Disclaimer: I do not own ATLA or LoK.

CHAPTER 4

Zuko was overcome with a sensation of falling slowly, as if through a vat of honey. It enveloped his body, rendering his limbs immobile. He could see nothing as he slipped further into the pool's unknown depths. The only sound was his own ragged breathing, muffled through the murk. He opened his mouth to shout, but his voice was lost.

He mentally kicked himself as he fell. This never would have happened if he had been more careful. He could not dispel from his mind the image of the terrified look in the Water Tribe girl's eyes as the gnarled hand from an unknown body pulled her into the pool's depths.

Was she, too, experiencing this agonizingly slow descent, unseen in the abyss?

As his mind drifted, unconsciousness began to overtake him once again. The blackness around him began to swirl, and then nothing.

When he awoke next, he was lying in an unfamiliar bed. The mattress was lumpy and hard, but he was nestled into soft sheets and a thick quilt. The bed was pressed against a corner of a small room cast in the moonlight through a single, dusty window. Blinking in confusion, he sat up and fisted the material of the bed around him. Was he not in the Spirit World anymore?

Zuko had no time to investigate further because a noise to his right lifted him from his thoughts. He looked over to see none other than the waterbender sitting up in the bed next to him. She watched him through wide blue eyes, face pallid in the dim light.

Zuko made an unintelligible sound of shock and abruptly moved away from her to press himself into the corner, wishing at that moment that he could melt into it. The girl had surged out of the bed to get away from him but said nothing. She slowly tore her eyes from him to observe their surroundings. Zuko took that opportunity to do the same.

A small, raised futon was squeezed against the wall opposite the bed, framed by several potted plants. In the corner opposite the bed, Zuko could make out a metal stove. To the left of it were two cabinets topped with counters. One was piled high with pots and pans, and the other had a metal basin set into it. A cluttered shelf hung on the wall above. To the stove's right was a tall white box with a black handle on its front. In that wall was an entry with several locking mechanisms, one of three doors in the room. Another door with sliding panels stood slightly open to the right of the first door, and a third door further along the wall opened to a room Zuko could not see. A wooden table with two chairs took up the space between the bed and the kitchen. Most of the wall space in the room was occupied by bookshelves. In seemingly random places around the room, tiny red or blue lights shone and blinked, almost like fireflies frozen mid-flight. Clothing hung from hooks set into the wall next to the bed, and next to those hooks, one of the little blue lights reflected onto a full-length mirror.

Zuko set his gaze back upon the waterbender, who had turned to look at him from her place standing in the kitchen area. Despite the darkness, he could see that her face was screwed up in confusion as she said, "Zuko?"

Does she not recognize me? His eyes narrowed. "Uhm…yes."

The furrow in her brow only deepened, but her expression changed from confusion to something unreadable. "But…your face."

"What are you talking about?" He demanded, instinctively bringing his hand up to touch his scar—only to recoil when its normally rough, leathery texture was smooth.

He lit a small flame in his palm and scrambled over the bed to stand in front of the mirror.

Zuko balked at the image staring back at him. The man standing there certainly looked like him, but it wasn't. Instead of his tattered tunic, he wore only undershorts. The lack of clothing aside, something about his body was…different. His hair was slightly shorter. He looked bigger—more muscular and definitely taller. Impossibly, he looked older.

As he examined the reflection of his nearly naked body, he was suddenly painfully aware of the girl standing near the stove, looking at him with a combination of disbelief and disgust.

The distraction nearly made Zuko forget why he had rushed to the mirror in the first place. Then, his eyes panned up to his face, and he froze.

For a moment, Zuko could only gape at the person that he had not seen since he was 13—a ghost from his past, only the ghost had aged a decade. The mark that had defined his identity for three years was gone.

Zuko staggered back from the mirror, the flame in his hand extinguishing as he fell heavily into one of the chairs at the table. It creaked loudly as he sat. He gripped the place where the scar had been, rubbing and pinching the skin. Aside from a slight twinge at the touch of his hand, there was no trace of his father's lesson.

A profound sense of relief washed over Zuko at the thought that he would, at least temporarily, not have a constant reminder of his failures permanently carved into his face. However, it was shortly followed by a bitter fury, rising like bile in his throat. He glared at the unblemished face in the mirror—the physical manifestation of a life Zuko no longer knew. What a cruel joke to erase the evidence of his struggle without also removing the burdens of his experience.

After closing his eyes and breathing out a puff of steam to regain his composure, he looked up at the waterbender, who herself had stepped in front of the mirror.

A gasp threatened to escape him when he spied the reflection from behind her. She, too, was different. Her facial features had become much more defined, the childlike roundness of her cheeks gone. Though she wore a long, loose tunic, it wasn't difficult for Zuko to see the womanly figure that had developed from the girl's lean frame.

Swallowing dryly, he forced his eyes back to her face. She caught him looking at her then, and she rearranged her expression of consternation into a scowl before she turned around to meet his gaze.

"That spring in the Spirit World showed me reflections of a bunch of different versions of myself. This version," she gestured down to herself, "was the first one I saw."

Zuko considered this for a moment before deciding her statement made no sense. "What does that mean?"

She exhaled and glanced back at the mirror. "All of the pools in that spring showed me reflections of myself living different lives. I saw a kid version of me as a Fire Nation girl." The wince as she said that did not escape Zuko's notice. "I saw myself as old as my Gran Gran, dressed in a strange new version of a Water Tribe dress. I also saw this," she glanced down at herself again. "I think that by dragging us into that pool, the spirit may have forced us into the life I saw when I looked at the reflection."

Zuko once more palmed the skin where his scar had been. "So, like an alternate reality?" He had remembered reading something about the term in school when he was young, but only in theory. He never imagined that one, let alone multiple, could actually exist.

She nodded, and he tentatively continued, "And in this reality, we…live together?" He chose not to broach the subject of sleeping in the same bed; despite the inevitable conclusion he found himself drawing from that fact.

She seemed to have come to a similar realization, and Zuko watched her face melt into abject horror. Shaking her head vigorously, as if attempting to dispel the thought, she spoke again with vitriol. "Not anymore, we don't. Don't think that just because we're stuck here together, I plan to spend another second of my time with you." She started to make her way toward the door near the kitchen, which Zuko assumed would lead out of the small apartment.

He recognized a familiar exasperation bubbling up inside him as his eyes followed her movements, but it wasn't toward the girl. Rather, it was frustration at his own actions that had led her to loathe him as much as she did.

But he shook that thought from his head. If this Water Tribe peasant hadn't attacked him in the spring, they wouldn't be in this situation. He would be well on his way to finding Avatar Roku, or Fire Lord Sozin, or…something.

Half to herself, she whispered, "I can't have more than a week to get back to Aang before—" she paused, seeming to suddenly remember where she was as she glanced at Zuko. Then she flung the door open, marching out into a dimly-lit stairwell.

"Before what?" Zuko called after her. "The solar eclipse?" She stopped and whirled around to peer at him incredulously.

Taking that as confirmation, he leaned against the doorway, glowering at her, and went on. "My sister has known about your plans to attack the Royal Palace during the eclipse for months, and she's prepared for it accordingly. Your friends won't stand a chance."

Her entire body went rigid, and a heavy silence filled the air between them. Her gaze moved to the floor, her brows knit together, but only fleetingly. Suddenly, her head snapped up, and her blue eyes burned into him. Tears had filled them but didn't spill.

"I can't believe that I ever, for one second, thought you had changed—that maybe your uncle had gotten through to you, somehow." Zuko flinched as he recalled her similar words under Ba Sing Se.

"You…you're pure evil." Her words dripped with hatred, making him squirm as he took a step back into the apartment.

She looked like she wanted to say more—or flood the building—but decided he wasn't worth it. Instead, she took off down the stairs, leaving Zuko with a sensation not unlike being slapped across the face.

They knew. They had known all along. Someone must have told Azula while she was posing as a Kyoshi Warrior. Was it the Earth King? One of the generals?

It didn't matter. Aang, Sokka, Toph, her dad—all of the people Katara loved were walking into a trap, and she had no way to warn them.

The image of her reflection plagued her as she hurtled down the stairs. Not only was she trapped in this world, but she was also trapped in this unfamiliar body—even if it was her own. White-hot rage coursed through her as she recalled Zuko's ogling at her under-clothed figure through the mirror.

The tears that had been threatening to spill over finally did when she reached the bottom of the stairs and slumped to the floor. She heard the click of the door to the apartment, closing three levels above and clenched her fists as the prince's words replayed in her mind over and over again.

Katara hadn't realized until then that she had been holding onto a small amount of faith in Zuko's capacity for integrity. Whatever shred of that she had left had just disappeared, but she couldn't think about that now. Her family was in danger, and what he had told her was all the more reason for her to start thinking about solutions. She took a steadying breath as she sorted through her troubled mind.

Maybe she would find a way out of this reality before the eclipse. After all, time did work differently in the Spirit World. Though, she supposed she was no longer in the Spirit World. Was the Katara she replaced trapped there, now? Was the only way out to rely on the other Katara to enter the pool?

No—there had to be a better way. If it was possible for a spirit portal to be opened in her world, surely it was possible in this one.

Shouldn't the Spirit World transcend these alternate universes? Katara imagined that it acted as a connector, of sorts, for all of the different realities. Maybe she would find Aang in this reality, and he could open another spirit portal. Yes, of course. That was how she would do it. Hope swelled in her chest as she stood up, wiping the stray tears from her cheeks.

Briefly, she scanned her surroundings. The bottom of the narrow stairs upon which Katara sat ended midway along a narrow hallway. A thin layer of grime covered nearly every battered, chipped surface. Behind the stairs, a door led to what looked like a back garden. Next to them was a large metal square set into the wall. It had small slots and indents set in a grid as if made of individual boxes. Above each slot was a number. She decided to file away her puzzlement about that for later. In front of her was a black, heavy-looking wooden door. That was surely the way out of the building. Hesitantly, she approached the door and pushed it open.

Katara stepped out onto a gray, smooth stone walkway—it was filthy, which she was beginning to notice was a recurring theme. She realized then that her feet were bare, but no such plight was worth going back upstairs. Treading carefully was her only option.

One of the first things to catch her attention was the smell. Aang's voice filled her mind, describing the onion banana juice he drank with the guru at the Eastern Air Temple. Katara imagined that this was what that smelled like as her eyes began to water. The source appeared to be the large pile of black sacks tossed haphazardly onto the side of the walkway, bumble flies buzzing around it. Never having seen so much garbage, Katara's lip curled in disgust. Holding her breath, she turned to examine the rest of the street, and immediately sucked in that breath, the smell forgotten.

The buildings that lined the decidedly urban street were unlike anything she had ever seen. The closest comparison she could make would be those of the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se, but that was still a stretch. Each of the structures was roughly the same shape, height, and width. It created a uniformity that didn't exist anywhere in the Earth Kingdom capital. The fronts of them were occupied by scattered metal balconies, connected by stairs. They were roughly as tall as the mid-tier towers of the Southern Air Temple, but she could see even taller buildings looming in the distance behind them. There seemed to be a standard blueprint for the framework of the buildings on this street, but that was where the similarities ended. The colors, designs, and ages varied considerably among the edifices as if each were built during a different era. Despite the presumably late hour, many of the windows were lit.

Without a particular destination in mind, Katara's curiosity carried her feet along the sparsely tree-lined road. The smelly garbage piles took up much of the available space, so she moved to the center of the street, where the gray stone turned to an almost pliant black gravel. Parts of this section of the road were painted with white symbols. Signs advertising various restaurants and shops stuck out over the walkway, but most entrances to said shops were blocked by large metal sheets. The sheets themselves were painted over with designs and words Katara didn't recognize.

There were other, free-standing signs closer to the center of the street, but she did not bother attempting to decipher them. Ahead of her at a crossroads, she could see a set of three red lights suspended in the air. In the distance, there were faint sounds of voices and another noise like an unfamiliar musical instrument. The cityscape seemed to be unending, and the strangeness of it all was very quickly becoming overwhelming.

A noise like an animal growling, then a deafening roar snapped Katara's gaze back to the street in front of her. She was momentarily blinded by two spotlights, and a voice screamed, "Get out of the road, lunatic!" She dove out of the way as the machine, which impossibly also seemed to be the source of the voice, rocketed past her.

Landing in one of the garbage piles, she gawked at the wheeled contraption as it raced down the road, but by this point, she was utterly unable to process what she was seeing. Belatedly, she realized that the blaring sound it had made was the same musical sound she had thought she heard in the distance moments ago. She shuddered at the thought that there were more rolling death machines where that came from.

Katara ran a hand through her long, tangled hair. What am I doing? She was never going to find Aang by wandering around aimlessly. She needed to plan, and more immediately, she needed to bathe. Surely somewhere in this maze, she could find temporary housing.

Rising to dust herself off, she noticed for the first time that a man had been watching her from his position leaning against one of the metal blockades of a closed storefront. His black clothing made him nearly invisible in the shadow of the awning. He grinned toothily at her when she caught his gaze. "Hey, beautiful."

Innocent as the compliment was, there was something about his tone that made Katara bristle. She gave him a close-lipped smile and nodded curtly, turning to head back in the direction she had come. She heard footsteps follow after her as the man called out, "Where you going, baby? I just want to talk!" She ignored him, and the footsteps behind her quickened their pace.

Callused fingers wrapped around her wrist, and a cold shiver ran up her spine at the contact. Fuming, she whipped around. The man's grip on her wrist did not slacken. Once again, she mentally berated herself for not bringing along any water until another thought occurred to her. This was a city—surely, there would be water all around her, underground, flowing in pipes.

A slow smile spread across Katara's face, and the man seemed to take that as an invitation. "Let's go have some fun, yeah?" he cooed.

The next thing he knew, a hunk of metal attached to the street burst, and he was knocked back by a wall of water. "What the fuck?!" Katara could hear him spluttering as she took off sprinting down the street, laughing gleefully to herself.

However, she stopped short when a sharp pain cut into the bottom of her foot like glass. Gasping, she leaned against a wall to assess the damage. As it turned out, there was an actual piece of glass, nearly the size of her hand, lodged into her foot. So much for treading carefully.

Blood oozed crimson around the shard and began to drip onto the ground. Knowing she couldn't heal the wound until she removed the glass, she closed her eyes, bracing herself. The warm stickiness flowed onto her hand as she grasped the shard and pulled, but it wouldn't budge. She hissed and cried out as another stab of pain shot up her leg.

Panting, she closed her eyes and crumpled to the ground. The blood was beginning to pool around her, quicker than she would have thought possible. Her vision became slightly splotchy. If not for the amount of pain she was in, she would have laughed at her situation's absurdity. She was sitting in a puddle of her own blood, in a body that was hers but not really hers, wearing only a slightly too big shirt that she had a sneaking suspicion was not hers, stuck in this dirty, smelly place with—

"Uhm. Katara?" She squinted around, only to find Zuko's concerned golden eyes peering down at her. He sounded breathless, like he'd just been running. Behind him, the light of dawn had begun to peak over the tops of the buildings.

"Ah. Speak of the devil," she regarded him vaguely and noted that it was the first time he had ever said her name.

"You've lost a lot of blood. I'm taking you back inside."

Dizzily, she looked around herself. Wow, excellent deduction skills there, Zuko. Only when he didn't respond did she realize she had not said those words aloud. Then, she felt herself being lifted off the ground. "Don't touch me," she tried to say, but he didn't seem to hear.

Her foot throbbed agonizingly at the shift in gravity, and she hissed from the pain. Zuko's pace quickened as he entered the apartment building and started a brisk climb upstairs. In their proximity, she could see his pulse hammering in his neck, and the small amount of stubble clinging to his jawline

Using his hips, he shoved the door open and carried her straight through to the washroom at the back of the apartment. There was a small tub there, hidden behind a curtain. Pulling it aside, he set her down gently and turned a handle attached to a spout. Cold water poured into the tub. Forgetting the pain for a moment, Katara stared at it in wonder. Clearly, Zuko had made some discoveries of his own about this place in her absence.

She noticed now that he wore an all-black ensemble of loose pants and a long-sleeved, hooded top. It was a welcome change from his earlier attire. He was nearly unrecognizable with his older appearance and the absence of his scar.

The water turned an unpleasant brown color as it mixed with her blood, and probably garbage juice. Her tunic billowed out around her, and she weakly tried to pull it back down. Zuko, however, paid that no mind as he knelt down to examine her foot.

"I think I can pull it out if you loosen it with your waterbending."

Katara tentatively nodded. Despite the wave of nausea that came with the movement, she sat up to better position herself. Focusing on the water surrounding the wound, she made a clawed, closing motion with her hands, forcing the water to buoy the shard of glass. She winced as it started to come loose.

Zuko evidently took that as his cue because she felt one of his hands firmly grip her foot while the other took hold of the glass. He yanked once, hard, and Katara exhaled sharply as the shard slid out. He tossed it into the smaller water basin on the other side of the tub and more closely examined the wound.

Seemingly satisfied, he placed her foot back into the water and leveled his gaze back on her face. "Looks like we got all of it out. I don't see any other pieces." It was all the confirmation she needed, and she pulled the water back around the still-bleeding gash.

The familiar blue glow of her healing hands reflected off the washroom's all-white surfaces, casting the whole room in it.

She watched Zuko's eyes widen as he stared transfixed at the site where the glass had been. When the pain subsided and she knew her work was done, Katara relaxed back into the tub, closing her eyes for a moment before she heard Zuko stand.

Glancing at him once more, she mumbled, "Thanks." He nodded and left the room without another word, closing the door behind him.

Zuko paced the length of the apartment, which, to his dismay, was about five steps. The sun was now in the middle of the sky, reflecting in the windows of the absurdly tall building he could see through his own tiny window.

Though he had gotten only a brief view of the outside world when he went out looking for the girl, it was enough to thoroughly rattle him. Whatever he was meant to discover when he journeyed to the Spirit World, he was certain that it wasn't this. Exhaling slowly and pinching the bridge of his nose, he shut his eyes tightly.

He shuddered at the thought of what might have happened had he not found her when he did. Repaying her for what she did in the Spirit World tempered this crushing guilt, if only slightly.

Her hostility toward him aside, she was all he had in this new reality. Zuko was used to facing challenges alone, but this was a different beast entirely.

Azula's smirking face flashed in his mind. There were certainly worse people to be stuck with.

He moved to sit on the futon's edge, bouncing his knees as he raked his hands roughly over his face. Too late, he realized that he was covered in the waterbender's blood.

At that moment, he heard the door to the washroom open. In case she was indecent, he kept his head down. No chance she catches me looking at her again.

After a moment, the sound of her voice caused him to look up. She had changed into an old shirt with loose gray pants that tied around the waist. "I'm starting to realize that it will take me a lot longer to get out of here if I'm doing it on my own. Not to mention, I don't think I have anywhere else to go."

As her words sank in, Zuko couldn't help the relief he felt, but he kept his expression neutral.

She continued calmly, "I have every intention of getting out of here before the eclipse. If you get in the way of that, I will not hesitate to stop you, using whatever means necessary."

Zuko's eyes narrowed. He, frankly, didn't care if she got out before the eclipse, as long as he got out with her.

Before he could respond, they were interrupted by a strange vibrating noise coming from somewhere in the room. He had heard it earlier, while she was gone, but wasn't able to find the source. He felt her eyes on him as he searched the room again, mumbling to himself as he went.

Finally, he found it wedged between the bed and the wall.

The tiny black box had stopped vibrating as soon as he picked it up. Turning it over in his hands, his eyebrows shot into his hairline. It had suddenly lit up, and he saw an image of himself and the waterbender. She had her arms wrapped snuggly around his waist, and they were both beaming. Is this some kind of hyperrealistic painting?

He had no more time to process what he was looking at because among the words that partially blocked the image was a sight that nearly caused him to drop the device.

Uncle Iroh
Missed Call (6)

Uncle Iroh
Voicemail

AN: Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I personally have mixed feelings about it, so I would love to get some others' thoughts.