ZW 2009 Day 6: Rhythm

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Heartbeat

Zuko doesn't remember much of what happened between Azula's defeat and his own coronation, but the look in Katara's eyes tells him he's made a horrible mistake. With his track record, he doesn't doubt it.

Companion to Stone Cold (Jealousy, Ch.10).

"Katara!" He can hear her footsteps thudding against the stone floor, but only for a moment, and then they fade. "Katara!" Zuko spends the rest of the night outside her door, banging on it periodically, and the guards who pass by look at him oddly. "Katara, let's talk about this!" And although he's tempted to burn the door down, he knows from experience that Katara won't talk to him if she doesn't want to, and how would he explain torching the door? So when the sun peeks over the horizon and he can feel the energy coursing through him, he gathers himself up and walks away. It's possible he hears her open the door just after he turns the corner, but Zuko is fairly certain that was just his imagination, so he does not turn back.

He walks back to his office mechanically, forgetting to greet the dignitaries he passes (which causes him many diplomatic problems he doesn't need) and ignoring the servants. Everything during his healing is fuzzy. Zuko remembers Azula in chains, he remembers barricading himself and Katara in his old bedroom, and he remembers that they did things they shouldn't have. He doesn't remember if they talked about anything, he doesn't remember how much time they spent hiding from the world, and he doesn't remember how long it took him to breathe normally. And now Zuko is kicking himself, because those things they shouldn't have done have come back and blown up in his face, like everything always does. Zuko kicks a door. "Ow!"

It all comes back to him in pieces, those things they shouldn't have done. He thinks he should apologize to her better, but she seems happy with Aang, and there's no sense reopening the wound, is there? Uncle seems to know something, and he says making amends is always the honorable thing (except he says those things in context of the Earth Kingdom, so maybe it's just Zuko's guilty conscience making trouble where it ought to keep quiet). Zuko knows the honorable thing. What he's having trouble with is whether the right thing and the honorable thing are the same thing.

His heart pounds in an unsteady rhythm. Bumbumbum bum-bum, bum-bum, bubum-and Zuko stops paying attention. The skittering beat is only making him more nervous, which obviously isn't helping. He needs something to focus on, anything but the sound of his heartbeat. Katara looks at him with those bright blue eyes, shining with tears and the light of a torch. Her face is cast in a yellow-gold light, and she's at once beautiful and ghostly.

Zuko throws a small piece of bread into the turtleduck pond. He hadn't expected Mai to come to him before his coronation. She had been in prison, he had left her there. Yet there she was, helping him put on his robe-the one Katara had taken off-and she tells him to never break up with her again, which is fine, Zuko has no intention of ever breaking up with anyone again. The only personal decisions he makes wind up being stupid, anyway.

He surprises both of them when he kisses her. She surprises both of them when she kisses him back. Zuko's heart pounds loudly in his ears, but the rhythm is steady and he wonders if it's her, if she's bending the blood in it or healing him or something, but when he looks down, she's doing nothing, and the rhythm is still steady.

The turtleducks fight over the piece of bread, and Zuko intends to give them another. Except that there is only one, and there are two turtleducks. Both of them seem oddly attached to the bread (Zuko has a brief inspiration that maybe this is a good metaphor and he is the bread, but then it occurs to him that he loves Mai, and the bread doesn't seem to have an opinion either way).

For a while, the kisses are innocent. Zuko's heart pounds in the steady rhythm he's accustomed to until she brushes her hand against his chest, and then he feels the pounding rhythm, but it's not in his chest anymore. He almost laughs. At least the damage to his heart didn't hurt his circulation. Suddenly a rush of euphoria takes over him; he kisses her harder as if to say "I'm alive, Katara, I'm alive and I can move and let's see what happens now."

Zuko knows now what went wrong. She mistook his excitement for passion, euphoria for love, and he let her. He pushes himself up off the ground, determined to make amends.

"Fire Lord Zuko, please, sit." At least he was determined, until the entire Order of the White Lotus is standing in front of him, dressed in full uniform and holding pai sho tiles. Uncle carries a board.

What's another hour? He'll apologize to Katara after the game.

Zuko never does apologize to Katara. The pai sho game leads to a meeting with King Bumi which leads to discussions of Omashu's restoration and reparations which leads to apologizing to Master Pakku for Zhao's invasion which leads to finding Chief Hakoda and offering to facilitate relations between the Water Tribes and rebuilding the Southern Tribe. At some point, he sleeps, and at some point after that, Katara has gone with Aang to Ba Sing Se. And then Katara is kissing Aang on the balcony when he joins the group at the tea shop weeks later, and Zuko thinks it's best to leave well enough alone. Besides, Mai has come with him, and he's certain she's armed. It's better this way.

But then he's getting married, and Mai is promising to love and honor him, and he promises to love and honor her (because he does, and always will). He sneaks a look over at Katara, sitting next to Aang in the front row, and he sees the clench in her jaw and the straightness of her back, and her eyes are miles and years away, in his old bedroom in the old palace. For just a second, just before he puts the ring on Mai's finger, Zuko goes there too. Just to remember, one more time.

When it's all over, and he collapses into the mattress, feverish and struggling to breathe and his heart is stuttering, she leans down. Katara kisses his forehead and smiles at him, and then all he sees is glowing blue. She's healing him, because that's what Katara does, and everything is all right. The euphoric high is gone, and Zuko slips into sleep. He wakes periodically throughout the night, and she's there, because that's what Katara does.

And Zuko kisses his bride, and crushes any hope Katara had for them, because that's what Zuko does.

A/N: I hope this made Zuko look less bad…but I feel like it doesn't. Anyway. He's fun to write, just because he's so self-loathing but also dorky. And melodramatic, so on the one hand I'm kicking myself for that last line but on the other it seems fitting. Oh well! XD

Love to all reviewers.