Title: The Cost Was Too High
Pairing: Zuko/Katara and past Aang/Katara
Disclaimer: I don't own them. They belong to whoever does own them. If you sue me all you are going to get is about fifty cents.
Author: Loki40766
Her bright blue eyes stare at him, seeking to trap him below in their beautiful depths. All he can see, though, are gray eyes once so expressive, clouded with shock and horror. He remembers how the slight figure slumped against the wall when the truth finally seeped into his mind. The truth that the one that the grey eyed figure had loved, had betrayed him. That she had turned him in, because she loved another. The truth that the one creature he loved and trusted the most, would betray him. The dark prince of fire remembered the look of complete and total dispair that entered those eyes.
He looks at his once most powerful adversery laying on the floor of the cold cell. The chains that had once bound the small form had long since been removed. The dark prince knows that all others assume that the torture had destroyed the figures mind, but he knew that that was not the truth. The avatar had lost his will, when his most trusted had betrayed him, had abandoned him for the dark prince.
Sometimes when he goes down to the dungoens, the avatar is staring at the bars of the cell. All Zuko can see then is vacant gray eyes boring into him. He feels, then, an urge to explain himself, an urge to make his once most powerful enemy, understand that honor meant everything. That he deserved to be the Fire Lord, and he would have never had his birthright returned to him if he had not given the avatar over to the Fire Kingdom. He leaves, then, feeling as if the avatar has looked into his very soul and found him undeserving.
He returns, then, to Katara, and looks into her beautiful eyes and knows that she feels no shame. Her happiness about how things turned out, soothes him, but it also riles him. He feels that she of all people should wonder about the past. Zuko wonders that maybe he just feels as if someone else should regret the past, also.
Zuko knows that soon he will look at the finery all around him, will look into Katara's soulful blue eyes, and remember a pair of gray eyes that had stared into his soul and found him wanting, and he will wonder if maybe the cost of his honor, if it meant someone soul, was not worth it. Zuko will look at everything he has, and everything he has aspired to, and will feel nothing, but shame and regret, as he has done every night for the past five years.
And after, as he lies beside, he will feel pain, as he thanks that long ago, his enemy had once done the same. That he had laid beside her, and loved her. Zoku knows that he will wonder if Aang had planned to marry her, maybe even have children with her, and Zoku knows he will wonder if she had ever really loved Aang or if she had just been attracted to the power of the avatar and he will wonder if she truly loves him.
Zoku wonders if this is his curse, to forever feel regret for the past, and knows that it is. He also knows that he deserves a much worse punishment, because what he had done to the Avatar, no matter if the man was an enemy, had nothing to do with honor, but everything to do with dishonor, and he knows in those moments, that the cost of his honor was too high.
12/28/05
Please review. This my first fic, please.