ZW 2016 Day 2: Reincarnation
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To Die with Honor
Katara puts on her pants. Zuko puts on his honorable pants.
"Do you think about what happens if we're caught?" She asks, trailing a finger down his chest.
The arm draped lazily over her tenses. "We will be. If not by him then by karma."
"Will be reincarnated as Momo's fleas?" There's dry humor in her voice, but he isn't laughing.
"If we're lucky."
"I'd like to think I've done enough good to come back as an animal, at least."
Zuko snorts sharply. "I'm glad some of us have a lifetime of good to rest on."
"You have five years of good, so far. That has to count for something. Just don't die any time soon."
"Maybe. If you don't want me to die tonight, you should go."
Katara pulls herself out of his arms and crosses her own over her chest, curling her shoulders in. Reaching down to the floor on the other side of the bed, Zuko finds her leggings and tosses them to her. "This is the last time."
"I know."
"I mean it this time." She hops on one leg as she struggles with the pants, softly laughing as she nearly falls over. "I'm turning into Sokka. But this is it. Really."
"I know."
"It doesn't matter what happens when we die, Zuko," she tells him, lightly. "What matters is not hurting Aang."
"We're already hurting Aang." The heaviness in his mouth contrasts sharply with the soft reassurance in her smile. "We already are."
"He doesn't know. What he doesn't know won't hurt him."
"You're wrong." Zuko turns over, and when she closes the door behind her, he closes his eyes. His eyes sting, badly, but he squeezes them shut until sleep takes him.
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Six months later, she sends him a letter, apologizing for missing some event somewhere and asking if they can have tea. Just tea, she insists. Just friends this time, she swears.
But Zuko is tired of being dishonorable, of hiding in the shadows and hoping karma won't catch up to him. Tired of looking his friend in the eyes and pretending he hasn't spent two years slipping him slow-burning poison. Zuko, Katara and I aren't working anymore, what am I doing wrong? Zuko, I want to marry her but she says she's not ready. Zuko, how do I win her back? She doesn't look at me the same. And someday he'll come and say, "Zuko, I knew the whole time," and then some perfect-timing assassin will end him and he'll be reincarnated into a worm.
No more. She always swears it's just tea.
So he'll be reincarnated into a twig, a worm, a flea, before he'll say she's not wrong, and he responds with three words, the last words he'll let himself write her.
"We already are."
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A/N:
