Episode 11: Why?

It was a new experience for Katara, having feelings for a boy, and therefore extremely difficult to squash. The Blue Spirit constantly arrived unbidden to her thoughts, usually at the worst times. In the middle of a shift at the hospital, during class at the university, even during dinner with Sokka. She wanted to talk to him about it. About being the Painted Lady. About being a waterbender. But doing so would only put him in danger. Something only the Blue Spirit understood.

For a terrifying moment, she realized that the stranger might know her better than even her own brother. Katara took her time grabbing the mail to wrestle through her knotted stomach before walking into the bakery.

"I'm home," she called upon entering.

"There's my sugarplum." Her father was covered in flour from head to toe, his hair tied up in it's usual ratty half-bun.

"What are you making?" she asked, sifting through the mail so as to avoid his eyes.

"Cinnamon rolls," he said. "Ms. Lee liked them so much she ordered another dozen."

Katara snorted. "If you ask me, it's not the cinnamon rolls she liked so much."

"What do you mean?"

She rolled her eyes at his obliviousness. There was no question where Sokka came from.

She froze as her eyes caught on one of the letters she'd pulled from the mail. To Polar Icing Bakery from Phoenix Industries. Katara ripped open the letter and scanned the fine print.

"Dad?" she whispered.

"Yes, sugarplum?" He looked up from his dough to see what she was holding up and his face paled. "Now, Katara-"

"You're selling the bakery?" she demanded.

"No," Hakoda said, stepping around the island to stand in front of her. "I would never do that."

"But this is a notice of sale," Katara said, waving the paper in his face.

"They've been trying to get me out of here since before your mother passed," he said. "This is nothing new. Each year they try for more money." He stood straighter, placing both hands on her shoulders to look her straight in the eyes. "But I'm not going anywhere."

Vaguely, she felt herself being pulled into a hug but Katara's mind was far away. Phoenix Industries was after the bakery? Why?

"Let's talk about other things," Hakoda said, placing her again at arms length. "Are you going to be able to go to the party on Wednesday? Sokka said he's having people dress up?"

Katara groaned, having received the text that afternoon. "Yes. Something about the four nations?"

Hakoda laughed in the way that Katara couldn't help but smile herself.

"You know..." Her father tapped his chin leaving a flour goatee against his dark skin. "Your mother used to have a blue dress you might be able to use for a water tribe get-up."

"Anything that keeps me from having to go shopping," Katara said.

"I'll pull it down this evening so you can still have time tomorrow if it doesn't fit." Hakoda sighed, cradling his daughter's face in his hands. "You look just like her, you know."

Katara smiled. "I know dad." She never got tired of hearing it. Knowing she looked like her mother...it made her feel strong.

"Where is this dress?" she asked, "Are you talking about the silky blue one?"

"Yes." Her father snapped sending a healthy layer of flour over her face. "I think I saw it recently...Maybe in the attic?"

Yup, definitely no doubt where Sokka came from.

Katara patted his shoulder. "I'll find it."

Heading up the stairs, she was careful that he wouldn't see the letter still tucked against her side. Once she was safely in her room, she read it more closely as she paced across the floor.

With each line, her stomach dropped. After all the lawsuit jargon, she reached the baseline: Due to the inability to procure adequate payment, your property is forfeit. Seizure of assets in the form of foreclosure will begin after 30 days.

When father had said "try for more money", she'd thought he meant an offer, not repayment of interest. When had he borrowed money from the industry? And why?

She stopped in her tracks. Who did she know that had helped her father with his business plans? Who was it that had ties with Phoenix Industries? The paper crunched in her tight grip.

Zuko.

No, he wouldn't do that. Suki and Sokka believed in him. He loved her father, had been living with them for years. She'd already accused him of so much, maybe she could give him the benefit of the doubt.

Dropping the letter onto her desk, Katara fell into bed, exhausted from all the emotions swirling in her heart and head. As she drifted off to sleep, her dreams were those of golden eyes.

Ever since their date, Katara had become exponentially easier to study with and indescribably harder to be around. Her scathing remarks had all but disappeared and she even texted him some materials to read for the quiz that Friday. On the other hand, his heart thumped hard against his chest every time she smiled at him. When she was particularly focused on her notes, he would have to resist the urge to brush her hair away from her face. He wanted to hold her hand. Agni, he wanted to tell her how beautiful she looked every time he saw her. But he wasn't the one who had gone on a date with her. The Blue Spirit had...

Zuko wasn't stupid, he saw the drawbacks to the situation. He wanted Katara to like him, not just his nightly alter ego. But how in the world was he ever going to have her see him the same way he saw her? Time, he reminded himself. Time and a heck ton of patience.

Since there was the party tomorrow, she'd texted him asking to meet this evening. He was expecting another constructive session where they could finally start focusing on their partner project for a bit before he had to head out to meet Azula, but all hopes of productivity vanished when Katara entered the Jasmine Dragon with a frown.

Her hair was coming out of its braid, her sleeves wrinkled from being rolled and unrolled along her forearms. When her eyes alighted on him at their regular table, her shoulders stiffened.

"Hey," she said, dropping her bag on the floor next to her chair. "Am I late?"

Zuko checked his watch like he hadn't been staring at it for the past half hour. "Five minutes early, actually."

Katara huffed. "Sorry," she said. Though he wasn't sure why. She seemed to be running on some kind of social autopilot.

"Katara?" he asked, trying to catch her gaze. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, but she had to know he realized she was lying. She still refused to meet his eyes which he took as a sign that she didn't want to talk about it.

Perhaps she needed a distraction. "So...about the partner project?"

"Yeah?" she asked, still using that apathetic tone. Her fingers had absently started tapping on the tabletop. His own hand flexed as he was hit with the urge to reach out and grab hers.

"I was thinking maybe we could present about the benefits of vaccines on the general populations." He waited a moment. "Did you have any thoughts about that?"

"Yeah...yeah, sure," she hummed.

"Katara."

She looked at him. Her eyes were more gray today, the sparkle he'd noticed growing over the past couple of days had been extinguished.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Why does something have to be wrong?" she asked. "Why can't I just be tired? Or busy? Did you ever think about that?"

"What?" he asked. "What's happening here?"

Zuko was horrified to see tears brimming in her eyes.

"Did you know?" she demanded, her voice breaking. "Did you have him do it?"

"Do what? Katara, I have no idea what you're talking about!" They were rising above the general tea shop volume. He noticed Iroh pausing with the customers at the cash register to look in their direction. "Maybe we can continue this in the apartment?"

"My dad, Zuko." She was standing with both hands flat against the tabletop. "Did you know he was tangled up with Phoenix Industries?"

"Your dad?" His gaze stopped wandering the shop for enough time to notice the very real tears streaming down her cheeks.

"I need to know," she whimpered, her lower lip trembling.

Grabbing her bag as well as her hand, he pulled her out the side of the shop to a bench just around the corner of the building out of sight from the public.

"I'm really sorry," she said, wiping at her face. "I don't normally cry like this."

"It's okay," he soothed, pulling her into a hug. She gripped his shoulders and cried into his shirt for a little while. When her blubbering had died down to a sniffle, he spoke. "About your dad..."

She stiffened in his arms but didn't move away which he took as a good sign.

"You're talking about the loan?" he asked.

She pushed away from him. "So you did-!"

"No! No." Zuko cut her off. His arms fell limp at his sides. "It was from a long time ago. I've been helping him try to get out of it, but there are...complications."

"You..." She wiped at her face again. "You're helping him?"

"Of course, I am." Zuko sighed. She always thought the worst of him. "I don't want to see him lose the bakery. They were leaving him alone until about a year ago. Unfortunately, the building is now in the way of the main campus expansion plan. And it's not just him, they're trying to buy out the entire block."

"But why did he borrow money?" she asked.

He leaned away from her. "Your dad didn't tell you?"

"He didn't want to talk about it." She hiccupped and he thought it might just be one of the most adorable things he'd ever seen.

She fixed her big blue eyes him. "I just don't understand how this happened."

He wanted to tell her. Wanted to explain everything so badly...but it wasn't his information to share. It probably wouldn't end well for him anyways. "I think..." he trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck. "You need to ask your dad."

Zuko almost gave in at the crushed look that came over her, but then she smiled at him. A sad smile, not like the radiant beams he'd caught glimpses of before.

"I will," she said, "thank you, Zuko."

They sat in silence for a couple more moments before Katara let off a heavy sigh. "I suppose I should start heading towards my shift."

"At the hospital?" Zuko asked, checking his watch. He had time. "Would you like me to walk with you?"

She watched him for a moment, her expression unreadable. "You want to walk me to the hospital?"

Zuko shrugged as if he didn't care about spending more time with her. "I mean, only if you want to."

"Yeah," she said, "that sounds...nice."

Nice? Did he hear her right? Zuko took a moment to brush a hand over his cheek. No, he wasn't wearing his mask. She was talking to him. Zuko.

Katara stood up and had wrapped a scarf around her neck to battle out the chill of the falling evening before Zuko remembered he was supposed to be moving too.

The first couple of minutes were quiet, with odd comments here and there about the weather or biology class. For some reason, Zuko couldn't figure out what kind of personality he was supposed to be showing. At times he would panic that he'd said something that would help her to realize he was Zuko. Then he would remember he was Zuko and not the Blue Spirit. It had been so much easier when he'd had a mask to hide behind. Being himself suddenly felt vulnerable.

Then Katara asked, "Why do you want to go back to Phoenix Industries?"

He turned to look at her. "You've already asked me."

"I know." She hung her head. "And I'm afraid I wasn't ready to listen to your answer. Would you mind telling me again?"

"Oh." He didn't know what else to say to that. "Well, I...um...Obviously, I grew up in Phoenix Industries."

She nodded, her expression attentive. It was unnerving to have her listening to him talk about his family's company without exploding.

"My dad is...pretty high up in corporate, and, uh...they always told me about how great the company was and all the good things we were doing. I was so proud to be a part of it." His hands fisted at his sides, his leather gloves pulling taut at his knuckles. "Then I got old enough to start asking questions."

In the corner of his eye he saw her hand move as if she were going to grip his arm but she pulled back.

"One day I asked the wrong question and my dad heard me." Zuko closed his eyes against the memory and took a deep breath. In and out. In and out. This time Katara did grip his hand. His eyes shot down to where her fingers pried open his clenched fist and intertwined with his own.

"He sent you away," she whispered, calling his gaze back to her face. Zuko was used to seeing pity in the eyes of his listeners when he told his story. It was part of the reason why he rarely shared it. In Katara's eyes, there was only a burning intensity.

Fury, injustice, determination, and empowerment. Zuko got the feeling that if he asked her to storm the company doors she would be right there with him. And if he needed her to stand next to him and hold his hand while he told his story, she'd do that too.

"I needed money, so I took a job in the factory for a while and lived in the rafters." Now he was the one on autopilot. The truth serum of her gaze kept him talking. "I saved up enough to get into the University and I've been earning my way back ever since. The only way I'll be allowed to set foot in the main building and see my father again is if I graduate with honors at the top of my class."

"You want to see your father?" she asked.

"Yeah," he answered, "I want to show him that I really have the company's best interest at heart. After he sees what I can do, I want him to be proud of me. To understand that I never meant to disrespect him, that I'm his loyal son."

They weren't moving anymore. Zuko looked up to see they'd arrived at the hospital.

"Anyways, I should let you get to work." He squeezed her hand in thanks before pulling away.

Also realizing that they were at the end of their journey, Katara still hesitated. "If you went back..." she started. "If you worked for the Industry again and went into the corporate level. What would you change?"

Zuko tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

"Like..." She bit her lip. "Do you think you'd be able to change anything? Or would you have to do whatever your father wanted?"

Zuko thought about it, rubbing the back of his neck. "I think I'd try."

Katara pursed her lips until they burst into a giggle.

"What?" he asked.

"You always scratch your neck when you aren't sure about something," she said. "You think about it."

Adjusting her bag, she headed towards the hospitals front doors, calling over her shoulder, "goodnight, Zuko."

He watched her as she walked through the sliding glass doors, the bright lights of the building engulfing her.

What would he do? Was he willing to compromise for his father? He never would have thought about it before. Disagreeing with his father is what had gotten him into this mess. But if he could go back, what would he do differently? Could he do anything differently?

Uncle's voice came unbidden to his mind. Life can be our greatest teacher, Nephew. What have you learned?

He'd always been a slow learner. It was what had started his envy with Azula when they'd been younger. Everything seemed to come so easy to her.

Zuko cursed under his breath. The dinner!

A/N: Whaaat? Three new chapters?! You're welcome.

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