Hesitancy

He shouldn't be so proud of himself just for finding the strength to sit up. Even after more than a week of lying nearly immobile, it's a pathetically minor accomplishment.

But pathetic or not, it's still progress. Enough so that he can almost afford to think about what happens next. He can't walk. He can't even stand, but it's getting closer. Maybe someday he'll be able to rise to his feet. Someday, he might even be able to leave this place on his own strength.

"Zuko?" Katara stops short in the middle of the clearing, then jogs the rest of the way to the cave. "You're sitting. When did this happen?" She drops to her knees beside him. "How long have you been able to—"

"Just today," he answers. Much as he wants to, he can't hold her gaze. It's too bright, too difficult to decipher. She almostlooks happy. Almost. But there are too many other emotions vying for position on her face, and he doesn't think he can bear it if she is any less than pleased with his progress.

Zuko swallows and focuses his attention on his hands. "It's not much. I know that. It's just been so long since I could—"

"Zuko." Her hand comes to rest on his shoulder, and he has to meet her eyes. "This is incredible. You're doing so well." She raises her hand toward his face, then stops herself and clutches his shoulder again. A small, soft smile crosses her face. "I'm happy for you."

He exhales. He isn't used to feeling like this. He isn't used to having people care about him—to having people celebrate his victories without turning to mockery. But Katara seems sincere. She may be a bit hesitant, but Zuko has never known her to be dishonest before. Angry, sometimes, but never dishonest.

He tries to trust her.

"Thanks."

Katara allows her hand to linger a moment longer before she sits back and smooths her hair. "Of course, I might be congratulating myself for doing such a good job healing you too. I can't really decide who I should be more proud of."

He feels his mouth twitch into something that might look a bit like a smile. "I think that's fair."

"Good." She pulls a covered cooking pot closer from where she'd placed it by the mouth of the cave. "And good timing too. I brought some of my leftover soup, and it might've been a little difficult to eat if you couldn't sit up."

He nods and tries his best to shift into a more comfortable, more upright position. A sharp stab strikes the middle of his back, and he winces.

Katara's eyes widen. "Are you okay?"

He nods again. "Fine." As soon as he settles back against the wall of the cave, the pain fades away. That in itself is an improvement. Before, the pain would always linger. "It still hurts sometimes, but it doesn't last very long."

She looks a little more solemn now, but she sits back. Being relatively close to eye level with her makes for a nice change, even if he's still stranded in this cave.

"Um—the soup is probably cold by now, but it should still be better than jerky and dried fruit."

"It wouldn't have to be cold," he volunteers.

"I think it's too late for that now," Katara says dryly. "I don't want to go looking for firewood, and it's a bit of a walk to get down here from camp."

"No, that's not what I meant. My bending. I could try to heat it up with my bending."

Katara stops short, and her mouth opens like she wants to speak, but no words come. She almost looks frightened.

"Katara?"

"Fine! It's fine. I'm fine." But she won't meet his eyes, and her hands clench together in her lap.

"You don't want me to use my bending," he guesses.

Considering all she's done for him, it's a small enough request. He can hold back his bending. He's done it before. Back in the Earth Kingdom, he passed himself off as a nonbender for weeks straight. But now, even though he doesn't have the strength for much firebending, it stings a little. How long is this going to last?

"I just—no, not exactly." She unclenches her fists and scuffs her palms against her thighs. "I've seen a lot of firebending, and it's never been used for anything good."

And what you did was the worst of all of it, his mind fills in. She hates him for that, she has to.

"I'm sorry for what I did in Ba Sing Se," he says quietly. "I tried to apologize before, but I'm not sure you knew what I meant."

Katara shrugs. "I understood you. Or I was pretty sure I did." She pauses. "But I also thought I knew what was going to happen in Ba Sing Se, so clearly I don't understand you as well as I sometimes think."

"I really thought that things would end differently in Ba Sing Se too."

She scoots back against the side of the cave and pulls her knees up to her chest. "So why didn't they?"

His mouth feels dry, and it's difficult to speak. "I wanted to go home. That was all I could really think about. It was allI wantedfor more than three years. I couldn't even imagine letting go of that chance."

For a while, Katara doesn't respond. But then, "Would you do anything different?"

He has to think about that. "I don't know. Maybe if someone had told me what was going to happen when I got home—I don't know. I probably wouldn't have believed it anyway. I don't think I would have believed that my father would ever—" he breaks off. "I've never actually learned anything without letting it blow up in my face first."

Katara won't meet his eyes, and he can't really blame her for that. She was probably hoping for something different—an assurance that he would never have chosen his father if something had been different. If someone had just said the right thing to him. In a lot of ways, he wishes he'd been that wise too.

"I trusted you," she begins softly. There isn't any anger in her tone, just an edge of wistfulness. "I would have vouched for you if you'd changed your mind in the catacombs." She meets his eyes briefly. "You could have had a home with us."

His throat burns a bit. That sounds nice. He thinks he would have liked that. Or he would have grown to like it over time. He could have been with Katara. He could have gotten to know her better—everything could have been different. He wouldn't have gotten hurt like this. He would have been on the opposite side of the war, and maybe, just maybe, it could have been what he's been searching for his entire life.

"I'm sorry, Katara."

She shakes her head. "You don't need to keep doing that. You've apologized plenty already." She plays with the hem of her skirt. "I know that you mean it."

His breath catches. She does? She believes him?

It seems impossible, but he trusts her. Even so, he wishes that there were more. He wishes that he could go back and change things. That he could erase all the bad memories—for her, anyway. He's well aware that he would make the same mistakes all over again if the consequences were wiped from his mind.

"I guess sometimes I learn the same way as you," she adds. "I don't realize that I've even made a mistake until after things blow up in my face."

He wants to reach out to her, to rest a comforting hand on her shoulder the way she's done so many times for him.

It's probably a good thing that he can't reach that far.

"Is there any way I can make it up to you?"

She thinks a while, then offers him a small smile. "Do you think you could manage to heat up some soup? All this thinking is making me too hungry."

That isn't enough. He knows it won't make up for anything, but he'll still try. It's the least he can do.

Katara moves the pot to where he can reach it and shapes a little hollow in the damp ground to keep it from tipping. It doesn't escape his notice that she backs almost to the mouth of the cave before he even reaches for the pot—the mistrust, warranted or not, still hurts—but he does his best to concentrate.

It's been too long since he last used his firebending. Either he's forgotten how strenuous it can be, or he's still too weak for this. Whatever the case is, by the time that the steam begins to rise, Zuko feels heavy, and he's almost unreasonably grateful when Katara comes forward to ladle the soup into bowls.

He barely has the energy left to eat, much less move an entire bowl.

The quiet while they eat is easy, almost comfortable. He can't be sure whether Katara feels the same, but if nothing else, Zuko is grateful that he doesn't have to speak.

He's nearly finished with his meal when he loses his grip on his chopsticks and can't figure out how to lift them again.

He's tired. So, so tired.

"Zuko?" Katara touches his wrist. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Words are difficult, and sentences seem positively impossible. He struggles a while before he finds the word he's searching for. "Tired."

She sets down her own bowl and moves a little closer to catch his before it can spill.

"It's okay. I've got you." She steadies him while she moves his bowl aside too. "Just have a little water and I'll help you lie down so you can sleep."

He isn't sure that he needs to sleep—the exhaustion feels emptier than that—but he isn't sure how to explain what he's actually feeling, and lying down does sound amazing. Sleep or not, he needs rest.

Still, when Katara's arms come around him as she tries to move him, Zuko thinks that sleeping like this might be nice. He remembers falling asleep on her shoulder once before. It could be even nicer now that he isn't in so much pain.

His limbs cooperate only reluctantly as she settles him onto his side.

"I guess it's a bit too early for you to be bending," she says as she adjusts the folded blanket beneath his head.

She's probably right. Zuko has a feeling that there's something else too—he hasn't seen the sunlight in days. That has to have some part in it. He's a firebender. He relies on the sun.

He can't exactly move from the cave on his own, much less ask Katara to bring him outside into the sunshine, but someday. Someday when he's stronger, Zuko can drag himself out of the cave and feel the sun at last.

"Go ahead and rest," she tells him. "I'm just going to work on your back a little more. I don't think it's going to hurt." She brushes his hair away from his increasingly heavy eyes. "You should be able to sleep right through it."

Though his eyelids arebeginning to droop, he still isn't convinced that sleep will help. It's his bending that's left him depleted, not his body. But he can't argue with her. He doesn't want to.

He lets his eyes slide shut as she brings a cooling swell of water up against his spine.

"For the record," Katara says softly, "if you're still listening, I don't think I would have done anything differently either. I couldn't keep you from getting hurt, but I would help you every single time."

He doesn't have to open his eyes or look her way to know that she means it. He wonders if he'll ever be able to repay a fraction of the debt he owes her.

You could have had a home with us.

He wonders if that's still true. If she would ever give him a second chance to prove himself.

If there's a chance, no matter how small, that he might be able to repay her if she decides to let him stay.

"Momo, I swear if you don't stop that, I'm going to take you back to camp and shut you up inside of my tent."

She swipes at the lemur's tail as he reaches for Zuko's bundle of food, but Momo leaps clear of her grasp, and turns just far enough back to screech at her. Then, before she can grab onto him, Momo scampers off to explore the back of the cave.

Katara catches Zuko watching her, and her face flushes. "I really thought I'd figured out how to keep him from following me."

Zuko cranes his neck to watch Momo darting around the back of the cave, overturning rocks and sniffing for bugs. For the first time, Zuko is sitting upright without any support, and Katara has to continually fight back the fluttering in her stomach. He's improving. Pride and excitement mingle together with uncertainty, and she can't decide whether to smile or to panic.

Maybe it's a good thing that Momo is here. At least he can provide something of a distraction.

"Does he always follow you around?" Zuko asks, his brow quirked in mild bemusement.

A shrug. "Not just me. He'll follow anyone who might give him food. But he's been clingier than usual for the past few days." She leans to the side to peer past Zuko's shoulder. "I think he's been getting bored with just me and Appa to keep him company."

"Appa—is that the sky bison?"

She nods. It can't hurt to admit that much. She's been careful not to reveal too many details—where she's been staying, where the others are, why she's alone out here—but it's getting harder to convince herself that such secrecy is necessary. He can't use this against her, even if he wants to.

"I'm on animal babysitting duty until the others come back. Luckily, Appa is perfectly happy to graze and lie around in the sun all day, but Momo—" at the sound of his name, the lemur looks back, "—he mostly likes to cause trouble."

As if on cue, Momo launches himself across the cave and lands hard on Zuko's shoulder.

"Ah!" Zuko gasps, and his whole face twists into a grimace.

"Zuko?" Katara snatches Momo off of his shoulder. "Are you okay? I'm so—"

He nods, face still drawn. "Yeah. I'm fine." After a few slow breaths, his forehead smooths out again. "I'm fine. That just surprised me."

"Are you sure?" she asks as Momo wriggles out of her grasp. As though ashamed, the lemur climbs up to her shoulder and buries his entire head beneath her hair. Katara rolls her eyes and pokes the fuzzy little knee poking out beside her ear. "Sure, now you're embarrassed."

"I'm really okay, Katara. I just wasn't ready to be ambushed by a lemur."

She watches him a moment before she nods. He seems okay. Much better than he's been in a long time. Of course he isn't strong enough to stand, but at the rate he's been improving, it might only be a few days away.

She wonders what it will mean when that finally happens.

"I don't think anyone has ever been ready for a lemur ambush." She carefully extracts Momo from her hair and makes a face at him when he chitters in protest. "Hey, you're the one who wanted to come with me, Momo. You don't have permission to use my hair as a tent."

An almost impossibly soft smile flickers across Zuko's face, and her heart skips. His smile is so rare that she is stunned to silence. She wonders what it might take to coax that smile out of him again. She wonders how she can make him laugh.

The smile is gone sooner than she hopes, and Zuko turns thoughtful instead. "You've really been staying out here with just a bison and a lemur all this time?"

Katara shrugs. "You've been sleeping alone in a cave," she points out. And for just an instant, she considers how much nicer it might be for both of them if that were no longer the case. She's fairly certain that the spare tent is still packed away in Appa's saddle too. She could take Zuko back to camp with her, and it wouldn't even have to be weird for them. She wouldn't have to be alone, and he would be able to get out of this cave.

But he can't walk yet, she reminds herself, and certainly not that far. She can't put him through that kind of ordeal.

She tries not to think about why that's the only obstacle that occurs to her.

"It's not that bad," she tells him instead. "I still have plenty of supplies, and I'm very used to living in a tent."

"Alone? I don't remember you ever being away from your friends—well, ever."

She should be wary about giving him any details at all. He doesn't need to know anything about her friends—where they are, what they're doing, why they've left Katara here—but something in his tone puts her at ease. It doesn't sound like he's digging for details about them. She doesn't think that he'd be subtle enough to approach the topic this way if he were searching for information.

"This is the longest I've ever been away from my brother," she admits. "I was on my own in Ba Sing Se for a few days, but before that, we'd hardly been apart for more than a few hours at a time. And the other two—" she remembers Toph and Aang trading jokes by the campfire after dark, and there is a small pang. She does miss them. "We didn't have much choice. Someone needed to stay behind to keep an eye on things, and I was the only one who could."

"Still. Being sent away was hard enough for me, and I'm used to it."

"My friends didn't abandon me, Zuko. They're not planning to leave me in the Fire Nation for good." She pauses. "Even if they tried, they left me with Appa. I can travel a lot further and a lot faster than any of them if I want to." She scratches Momo behind the ears, then opens her arms so he can escape. "I don't know much about your family, but I know that the way they sent you away isn't normal. And it's not what happened to me."

He frowns, and Katara begins to wonder if she's crossed a line somewhere. His family is awful, but he probably doesn't want to hear that. He probably doesn't want any reminders.

"My father sent me to a village. That's something. He could have dropped me off in the middle of the desert instead."

She narrows her eyes at him. "Zuko."

He pulls his mouth to the side. "I know. It's just—what else am I supposed to say?"

Katara shakes her head. "I don't know. But I don't think you owe your family any consideration. You don't have to pretend they did the right thing."

"That's going to be a tough habit to break."

She makes a small noise of assent. She can't even imagine how difficult it will be for him. It's hard enough being left alone when she knows that her family and friends miss her and will be coming back sooner or later. She can't begin to fathom what it must be like to be alone and unwanted.

"Didn't you say that your sister hired the man who attacked me?" It's probably the wrong time to ask, but she can't find anything else to say.

Zuko nods. "I think so. I can't think of anyone else who would have done it." He looks down at his legs, sprawled in a slightly unnatural position before him, and tries to straighten them. They each move no more than a few inches before he gives up. "I know I wasn't the person she wanted to hurt, but I doubt she would be disappointed with how things turned out."

"If you're not completely sure how or why she hired him, then how do you know that she didn't mean for you to get hurt?"

At that, Zuko pulls a face that looks somewhere between a grimace and an ironic smile. "Because she would have been more efficient if she really wanted to get rid of me. And because she kept making a fuss about how many favors I owed her."

Katara pauses. Sometimes she still manages to forget who she's talking to—who they're both talking about. "Did you—did you ask her to hire someone to get rid of Aang?"

"I—no. Not exactly." His hands clench visibly, and his forehead creases. "I just didn't argue. She told me that she was going to keep my father from finding out that I'd failed, and—I don't really know what I was expecting. Not this. I wasn't even convinced that Kentaro Bumu was real."

For a while, she can't find anything to say. It hurts. Knowing that he could have guessed what was going on sooner if he'd tried—that he could have stopped this before it even happened—burns her from the inside out. Things could have been so different. But she can't exactly blame him for any of this either. Because he did stop it when he found out. He did keep Katara safe. And she has to believe that he would have done the same for anyone else.

But it still hurts.

"Katara, I'm sorry."

She shakes her head. It's all in the past now. The hurt will heal in time.

"What about now? Have you thought about what you're going to do after this?"

It almost looks like he's forgotten how to breathe. "I—"

Momo creeps around behind him and sniffs at his hand, then clambers up into Zuko's lap. Zuko seems to lose his train of thought before it really begins.

"I—um. Hi, Momo." Zuko awkwardly pats Momo on the head.

Momo chitters back at him, then nudges harder against Zuko's hand.

Katara can't help but smile. "I think he likes you."

Zuko gives the lemur another cautious pat, and Momo curls up on his lap. "Does he like it when people smell terrible, or—"

"Or he likes that you're warm," she says. "And he probably feels bad for jumping on you."

"Oh." Zuko rests his hand on Momo's back, and begins stroking gently when the lemur chitters at him. For a while, he won't look anywhere else. Then, "I have thought about the future. Probably more than I should."

"You have?"

He nods. "I think I know what I want to do now. I mean, ideally. If everything turns out perfectly." He swallows. "I know it probably won't, and it all depends—"

"On what?" she asks when he doesn't continue.

"On how well I heal. How much I can do after this is over."

Katara watches him. He still won't look at her, and there is a guarded look on his face. She suspects that he's hiding something. That there are truths hiding just beneath the surface that she can pry out if she pushes just a little.

She decides against it. She isn't sure that she wants to know what he's hiding. It's easier not to know than it is to be disappointed with what she finds.

"You might be able to walk eventually," she tells him instead. She thinks that's probably what he wants to know. "It's going to take time. Your right leg isn't responding as well as your left, but I think you'll be able to get around. Even if that means that you have a limp."

Zuko's hand stills on Momo's back, and his eyes widen just a bit. "You think so?"

She shrugs. "The only way to know for sure is to keep trying. If you want me to keep healing you—"

There is something wild and bright, something desperate in his eyes. He nods. "I—yes. Please."

Katara hesitates for just an instant. She's never seen such eagerness in him before. She's seen him desperate, but never like this.

She isn't sure she wants to know the reason behind it. She isn't sure that she can trust his reasons.

But she pushes the doubt back down where it belongs. She's made her decision. Lots of times. Dangerous or not, she's not going to abandon him, and she's not going to leave him in pain.

Zuko is still awake, though groggy, when Katara is through healing him. As much as she's tempted to stay with him, to sit by his side in quiet companionship until he falls asleep, she thinks that would be a bad idea. She likes this too much. Sitting with him, chatting and studying the angles of his face, the slight shifts in his expression, gives her too many silly ideas. It makes her daydream about changing things. About what might happen if she could convince him to come along with her. If she could keep him, somehow, and reclaim the chance that they missed in Ba Sing Se.

She's going to have to move on eventually, she knows that. Sokka and the others will come back for her, and then they'll have to leave. They'll go off to fight—and hopefully finish the war, and Zuko will stay here. She can't possibly ask him to come along with them, to join the fight against his own nation, his own family. Not now. Not after he's sacrificed so much to keep her safe. Not when he is still suffering the effects, when he still can't defend himself because of what his family has done to him.

He'll be safe in the village. And if they have enough warning, Katara can take him there to be sure of it. She'll get him on his feet again, walk alongside him back to the village, get him settled back into his little house, and then, when everything is in place, she'll say goodbye to him. It's going to hurt when that day inevitably comes, but they still have time.

And when she arrives back at camp and Momo swoops off of her shoulder, screaming at a hawk perched on the tip of Appa's horn, Katara feels a twist down deep in her stomach. Very, very soon, she'll know exactly how much time they have left.

It takes some time and plenty of frustration before she manages to get Momo far enough out of the way to snatch the messenger hawk and untie the little message tube from its leg.

She should probably be annoyed with Sokka for taking so long to write. She would be if not for the fact that she's been busy as the Painted Lady, then with looking after Zuko. She almost hasn't noticed how long it's been since they left.

She settles down by the side of the campfire ring before she opens the leather case and pulls out a small, coiled letter.

Dear Sapphire Fire, the letter begins in Sokka's scrawling hand, it's me, Wang.

Katara snorts. She misses Sokka and his odd sense of humor. She misses all of them.

Kuzon and Emerald joined me in Shu Jing a few days ago. Emerald says that Kuzon bends like a sand beetle now, whatever that means. I guess it must be good? Kuzon's training must be done since they're not doing anything much. Just bugging me and Master Piandao most of the time.

Anyway, things are going well here. Master Piandao says I'll probably be done with my training by the full moon, so the three of us are planning to stick around here until we can all travel back together.

Don't get too bored without us, and feed Hawky a mouse for me. I'll make sure we're on the road back right after the full moon.

See you in a few more days.

The full moon. Katara doesn't have to look up at the sky or wait until nightfall to know what that means.

The full moon is tonight.

Shu Jing is only three days away.

Three more days. Only three.

Her throat tightens, and her eyes begin to burn.

Three days.

That isn't nearly enough time.