The Avatar world and characters belong to Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.
Thank you so much for the reviews!
I'd just like to mention that this will be a slow-build Zutara story & for the sake of the plot I've bumped everyone's ages up a year or so. This chapter came out a lot longer than I had initially expected, so I'm splitting it into two.
It was funny; at first Zuko and Katara had been too stunned to process the concept of marriage, let alone the idea of being married to each other. They saw the rings, came to the conclusion of marriage, and were then left dumb-founded at the shock of the realisation.
Katara repeated Zuko's words to herself in horror, and before she could think of what they meant she was filled with panic. Shame, confusion, and anger swelled together in the pit of her stomach as the words we're married, we're married rolled through her head. Combined with her hangover, it had not gone down well. The emotions had all come bubbling to the surface and out of her.
As she managed to catch her breath and her stomach settled, thoughts began to flutter into Katara's head. They were unpleasant thoughts which raised a lot of questions that were difficult to answer. The same thing had happened to Zuko, who had slid off the bed and begun to quietly pick up his clothes.
There was a very clear trail of shoes and clothes from the door to the bed, and Zuko tried to ignore the reddening of his cheeks as he faintly remembered their night together while he slowly re-dressed. But, truth be told, he remembered very little about the night once they had started on the whiskey.
Katara decided to slide out from underneath the tainted blanket. She sent Zuko a sharp look, waiting for him to turn around and look away before she got up and retrieved her clothes.
If they were married, what did that mean for her relationship with Zuko? She certainly didn't plan on trusting him wholeheartedly just because of some drunken mistake. But she didn't want to live her entire life legally bound to someone she loathed either.
Was she doomed to be stuck with Zuko for the rest of her life? Katara hoped that Aang would end the Hundred Year War, but even if that happened she had no clue what the future looked like. She couldn't begin to contemplate what her life would be like outside of the war, but now she was met with questions about what her life would be like in relation to Zuko's life after the war as well. If they even survived the war, that is.
And then there was the question about what would it mean for her if they weren't married at all.
Katara had had sex. She had given Zuko her virginity. Would her tribe forgive her and still accept her? Would she ever be able to find someone willing to marry her even though she wasn't "pure" by Water Tribe standards?
And even if her tribe did welcome her home, accepting that the burden of war and saving the world were justifiable exemptions for her actions, Katara had still given her virginity to the prince of the Fire Nation, to a boy who had betrayed her once already and would no doubt do it again.
Katara finally looked over at Zuko. "Is it even possible?" She asked him. "To get married, just like that? Even if we were drunk?"
Marriages in the Water Tribe were arranged, not as formally as those in the Northern Water Tribe, but they were at the very least pre-planned. For Katara's tribe, marriage was a celebration in which the entire village would be invited to. Or so Katara was told. It had been many years since her village had seen a wedding.
Zuko grimaced. "The Fire Nation allows couples to marry at a registry rather than only at a Sage temple. In towns like Ash Island, these registries stay open late for drunk and spontaneous people. They can make a lot of money off of it." He paused. "So it is possible that... we might be married."
Zuko sank back down on the bed as he processed his own information. Married. The word was continuously bouncing around his head, interrupting any coherent thought.
"But I'm only fifteen!" Katara protested. Marriage was possible for those as young as fourteen in the Water Tribe, but only with parental consent; without that, the youngest you could marry was sixteen.
"The age minimum is fifteen here, you don't need your parents' consent after that," Zuko explained.
"I can't believe it." Katara sighed. "These rings look cheap and fake, and where's our marriage certificate?"
Zuko said nothing.
Katara thought to herself that even though it was possible that they might be married to each other, it didn't mean that they actually were.
"It's probably a joke," she said. "Sokka and Toph are playing a prank on us!"
Zuko didn't reply.
"If we are married, this is your fault!" Katara snapped, annoyed by his silence. She was hungover, confused, and her entire future hung in the balance. On top of that, Katara was still reeling from the fact that she had once again had a lapse in judgement and let her guard down around Zukko. Weren't the consequences bad enough the first time? She didn't want to accept what the consequences might be this time round.
"Stop blaming me for everything!" Zuko shot back. "We don't even know what happened!"
Zuko was failing to see how he wasn't in a lose-lose situation. If they were married, he had no doubt that Katara would use it as a way to hate him for the rest of her life. But if they weren't married, but had still had sex, then Zuko was sure that Katara would still hate him forever.
They stared at each other from across the small room. Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled slowly, partly to relieve stress and partly to avoid the stench of Katara's sick. Katara looked past him at the window; it was becoming increasingly apparent that they needed to get out of the room.
"We need to find Aang, Toph and Sokka. They might know what happened last night," Katara decided.
It was one thing for them to walk around a Fire Nation town in disguise at night, but an entirely different thing to walk around a Fire Nation town in broad daylight when they were fugitives. They crept out of their room quietly, tiptoeing along a hall and down a set of stairs.
"Checking out already?" A cheerful lady crowed at them from behind her reception desk when they reached the foot of the stairs. They gingerly walked over to her. "I would have thought you two newly-weds would have spent a bit more time in there." The woman winked at them, chuckling.
Katara gagged, and fought the urge to throw up again. Zuko shook his head.
"Uh… we're looking for our friends, did they check in too?" He asked.
"They sure did. Room 12," The woman said with a smile. Katara thanked her, and they quickly headed back upstairs in search of Room 12.
Katara was about to knock on the door when it suddenly occurred to her that she was going to have to admit to Sokka about what had happened last night. She could try and pretend that marriage was the only thing that might have occurred between her and Zuko , but she wasn't naïve enough to think that Sokka wouldn't put those two fish hooks together.
"What are you waiting for?" Zuko hissed in bewilderment, bringing Katara out of her moment of panic.
"Uh… nothing." She decided not to share her worry; if Sokka wanted to beat Zuko up, that was hardly her problem. Katara was more concerned with what her brother would think of her. She knocked loudly against the door.
There was no response. Zuko also tried knocking. There was still no response.
Katara then tried the door handle, and it swung open with ease, revealing three people passed out across the room. Toph was lying on her back, sprawled out across a double bed whilst Aang and Sokka were curled up on the floor.
Aang was the first to stir as they stepped into the room. "Hey, Katara. Hey Zuko," he murmured groggily as he opened his eyes.
"Guys, it's time to get up. We need to go," Katara hollered into the room. The three sleeping forms groaned collectively.
"Does anyone remember much about last night? Anyone have any pranks they want to own up to? It's important." Zuko asked.
"Whiskey," Aang whined, wincing as he began to sit up from his position, rubbing his head as he did so.
"Whiskey." Toph confirmed.
"I'm the one who ate all the fire flakes last week, I pinned it on the Duke." Sokka admitted.
"Thanks guys." Katara sighed.
"What's important?" Aang asked. "Did you lose something?"
Only my dignity and sanity, Katara griped to herself.
"You could go back to the tavern and look for it." Aang continued on. "We'll stay here and sleep."
Katara turned to Zuko. "I could go back there and ask if they know what happened," she suggested.
"Are you crazy? You can't just go walking around town in the day, asking questions and drawing attention to yourself!"
"Zuko, chill," Sokka grumbled from the floor. "We lived in the fire nation for months in our disguises."
"Yes, but as you've already told me, Aang had a full head of hair then and you weren't travelling with a recognizable member of the royal family!"
"Then you stay behind with them and I'll go back to tavern on my own," Katara insisted.
"It's too dangerous, you shouldn't go out alone."
"I am perfectly capable of handling myself! I don't need your help."
"Ugh, yes, I know that. But if you end up waterbending then you'll end up in jail with no-one to back you up!"
"So? It won't be the first time that I've broken out of a fire nation cell."
Zuko opened his mouth to argue further, but was abruptly cut off by Toph.
"Both of you go! I want to sleep!" She complained.
"We'll be up in an hour," Aang promised, his words groggy.
"Half an hour," Katara countered as she weaved her way back past Aang and Sokka and out the room.
"Be ready. If something goes wrong, we need to be able to leave quickly. You guys should really think about locking that door too," Zuko lectured the sleepy trio.
"Don't be silly, no one sneaks up on me," Toph mumbled into her pillow as Zuko closed the door.
He paid a copper piece for each member of their party at the reception desk of the Ember Inn. He tried not to laugh or roll his eyes when the receptionist addressed them as Mr and Mrs Fire; Sokka had definitely come up with that one. But one glance at Katara told him that it was too soon to laugh about the predicament they were in.
Katara asked for directions to the Flaming Tavern and, as they walked in tense silence, thought to herself about how the names of everything in the Fire Nation were unimaginative: the capital was literally called the Fire Nation Capital City.
Zuko stuck to the shadows on the edge of each street and Katara kept her eyes down as they walked. It was after midday and they were lucky to find that the tavern had reopened to serve lunch.
The bartender was a fat man, with grey hair that had been tied into a top-knot. He gave them an all-knowing grin through his long beard. He reminded Zuko of his Uncle Iroh, and he was momentarily pained to think of how he had betrayed his Uncle and left him to rot in a prison cell - at least, until Iroh had escaped on his accord.
"What can I do for you lovebirds?" The bartender asked the pair. They both grimaced back at him.
"We need help remembering last night," Katara confessed. She held up her ringed hand. "Is this real?"
The Iroh lookalike let out a hearty chuckle.
"Sure is, Sweetheart," the man confirmed. "Last night was our Forbidden Lovers Festival."
Zuko and Katara stared at him, not understanding what that meant.
"This town has an annual tradition where once a year, unlikely couples are encouraged to get hitched at the registry next door. I thought you guys should have won cutest couple, personally, it's been years since I've seen two people look at each other the way you two did," he rambled on.
Katara blushed whilst Zuko rolled his eyes.
"Do you have any proof? A marriage certificate?" Zuko asked, a demand for answers barely hidden under his questions.
The bartender reached into his boot and pulled out a scroll. "You asked me to look after it for safekeeping. Seems even you knew you'd had a bit too much to drink!"
Katara looked momentarily appalled as he handed the parchment over to Zuko. "How could you let people do something so irresponsible and stupid as get married when they're drunk?" she asked him, aghast.
"Well, I didn't make the tradition or the festival. We're just a town of hopeless romantics, really. And, I've always thought a bit of liquor helps a person show their true colours and their true feelings," the old man shrugged.
"For a town of romantics, you could make better rings," Katara replied sourly, fidgeting with the plastic on her finger.
It had occurred to Zuko then that their marriage wouldn't count if they'd done it under their fake names of Mr and Mrs Fire. He unraveled the scroll, feeling a mixture of excitement, apprehension, relief, and disappointment. He was unable to identify which outcome he felt most nervous about.
"For better or for worse, you two agreed to marry each other and stay by each other's side." The Iroh doppelganger seemed to feel the need to repeat their vows to them, recognising that they wouldn't remember them from their actual wedding. "Marriage is never easy, no matter how perfect the beginning, so I hope you two don't look at this as the end because it is only the start."
Zuko felt his blood run cold as he read the document. It looked like a legitimate marriage certificate.
And it looked even more all the more real with Katara and Zuko's full names written and signed on it.
How could they have been so stupid?
Zuko glanced back at the man, alarmed. He had surely read the document if Zuko had given it to him, which meant that he knew their real identities. He looked up at the old man, preparing for the worst.
"How long do we have till the guards arrive?" Zuko asked bitterly.
