the end of the solstice, if you have room for us. I think she'd love to see the Fire Nation celebrations. And after that, who knows?" Katara said. She wished Zuko would ask her about more mundane topics, like the weather or the trip from the Western Air Temple. She worried he already knew the secret she'd been hiding for two years.
"Of course," Zuko said quickly. "We have plenty of room. Especially after the expansion of the west wing to house the new students."
"Students?"
Zuko's eyes darted to his uncle, who was focused on his soufflé. Katara picked up another dumpling to fill the silence. How did you expect he'd react after you show up on his doorstep after two years? she berated herself. Of course it was going to be awkward as hell. Especially with Kazy.
"Mei and I never had children, as you know," Zuko said slowly, still looking at his uncle. He turned back to her. The skin of his face was softer, and she noticed a few strands of silver hair at his temples. His scar still mottled the left side of his face. He continued, saying, "So I don't have an heir. My advisors think I should remarry, but I don't know if I can. Instead, I invited thirty-seven children from around the nation to study in a boarding school, here at the palace. It's not official news yet, but I'm hoping one day I'll be able to choose one of them to become the next Fire Lord."
Katara simply nodded. She had been surprised weeks ago when Iroh had told her Zuko hadn't remarried. She'd thought he'd want to move past Mei's betrayal. But maybe the betrayal was the reason he couldn't move on.
"It's going well so far," Zuko added. "They're very bright students. Their tutors are very impressed with them. I couldn't have made an heir half as smart as any of them, even with the most brilliant wife in the world." Katara noticed him redden, and his eyes flicked down to Kazia for only a millisecond.
Oh gods, she thought. He knows.
Iroh seemed to notice the tension in the room, and he abruptly cleared his throat. "Well, the trip from the academy was long, and I'd like to rest before lunch." He stood and held a hand out to Kazia. "What about you, my sugar plum? Would you like to take a nap?"
Kazia shook her head fiercely in Katara's lap. "Why don't you play with your toys for a bit?" Katara suggested. Her daughter nodded and looked up at Iroh.
"Yes, here they are. Avatar Kyoshi and her faithful companion, Appa." Iroh pulled two stuffed toys out of his deep pockets: a doll with a green dress and a white airbison. Kazia climbed out of her lap and took her toys to a floor pillow across the room. Katara watched her pretend the doll was riding the airbison through the sky.
Once Iroh left, Zuko leaned across the table. "How old did you say she is?" he whispered tersely.
"I didn't say," Katara replied. She tried to keep her face calm, but her hands were shaking.
"I don't know much about children, but she looks to be almost three," he said. Katara glanced over at Kazia, but she was absorbed with her toys.
"She'll be three in Marchring," she admitted.
Zuko looked up at the ceiling as if it held her secret. His lips moved without a sound, and she knew he was doing the math.
"Aang died on the last day of Febinter," Zuko said.
"You don't have to remind me," Katara snapped. She felt her heartbeats speed up, and she struggled to control her anger. Anger that was only disguising her fear.
"You left right before the summer solstice. Suki told me the others didn't know where you were. Which means you didn't see Aang after my wedding," he continued.
Katara chewed her lower lip, wondering why she ever thought introducing Kazia to Zuko would be a good idea.
"Which means, Aang wasn't with you after the solstice. So you were already—" he dipped his head toward Kazia.
"I haven't given much thought to it," she lied. From the corner of her eye, she saw Kazia look up from her toys.
"Katara, we were together…"
"And I was also with my husband." Her hands clenched into fists below the tea table. Zuko sat back on his floor pillow.
. . . . .
Katara looked angrier than he had ever seen her. He could see the muscles of her jaw were clenched and her shoulders were tense, like she'd attack him at any moment. Still, he kept trying to poke the platypus-bear to see her reaction.
"You and Aang were never married," he said flatly.
"No, but you and Mei were."
The full knowledge of what she was saying hit Zuko like a tidal wave. He knew he must be the child's father. Kazia had thick black hair and skin much lighter than her mother's. She looked just like he had in the pictures he'd seen of himself at her age. But Katara was staunchly holding onto the lie that Aang was Kazia's father. And he finally understood why. Mei's voice reached out to him from across the years, and he repeated her words.
"Bastards of any Fire Lord tend to have short life spans," he said finally. Katara's shoulders dropped, and he saw tears fill her eyes.
"I want her to be proud of her heritage," she whispered.
All the injustices he'd felt throughout his life crashed into him, mixing with the familiar grief about Mei, about Aang, about his own mother. Surely he wouldn't have to grieve the loss of his child too. "Oh, because I'm not good enough?" Zuko asked.
Katara slammed her palm on the table. "This isn't about you! You're putting your pride before her honor!"
Zuko felt the candles around the room brighten with his anger. Katara couldn't spring the news of Kazia on him and simply expect him to pretend he didn't know the truth. "So what, do you plan to lie to her for the rest of her life?" He tried to control his voice, but the candles' white flames wavered with his anger.
"If that's what it takes, then yes!"
Katara suddenly gasped in pain and pulled her hand back from the table. Zuko stared at her, a burn covering the back of her hand. Did I do that? he asked himself in shock.
"Katara, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you," he said, rushing to her side of the table and kneeling beside her.
"You didn't," she said, gritting her teeth through the pain. "Look. My tea started boiling." She nodded her head toward her cup of tea, droplets sizzling as they hit the table. The tea was boiling without a source of heat, steam rising from the porcelain cup.
"Does that happen when you're upset?" he asked. She shook her head, examining the burn on her hand.
"I've never made water boil," she said. At a whimper, they both turned to look at the forgotten child. Tears spilled down Kazia's pink cheeks, her toys clutched to her chest. "Mama, stop't," she whispered. Katara held out her uninjured arm, and the girl rushed into her lap.
Zuko couldn't stop staring at his daughter. "You said she was a waterbender," he whispered. "Could she be a firebender too?"
Katara looked up sharply. "You don't think…"
Zuko suddenly felt nauseated. The rice paper door to the tea room slid open.
"I heard a shout, is everyone alright?" Iroh asked as he stepped into the room. He glanced at each of them with concern in his brown eyes.
"Uncle, what happens when an Avatar dies?" Zuko whispered, still staring at the girl.
"Well, his or her spirit passes onto the spirit world. Usually there is what's called a latency period, where the next reincarnation is not yet born. Usually that lasts a few weeks until a few months. It's what makes finding the next reincarnation so difficult. Any children born in the following nation within a year of the Avatar's passing could be the next reincarnation."
Zuko glanced at Katara, who was still pointedly looking at her burn as she rocked her daughter. Kneeling next to her, he could smell salt water, like she had just swum in the ocean. A familiar smell, a comforting smell, despite all the conflict that had surrounded them for a decade.
"Why the question, Nephew? The Order won't begin looking for the new Avatar for at least another year or two," Iroh prodded.
"Uncle Iroh," Katara interrupted, looking up at him. "Can you take Kazy for a minute?" She twisted to look down at her daughter and said, "Mommy's gonna talk to Fire Lord Zuko for a minute. Can you go with Uncle Iroh?" The girl sniffled, but she got up and followed Iroh into the next room.
"Let's walk in the garden," Zuko suggested tentatively. He thought she'd prefer being outside. When she nodded, he led her to his mother's garden. The flowers and trees were manicured carefully by royal gardeners but remained otherwise unchanged since his mother had left. They sat by the pond, the cold air making their breaths come out as puffs. Zuko used his firebending to warm his hands, and steeled himself for rejection as he took Katara's hands in between his own.
"Tell me what happened."
. . . . .
The warmth of his hands around hers gave Katara a blessed distraction. If she could only pull this moment out of context, hold it without knowledge of the past or worry about the future, she could let herself feel real peace. But stories didn't work like that.
"Before your wedding, you convinced Aang to live his own life. You told him he had done his duty. I didn't know it then, but it broke my heart when he made that decision. I was so angry at you. I blamed you for everything. I thought if Aang continued fathering airbenders, something I knew he hated, my life, my choices would be vindicated. I hadn't made any choices for myself in years. Not since I… we… were together on Ember Island, before the comet.
"I let the Universe tell me Aang was my destiny. But I finally realized when I couldn't conceive a child with Aang, the Universe was telling me I had made a mistake. I hadn't trusted myself. Being with you, the night before your wedding, made me realize I was living a half-life, a life meant to support others instead of myself." She paused and shrugged. "So I left. I needed to be alone, to figure out what I wanted out of life. I traveled for a while, usually by boats I could control with my bending. And I was finding peace. I was learning more about myself. I assumed I wasn't meant to be a mother until…" she glanced over her shoulder at the door they had come through. "Until I realized I was going to be one. I needed to settle down, so I found a village where no one would expect a waterbender. And I stayed there a few months. And then…"
"Then the village was burned down," Zuko finished quietly.
Katara nodded. "I wasn't ready to see everyone again. Especially not you. I didn't think I'd ever be able to face you again. But the Universe made our paths converge again.
"I tried to stay out of the way while you were in Szenton. I didn't want you to recognize me, or realize I was pregnant. But when you got hit with that Glass Triangle arrow, I… I realized I couldn't just watch you die. Somehow I got to you during the chaos, and I took you home. Well, I guess you know that part."
"Were you ever going to tell me?" Zuko asked, his voice cracking.
"I don't know," she said with a sigh. "During the final battle in the Szenton square, I thought I'd lose you. But instead I lost Aang." She pulled one hand from his to wipe her eyes.
"He knew," Zuko realized. "His final words. 'If it's a boy, name him Izmael. If it's a girl, Kazia."
"I never told him," she said, her voice shaking. "I hadn't seen him since your wedding. I hadn't even written to Suki about the pregnancy. I had no idea how he'd known." She hiccuped and added, "When he passed on to the spirit world, and I had healed the little girl, I knew I had to hide again. I was still holding out hope the child was Aang's. But when she was born, when I held her for the first time, all I could see was you." She shook her head, and her voice came out like a stone. "But I'm glad he knew about her. I'm glad he died thinking he was Kazia's father."
. . . . .
Zuko felt his heart breaking as she told him everything. He rubbed her back gently with one hand, wondering if he should tell her what he'd realized. Would the truth push her away again? He had to take that chance.
"Katara, Aang knew the child wasn't his," he said gently. She whipped around to face him, creating a space between their bodies as they sat by the pond.
"Why would you say that?" she asked, her voice like a smooth knife cut. "He used his last words to name her."
Zuko considered conceding to her, but as the wind rustled the bare branches of the tree above them, he made up his mind. Looking into her ocean blue eyes, he exhaled softly.
"Those are Fire Nation names," he said simply. "Izmael and Kazia. Aang knew the child might be a firebender. He knew she was mine."
Katara stared at him, tears spilling over her cheeks. "My gods," she said. "You're right. Aang knew. All this time, I had found peace with the thought that he believed she was his."
Zuko held her as she cried. As the sun crested the sky above them and began its descent toward the western horizon, they cried together, arms wrapped around each other like drowning sailors clinging to pieces of their broken ship.
Finally, Katara pulled away to look at him. "She… she might be the next reincarnation."
Zuko nodded. "We can't jump to conclusions, but it's a possibility."
"She's bended water a little before. Little things, like knocking over a glass without touching it, making small waves when I was giving her a bath. But I've never heard of a waterbender boiling water before."
"No one had bended metal before Toph," Zuko pointed out.
"She's two years old, Zuko. Toph was already a master bender by the time she discovered metal bending."
"Right."
They sat in silence for a long time, watching the surface of the pond sparkle in the afternoon light. Finally, Katara spoke.
"I think your uncle knows she's your daughter."
Zuko nodded. "I think you're right. He's too tactful to say it though."
"They took to each other like a penguin-seal to water. I think they'll both be devastated when we have to move on."
"Move on?" Zuko stared at her. "Surely you can stay here? Or at least nearby?"
"I don't know if… I'm meant to stay in one place too long, Zuko. I've been traveling all of my adult life. I rarely stay in one place for more than a few months. I start feeling like the walls are closing in."
He nodded again. He felt the same way sometimes. "Okay," he said finally.
"Just like that? You're not going to try to get me to stay?" Katara looked at him with furrowed brows.
Zuko laughed softly and said, "Trying to get you to do anything would be like trying to pin down smoke. I'll respect whatever decision you make. I'd just like to see her once a year, if that's not too much to ask."
Katara turned to stare at the pond. "I'd like that," she replied. "I think it's important she knows you. And when she's old enough, we can tell her the truth."
"Really?" Zuko asked. His heart beat faster at her sudden change.
"Like you said, Fire Lords' bastards tend to have short lifespans. But by the time she's a master waterbender, she'll be able to take care of herself."
"I'll send you money, of course. You'll never have to worry about supporting her alone. That's the least I can do," he said quickly, rushing to take advantage of her mood.
She shook her head and turned to him, cupping his chin in her hand. To his shock, she leaned in and kissed him, slowly, as if the moment would extend into infinity. He resisted the urge to wrap his arms around her, to pull her into him so tightly that she'd never be able to leave again. Instead, he tangled his hand in her soft brown hair and tried to appreciate the moment.
When she finally pulled away, she said, "I love you."
"I love you too," he whispered.