By: ninjamonkey
Disclaimer: Yeah, like I actually own anything. If I owned this, ATLA would be chock full of Zutara, Taang, and Sozula/Tykka/Sukka……………………I also don't own Aly and AJ. Oh my gosh, I don't even own Hamlet. If you totally catch the cliché I slip in from Hamlet, then you are cool. I also don't own the semiline I use form Serenity. OMG I ALSO don't own the line from the Village.
AN: WOOO… so I was totally watching Disney Channel the other day and saw the Aly and AJ video for Chemicals React. I looked up the lyrics and was like OMGoodness. It is like the most perfect Zutara song to ever exist. It's so very amazingly Zutara. I use random excerpts. Having said that, I'm completely making this up as I go along.
Ok one more thing. READ THE LYRICS. Some people read songfics and skip the lyrics. But seriously. Read them…
Never was it supposed to happen.
Never.
He was supposed to lead a troubled nation from the depths of their own self-induced destruction.
She was supposed to wed the boy who saved the world, and be with him for all time.
But things rarely happen the way one thinks they're supposed to.
You make me feel out of my element,
Like I'm walking on broken glass,
Like my world's spinning in slow motion,
And you're moving too fast.
Their first real encounter, as with a roaring fire, was like a spark of ignition. Miniscule in comparison to its eventual spawn, the spark went unnoticed by others.
But not to them.
It was the moment their eyes first met up close that it began.
She had left the campsite late at night, in hopes of practicing the fierce formations outlined in the waterbending scroll. It frustrated her that the boy was so innately gifted with that which took her lengthy amounts of time to master.
And as fate would have it, her first water whip was used that night against a disgruntled pirate. She ran.
Just like that, everything aligned.
Katara didn't even realize fear was an option as she suddenly was met with the most powerful amber gaze ever to cross her own.
It has been said that love can be so powerful a force that it is able to emerge in the very first glance. With Katara and Zuko, that was hardly the case.
It was a moment that was strange to both. His words seemed empty, though he spoke them with brutal indignation against the world.
At the moment he caught her wrists, and their eyes met, the spark was lit. It was not yet of love, but a simple alignment. Things out of place begin to fall towards their designated route. She later decided it was nothing.
Neither realized the moment had been the igniting reaction.
The planets all aligned,
When you looked into my eyes,
And just like that,
The chemicals react.
Zuko sprinted through the trees for all he was worth. The rain pelted against his pale skin, blinding out the telltale trail of tears coming from his own eyes. Branches mercilessly ripped at him with a vindictive force.
He didn't mind.
Running seemed to be all he was good for at the moment. He couldn't be honorable. He couldn't make his country proud. And he couldn't save the life of the only man he had ever known as father.
All Zuko could do was run, with a premature hope that he could outrun his own life.
Katara fled for dear life, in fear of what had just transpired arising as a beast in her heart and consuming her. Torrents of water raged around her in droplets, biting at her skin in a vicious reminder of her crime. Tears blinded her way; still, she tore through the tumultuous confines of the forest.
She didn't mind. In an attempt to protect the fallen Avatar from the snakes of blue lightning emanating from Azula's curled fists, she had inadvertently committed murder most foul. She had saved her Aang's life. Yet the Fire Princess had escaped. And the price—the image of five cold corpses of innocent bystanders, vitality stolen by her failed attempt to bend the rain.
She was a murderer.
All Katara could do was run, with an asinine hope that she could outrun the aftermath of death itself.
Were you right, was I wrong,
Were you weak, was I strong?
Both of us broken,
Caught in the moment.
They stood in the clearing, the rain still pelting the cool night air with unrelenting curtains. Neither knew what to feel. Their eyes met, and despite the complete pain that racked through their bodies, the spark was remembered. Unashamed of their tears, they stared.
Zuko ran a hand through his now shaggy and sopping dark hair. He had been trying to outrun everything, only to find himself begging for restoring air across from a girl her only knew as an enemy.
Katara knew she would not run from him. He did not mean her harm. By the dead look in his amber gaze, they were in similar predicaments.
No word needed to be spoken. They simultaneously crept forward, till they stood within reach of one another. Her lip trembled, as she could no longer hold back the agony of what she had done. Similarly, he did not bother to hide his own tears. They ran in streams undaunted. He had lost a loved life. She had unintentionally taken five. Without a single intendment of speaking, they fell into one another.
It did not matter that the one they embraced was a presupposed enemy. It did not matter that they barely knew one another. Both were forever broken by the harrowing events of the night. All they needed were comforting arms to hold them.
In the clearing, they found it.
When morning came, the sunlight crept lazily past the trees in the clearing. It cascaded in hazy rays and capered across their faces. They had held one another all night, until their sobs passed into an encumbered sleep.
And so it was that they parted without a word, knowing that they had to face what the day brought.
Iroh was dead. Zuko was completely a loner.
Five lives were passed. Katara was unintentionally a murderer.
All that they had to carry on was each other's borrowed strength.
Paths drawn out were intertwined. Now and forever.
You make me feel out of my element,
Like I'm drifting out to the sea,
Like the tides pulling me in deeper,
Making it harder to breathe.
"Would you please stop that infernal bending of yours?" Zuko snarled, letting a spinning flame turn the ground ashen below him.
"Infernal? Isn't that a better word to describe your own bending?" Katara innocently replied, continuing to move the lithe string of water about her.
"I'm serious! I'm busy, and all you can do is mess around!"
"Seriously, infernal?"
"Why do you have to be so difficult? I'm trying to practice forms to teach your dear friend the Avatar so he can save the world! And you are distracting me! I simply ask for you to stop, and you have to be difficult!" Zuko yelled, waving his arms frantically about.
Sokka ignored them, indulging himself on the fish they had retrieved from the rolling turf of the ocean. Aang and Toph rolled their eyes.
"Care to go practice some earth bending, Twinkle Toes? Looks like they're starting another brawl." Toph turned to her bald friend, amusement apparent in her expressive blind eyes. Aang smirked in return.
"Let's go." They moved further down the sandy shore, ignoring the pair nearer to the splashing crests.
Katara laughed. "I didn't realize I distracted you so much."
Zuko grunted, crossing his arms. "That's not what I meant, peasant."
It was Katara's turn to frown. He knew all too well, after being with the group for a month, how to get under her skin. "I go by Katara, you swine of a prince."
Zuko scowled furiously. "I only asked for you to go somewhere else so I could concentrate. You want the Avatar to save the world, right? That constitutes a bit of fire bending on the curriculum, correct? Is it really too much to ask that I have space to practice some things to teach him?"
"I wasn't bothering you." Katara stated simply, removing a ribbon of water from the rivulets of water that graced the sand. She moved it around her in a spellbinding dance.
Zuko, despite his fury, had to force himself not to be enchanted. Instead, he shot out a jet of bright flame, turning her water to steam to surround her.
She turned to him angrily, her cerulean eyes astounded at his audacity.
"You could have hit me!"
"Pity." Zuko hissed in a ferocious manner. Katara snarled, moving one of the ever-present waves of the ocean into a threatening crest that splashed all over him.
Zuko, now drenched, looked up at her in shock.
"You did not just get me wet!"
"Yes, I did. Brat. What is wrong with me wanting to practice my bending as well?" She looked at him, fearless.
"What's wrong with it? You muddle things, Katara. That's what. I can't concentrate around you! I can't! You turn me about like nothing else! You always have." With that, he retreated away, ignoring the confused look from Sokka.
He was all too aware that she stood unmoving as the tide swelled around her feet. Shocked.
'Good,' he thought, 'Now she's distracted too.'
Kaleidoscope of colors,
Turning hopes on fire, sun is burning,
Shining down on both of us,
Don't let us lose it.
"ZUKO!"
It was the only coherent noise he could distinguish as pain washed over him. Lightning, the blue fire of the elements, coursed across him, ravaging every contour of his body. The agony of it made him want to lay back and die against the broken marble of the palace hall.
He closed his eyes, blocking out the image of his sister before him. Her amber eyes were ever the same cruel and deceptive shade, glaring upon him condescendingly. Azula had always reminded him he was weak. She would stop at nothing to belittle everything in him. Always and now.
But that is why Katara always had to remind him he was strong.
He felt the waterbending master kneeling next to him, her hands bringing a cool aura wherever she touched. He barely reopened his vision, only enough to take in the worried azure eyes that implored life from him. He moved slightly, to reassure her he was not dead.
"I'm still here." He whispered, suffering contorting his face.
"Zuko…" She whispered, drawing her canteen open.
"No…" He stayed her hand, leading it to close the canister. "You must save it to help Aang. He will need you." Zuko breathed, tasting the iron of his blood in his mouth.
"I want to help you. You have to get up." Katara replied, tears blurring her eyes.
"Go ahead, waterbender. Heal him. I'll just bring him down again, right, Zuzu?" The hissing voice reached their ears. Azula growled, dodging a flurry of knives from her traitorous friend. Mai barely kept the Princess at bay, as she was now fighting by herself.
Mai was weakening as well. She knew Azula's dance, the aggressive but graceful fighting moves she employed. But Azula knew Mai's fighting as well, from years wasted on a broken friendship.
Mai averted her gray eyes for a moment, long enough to glance to Katara. "Help me!"
"Go help her, Katara. I'm of no use any more." Zuko rasped, looking up to the ceiling of what was once his home. The beautiful stone now looked threatening to him, a black obscurity.
"No, Zuko. You have to get up." Katara wiped sweat form his brow.
"I…I can't" He submitted himself to what his sister had always told him. He wasn't strong enough to fight her, nor to overcome her. He wasn't strong enough to be Fire Lord. He could not win.
But Katara knew differently.
"Zuko, get up."
"I can't!" He cried out the best that he could, although pain danced through his body.
"Yes you can. I know you Zuko. You must fight on. You are stronger than you think. I know you can beat her. You have to get up!" Katara urged him on. Mai was faltering, and Azula was getting stronger. If only Sokka, Toph, and Ty Lee weren't busy fighting off the uncountable army of Fire Nation soldiers outside the palace.
"Azula is right. She'll always beat me." He coughed, leaning back into the waiting arms of unconsciousness. Zuko's vision began to fade. He just wanted to slip away…
"Zuko."
He opened his eyes again, as Katara cupped her hands around his filthy face. "Zuko." She whispered again, urging him awake.
"What?" He whispered, desperately wanting to fade away.
"Azula always lies." Katara smiled slightly, trust and so much more in her eyes. She leaned down slightly, kissing his forehead. "Now get up."
A blast of electricity hit a pillar next to them, sending shards of stone dangerously close to their faces. Zuko looked past Katara. Azula held a fist over Mai, ready to send the killing blow.
Her hand was knocked away by red fire.
Zuko rose before her, gasping for strength.
"Go to Aang, Katara. He needs you now."
Katara nodded.
Her hand left his.
"Isn't that sweet? Letting your love go so she can help the other man, Zuzu? Aren't you just so chivalrous? Too bad you'll be dead before you can win her back." Azula taunted, kicking Mai's unconscious form aside for emphasis.
"Not tonight, Azula."
We cannot deny how we feel inside.
"Was the idea so repulsive to you?"Katara closed her eyes, breathing in the air. The scent of blossoms filled her, as they drifted lazily about until reaching the serene surface of the pond below. She leaned against the railing of the bridge, taking in the sight of the Fire Garden.
Four years.
In four years, the world had healed. It was still healing. The beauty of this place showed the fruit of those long four years.
It had been a project of the Fire Lord a year after the Avatar had defeated Ozai. After securing a semblance of peace between his nation and the formerly victimized world, he had wanted to add something to the capital to remind the people of what once had been a been a beautiful world.
And so he had constructed an immense park. Within it were monuments to heroes of all the nations, a memorial to the bravery that had arisen amidst the torrents of war.
Katara had left her guest suite in the palace early that morning to find peace within the grand Fire Garden. She had spent hours watching children play. They were the children of a new generation, one that would know naught of death, but a world of effervescence and vitality.
A particular sight had struck cords within her. A wealthy Fire Nation family, one she recognized as Mai's, had been walking with their young boy, Tom. They stopped to converse with a family of Earth Kingdom traders. And Tom began to play a lively game with the small daughter of the traders.
Katara smiled at the laughter of the children. It had taken many years to quell the propensity to hate one another after the war. Many wished for reparations of violence. She herself had bee working for years to keep peace as the official Ambassador of the Unified Water Tribes.
The sight before her had reminded her of the healing the world had undergone.
Katara eventually found solace in an isolated gazebo, tall amongst the surrounding cherry blossoms and other trees.
It was Iroh's memorial.
She stood on the adjoining bridge that overlooked a tranquil pond, inhabited by golden fish and beautiful lilies.
And there, with the amber sunlight gracing her long chestnut hair, he found her.
Was the idea repulsive to her?
"Zuko…"
"You ache for him" He stated, not as a question, but a declarative sentence. She did not look to him, but instead kept her eyes fixated on the glory of the garden before her.
It had been a long time since she had first met him.
She remembered the battle they had fought against one another. Her memory waltzed across the wild silhouettes of battle, until it fell on their uneasy friendship. It then progressed to the awkward days when her feelings drifted from Aang to a greater love. But that had ended with the war.
Katara sighed wearily, remembering the abhorrence of a day when she left with Aang. He was Fire Lord. She had been a peasant. Nothing should have come of it.
But times had changed.
"He was my best friend." She replied, aspects of despondency coming into her expression. The fragrant breeze sway about her, comforting her.
"I know."
"It's hard to say goodbye."
She remembered Aang's weak smile as he said he had to go. The boy was now seventeen. He had maturely accepted what she had tearfully told him.
She had once loved him. It had been a child's love. But she was now a woman.
When she had told him she could not be with him, exactly one week ago, he had understood. Aang loved her, but she was still his best friend. He could not hate her for not reciprocating what he had felt for her for so long a time.
But he had told her that he had to leave, and could no longer travel with her.
And so they had parted ways.
"Did you love him?"
The question did not surprise her. She felt a hand on her shoulder, begging her softly to turn around. She could not. Katara smiled sadly, knowing full well the lack of levity in her answer.
"Yes. Of course." She whispered, softly swaying the water beneath her with a wave of her hand.
She felt the want of understanding in him. He wanted to know if she still loved him as more than her friend.
"What of me?" He whispered hesitantly, his voice sending chills throughout her. The years had changed him. He was Fire Lord, beloved by all his people. He had successfully rebuilt his country, as well as their relationship with the rest of the world. Zuko was a great man.
His failed relationship with Mai had matured him as well.
Perhaps it was that maturity that had aided him in asking for Katara's hand in marriage.
"I still love him as a brother." She assured his hidden question. Aang would always be in her heart as Sokka would always be. As Toph was. As her friend and family. Katara looked to the sky of the new world, the one they had been rebuilding. It was fighting down the depths of the nebulous war.
They were restored.
And finally, everything had aligned for her.
Every out of place piece had fallen into the breathtaking picture before her.
It had been stirring ever since she had looked into his eyes.
And it was so much more than a simple reaction of chemicals.
It was alignment of a higher sort.
"Katara, what of me?"
She let go of a heavy breath, turning to look into his remarkable amber eyes. He was dressed in rich crimson and obsidian robes, his dark hair curling at the end where it grazed his collar. The thin golden ring that encircled his head was visible beneath his swept aside bangs. The Fire Lord looked earnestly upon her, wishing only for an answer.
She smiled brightly, moving a strand of mahogany hair out of her face. "Will we have dancing at our wedding?"
His warm lips upon hers answered everything, aligning with her own in a deep kiss.
They loved.
We lived
We loved
We hurt
We joked
We're right
We're wrong
We're weak
We're strong
We lived to love.
Alignment.
AN: REVIEW! Ok, so the ending was cheesy. Whatev. And I totally threw in bittersweet Kataang and Maiko references to make it more realistic. I still love you Aang and Mai! But I love Zuatara more.
Anyways, excuse my lameness for taking random lines from Hamlet, Serenity, and the Village.
Props to Aly and AJ for the song.