Disclaimer: All rights belong to Nickelodeon, Bryan Konietzko, Michael Dante DiMartino, and all the men and women that created the A:TLA show, books, and comics. I take no credit, and I do not mean to break any copyright rules. This is simply a work of fiction made for enjoyment. No money is being made. The lyrics are from the song "Hurricane Drunk" by Florence and the Machine

Rating: General Audiences. Warning: some scenes contain dark themes and minor violence

Chapter 12 - The Storm

No walls can keep me protected, no sleep

Nothing in between me and the rain

And you can't save me now

I'm in the grip of a hurricane

I'm gonna blow myself away

No hope, don't want shelter

No calm, nothing to keep me from the storm

And you can't hold me down

'Cause I belong to the hurricane

It's gonna blow this all away

Firebenders jump off the sides of the ship and start attacking. Everything disintegrates into chaos. Katara feels her mother grabbing her shoulders and pulling her away.

"No, Mom!" she protests. "I want to help! I can help fight!"

"No! You must escape, Katara!"

More Firebenders emerge from the ships. The people from her village try to fight them off, but they're hopelessly outnumbered and unprepared. Katara watches with horror as her father defeats one soldier, only to turn and immediately be hit with a whip of fire from another Bender. He falls into the snow and doesn't get up.

"Dad!" she screams, lunging out of her mother's grip. She summons water and sends the Firebender flying backwards into the icy wall.

"Katara!" she hears her mother scream.

She turns to see a man holding her mother, a knife against her throat.

"No!" She runs but she isn't fast enough. All around her, her people are being burned and chased. The air is full of screams and the roar of fire.

She feels someone grab her arm. "We have to go, Katara! We have to escape!"

She turns to see her brother, Sokka, dragging her away. He has a bag slung over his shoulder.

"We can't just leave them," she cries, digging her heels into the snow. "I can fight! I can help defeat the Firebenders!"

"No, Katara. You can't." She can see the sorrow in Sokka's eyes. "There are dozens of Firebenders. We have to leave while we still can."

She feels torn. All around her, her life is being destroyed. Her friends and family killed. The Firebenders are ruthless. Is life worth living without her people?

But staying to fight would be suicide. She knows her parents wouldn't want her to stay. Her mother always used to tell her, "Sometimes it takes courage to back away from a fight." Katara has the feeling this is one of those fights.

She reluctantly follows Sokka as they weave their way between huts and run for the open sea. She keeps her hand in Sokka's the entire time. She's lost too many members of her family already; she's not going to lose him, too.

They escape the warzone and make a break for the ocean. A few Firebenders are hot on their trail. Katara whirls around and encases them in an ice block.

"It won't hold for long!" she warns. "We need to get out of here!"

Sokka points towards the waterline. "There are some canoes tied up. I managed to grab some supplies."

As soon as they reach the boats, Sokka unties it and pushes off from the shore. Katara sinks the other boats and then uses her waterbending to speed them away.

"We should head for the North Pole," Katara says when they're at a safe distance. "We can stay there."

She can tell Sokka's hesitant about going to the place where Yue died, but he eventually nods. It's the closest place they have to home now.

But the next day, the Fire Nation catches up to them. Their steam-powered ships are faster than Sokka and Katara's canoe, and the iron hulls can carve straight through the ice. Katara and Sokka flee into the ice tundra, hoping to lose the enemy in the frozen wasteland.

The Firebenders are determined, though. They don't let up. The next day, a horrible snow storm blows across the land. Katara and Sokka stumble away from their pursuit, hand in hand. Fireballs blow past their heads from behind while snow and hail and icy winds buffer them from all sides.

Katara knows there's no escape this time. She slips on the ice and goes down hard. Sokka's hand is ripped out of hers. She gets up immediately but can't find him. The snow is too thick. The winds are too strong. The Fire Nation is too close.

She uses the last bit of her strength to create an ice sphere around her, big enough that it should incorporate Sokka. He can't have gone too far. Not in this weather.

When the weather calms down and the Fire Nation leaves, Katara will break it open. But for now, she and Sokka need a shelter, a safe haven. She packs on the ice, finding strength inside of her that she didn't know she had.

When she's finished, there's only silence. She collapses in exhaustion. She can rest, she tells herself. Just for a few minutes. Then she'll find Sokka again.

Her eyes close and she sleeps dreamlessly for the next one hundred years.

Katara wakes up suddenly, sitting upright in her bed. She can feel her body shaking and every breath is gasped in and out.

She's had nightmares since waking up. Usually she's being chased by masked Fire Nation soldiers or watching her village being destroyed again. They're scary, but she knows they're just dreams. This one felt real, however.

She doesn't think it was just a dream. It felt way too real. It had to be a memory. It had to be the memory, the last thing she remembered before waking up and meeting Zuko.

She puts her head in her hands and tries to take deep breaths. Sokka was there. He was there, with her, the entire time. Right up until the end. He could still be alive, right? If he was encased in the ice with her, he has to be around still. Maybe he was still buried under the snow when Zuko found her. Maybe she missed him.

The thought of him being alone breaks her heart. He'll have no idea of what happened. He'll find out what she died, about the village being destroyed. He'll try and go to the Northern Pole to find her and he'll find that destroyed, too. And the entire time, he'll be completely alone.

Sokka is a people person. He thrives around others, even if he doesn't always act like it. He hates being alone. She can't leave him there.

Katara has to find him. He's all she has left of her past. And he's her brother - her dorky, sarcastic, brave, sweet brother.

She makes it to the door of her room before she hesitates. Of course she has to go and save her brother - but what about Zuko? She can't just leave him. He's just started to open up. He's at his most vulnerable right now, and she's about to tell him that she has to leave.

Her hand freezes on the doorknob. This is an impossible situation. On one hand she has her brother, who's stuck with her through everything in life. On the other hand, she has Zuko, a deeply powerful and damaged person who is on a tightrope between good and bad. One push to either side and he's gone. She can't be the push that ruins him.

And the truth is, she doesn't want to leave him. She likes him. She'll never forget the first time he held her, or the first time she made him laugh. She loves the thrill of practicing bending with him. She likes his wry humor that only comes out when he's feeling comfortable.

No, Katara can't leave. But she can't abandon her brother, either. Somehow she has to convince Zuko to go back with her.

The prospect of her challenge already wears at her. Zuko is obsessed with getting his honor back. She can't figure out why he doesn't understand that honor is not something that's given or taken away, it's something a person earns by their actions. Zuko has earned his honor time and time again - when he offered her a place to stay on his ship, when he told all his crew members to hide while he fought the kraken, when he came up with a convincing story to protect her on Whale Tail Island. And above all, when he stuck up for his people in front of his father and the war general.

She doesn't know if she can help him realize that, but she hopes she can at least distract him from his quest for a little longer.

Zuko knows who it is when he hears the knock on the door, but he's not sure he wants to answer it.

He likes Katara. He enjoys having another powerful Bender around to practice with, and he enjoys her presence in general. He likes that she doesn't pity him when he opens up or get mad at him when he stays closed off.

He likes her. But he's scared of how fast everything is happening between them.

It was nice when they spent their days training together, even flirting a little. It was nice when they spend their evenings together, watching fireworks or watching whatever entertainment the crewmen put on. He likes talking to her, and he likes being around her. But kissing? That's an intimacy he's not sure he's ready for. It's opening up himself in a completely different way. Before, he could pretend they were just close friends. He could deny the stronger feelings that have been slowly growing in him since the day he met her. Now there's no cap and all these emotions are spilling out.

Emotions are weakness. Zuko's growing soft.

Some people, he's decided, can be strong and emotional. Like Katara. She can be open and honest and compassionate and still be strong. She has that luxury in life. Zuko is royalty, a prince. He can't show weakness because it will be exploited, turned against him.

At the same time, he knows he's not royalty anymore. Not until he captures the Avatar and his father restores his title and his honor. If there's ever a time to let himself relax, it's now. Because he'll never get the opportunity again.

She knocks again. She's not going away anytime soon. They live on a freaking boat. He's going to have to face her eventually; might as well be now.

He opens the door. He was expecting her to be calm and ask to come in, to talk to him. She'd try to convince him that he's better off without his throne and his Fire Nation family and that he should be happy for his freedom. The same things Iroh has been telling him for the past two years.

But she isn't calm. Her hair is frizzy and unkept and she has bags under her eyes, as if she didn't sleep well.

"What's wrong?" He opens the door wider and stands back, inviting her to enter. She pushes past him and sits on the edge of his bed.

When he sits next to her, she starts talking. "I remembered what happened the day of the attack at my village. I just dreamt it, but it wasn't a dream. It was a memory." She takes a deep breath. "My brother, Sokka, grabbed my arm and convinced me to flee. We barely made it out. There were a dozen Firebenders on our trail. I froze them in a block of ice long enough for us to get to a boat and escape. But they caught up to us later, in their iron ships. We fled into the wilderness and they followed us. There was a huge blizzard and we got separated. I knew we couldn't survive the weather and escape the Fire Nation so I created an ice sphere around us. I only meant for it to last long enough to protect us from the storm but I must have made it too thick." She looks over at him. "I woke up when you found me. I didn't remember anything, so I thought I was alone. But I wasn't. My brother was somewhere in that ice, too."

Two Water Tribe survivors? Obviously Katara doesn't remember anything about the Avatar, but perhaps her brother does.

"You want to go back and look for him," Zuko guesses.

She nods. "I know you're on an important mission, but do you think we could go back? Just for a few days. I can't leave him alone. He's all I have left."

"We can make a quick trip. But he may not have survived like you did."

He doesn't want to hurt her, but he doesn't want her to get all excited only to be disappointed again. He knows exactly what she's going through; in the early days of his Avatar search, he'd also asked around about his mother. One time he received what he thought was undeniable evidence and he spent a week following it. In the end, the person he found wasn't his mother. He was so distraught after the experience that he vowed to never search for her again. He couldn't get his hopes up like that again, only for them to be crushed.

But he understands that she needs to check. Whether her brother is dead or alive, she needs closure. Zuko still doesn't have closure about his mother, and it still haunts him. If he can spare Katara from that, then the least he can do is order his men back to the South Pole.

She leans forward and hugs him. He awkwardly pats her back.

"Thank you so much. I owe you."

Zuko hates what he's about to say, but it has to be said. "If you find your brother, then you have to leave."

She pulls back and stares at him, confusion and a little bit of hurt in her eyes. Zuko hates that look. He hates that he's the reason for it.

"What do you mean?"

"If you find your brother, then you have to stay with him. You're the only two Water Tribe members left. You have to preserve your culture. Find someplace to settle down and start rebuilding."

"But why do I have to leave?" She reaches forward and takes his hand. "I don't want to leave you, Zuko. I just met you."

He tries to ignore the way his heart clenches painfully in his chest, as if trying to keep his mouth from speaking. "That's why. You just met me. You think you know me, but you don't. You see this image of me in your head, this image of a damaged prince on an impossible quest. You think I'm chasing at something that doesn't exist and that I'll never find happiness unless I give up. And you think that you can save me and turn me good, with love or hope or something." He throws his arms in the air. "But you can't save me, okay? And I'll never be happy with a simple life. My destiny is to rule over the Fire Nation, and I intend to fulfill it. I'll never rest until I regain my honor and my throne. You can't change my mind. No one can."

She stares at him with so much sadness that he has to look away. But the sadness isn't for her; it's for him. Now she's pitying him, and he can't stand it. She was the one person who didn't look at him like some helpless victim.

"You're wrong, Zuko," she says quietly. "I know that I can't save you. I know that I can't change your mind. Only you can. I just want to be here for you." Katara stands. "When I find my brother, I'll leave. Because that's what you want. And all I want is for you to be happy."

Zuko clenches his fists together as he watches her walk out and gently close the door behind her. He hasn't felt this much pain since he woke up and realized that his mother was gone.

He tells himself he's sparing both him and her from more pain in the future by starting to sever ties now. It's better to nip these feelings in the bud rather than let them flower.

Somehow he doesn't believe his own logic.

Zuko notices the ship lurching a bit more than usual as he makes his way up to the deck but he doesn't think twice about it until he emerges and sees that the horizon is as dark as night. He quickly enters the cabin, where the captain and the navigator are huddled over charts and instruments.

"What's going on?" he demands. They both look up and salute immediately.

"We're headed straight into a storm, sir. It came upon us suddenly."

"We can't steer around it?"

"No, sir."

"There's no land nearby to make a landing?"

"We're on open sea. No land for a hundred miles."

Zuko curses inside. He's grown good sea legs (and a good sea stomach) over the past years, but he still hates storms. They're so unpredictable. And the damage from them can cause annoying delays.

"How long until the worst of it hits us?"

The captain and the navigator exchange looks. "An hour, maybe two."

Zuko grabs a telescope and heads out on deck to look into the distance. He can't see anything except for swirling clouds and occasional bolts of lightning. A roll of thunder rumbles across the sky and vibrates the deck under him.

He returns to the crewmen. "Bolt everything down. Have minimal crew members at hand. I don't want to lose anyone or anything."

"Right away, sir."

Of course he has to deal with this. First Katara, and now this. He can't seem to catch a break.

He searches through the ship to find his uncle. The old man is playing Pai Sho with a crewmember. Zuko interrupts their game.

"Storm is heading towards us fast. All loose objects should be packed away. We're going to have to ride this out."

Iroh reluctantly swipes the tiles into a pile. "We'll continue this later," he promises the crewman.

Zuko continues through the ship, spreading his orders and personally overseeing that everything is taken care of. By the time he makes it back to his room, waves are causing the ship to lurch back and forth enough so that Zuko has to be careful of his steps.

He tries to do some reading, sifting through some ancient scrolls he'd uncovered about the last Avatar a few months ago, but he can't seem to focus. Finally he boxes them up and heads back up on the deck. The waves are so unruly that he has to hold onto the railing to keep his balance as he ascends the stairs.

The storm is definitely upon them. He's drenched almost immediately when he steps onto the deck. A skeleton crew is running around, trying to bring down the sails they'd put up earlier to make better time and coiling up loose ropes. The sky is pitch black now, the only light from the lightning that streaks down.

This is much worse than just a storm. Zuko bursts into the cabin. For a moment he stands in front of the captain and navigator in silence, the water dripping off his hair and tunic. Then he exclaims, "I thought you said we were headed into a storm! This is a hurricane!"

The captain is silent. Finally he says, "We didn't know, sir."

Zuko wants to scream at him for being incompetent, but the truth is that they all were ignorant. He should have seen the storm on the horizon as a valid threat. He'd been too preoccupied with a different kind of storm - the one that lives inside of him.

"Prepare for the worst. It's going to be a long day."

He and the crew work tirelessly in the drenching rain. They fold sails and haul in ropes. They secure loose equipment and cover the canons. They patch up small leaks.

As they work, the sky grows darker yet. The thunder and lightning increase in frequency. The waves grow in size until every other one threatens to capsize the ship. Zuko and the other crew members hold tightly to the railing for life.

He knows it's too much. The hurricane is too strong. He keeps telling himself that hard work will always yield success and keeps rallying the crew. It's only when he hears the shriek and turns to watch in horror as a crew man is swept overboard that he knows it's hopeless. Man cannot beat nature.

Man can't, but maybe a bender can.

Zuko runs inside, slipping multiple times on the wet deck but getting back up. He jumps down the stairs and bursts into Katara's room.

She looks up in shock when he enters. He knows he must look horrible - his hair is covering his face, he's soaked to the bone, and his limbs are numb from the the cold and weak from fighting the elements. And he knows he isn't welcome, not after how he spoke to her earlier. But this isn't about them.

"The hurricane is too strong. We need your help." Zuko pushes his hair back from his eyes. "The whole ship will be lost."

She stands slowly. "I don't think I'm powerful enough," she says, her cheeks turning red. "I don't have that kind of power."

"Try. Please."

At the last word she looks up in surprise. Then she nods.

They run back up the stairs. Katara takes in the situation in a second.

"Get the entire crew inside," she orders, the scared girl disappearing and the warrior emerging. "Now."

"I'm not leaving you out here alone," he protests.

She turns and gives him a hard look. "You asked for my help. Now take it."

He doesn't argue. He runs forward and grabs the nearest crewmen, pointing at the door. The man doesn't even hesitate before running inside. Zuko moves around the deck, repeating the process until only he and Katara are left.

Her arms are flowing around her body fluidly. The water is sluggishly but surely responding to her commands. Zuko stays near, watching. He saw one crewman go overboard already; he's not going to let the same thing happen to her.

Despite the cold rain and the harsh winds and the unforgiving waves, there's nowhere Zuko would rather be at the moment than here, witnessing her power. She dances and the elements bow to her every wish. The waves begin to push them away from the storm. The rain starts to thin out around the ship. Even the clouds begin to lighten and the lightning doesn't hit the ship.

The strangest thing about it is her eyes. They glow with an ethereal, unnatural blue. Her motions are as graceful as ever, but there's a force to them that Zuko hasn't witnessed from her before. And there are motions he's not familiar with - he's never seen her do them before. And there are ones he's too familiar with - he's done them before, when he Firebends.

It's almost like some other force has come over her body and is controlling it. But that's crazy. She's just a really powerful Waterbender.

Katara pushes them far away from the storm. First the clouds lighten and then the rain stops and eventually the waves settle down. And when the sun has emerged again and the air is still, the glowing blue from her eyes fades.

She turns to him and stumbles a few steps before collapsing.

Zuko runs over to her and pulls her into his arms. He checks her pulse and is relieved to feel her heartbeat. She didn't overdo herself - at least, not to the point of permanent harm.

He sweeps her wet and knotted hair back from her face. How can she seem so strong one moment and then so vulnerable the next? And how can she be so beautiful in both instances?

Her eyes flicker open. "What happened?" she whispers, her voice a soft rasp.

"You saved us, Katara."

She blinks wearily a few times. "I'm really tired, Zuko. Can I rest?"

He feels a huge weight lift off his chest. "Sleep as long as you want. And when you wake up, we'll go searching for your brother."

But she's already asleep again, so Zuko carries her down to her room and lays her on her bed. She deserves the rest.

This is the second time she's saved his life. Zuko owes her.

How is he supposed to repay a life debt?