A/N: i have this really great headcanon that was supposed to go in this chapter but it didn't really fit so it has to go elsewhere isn't that tragic? anyways if you didn't know i write all these chapters right before i post them edit: based on a review written by XTarantismX, i went and italicized the flashback in this chapter to make it more clear
"Are you doing okay?" Katara asks, one day as she's sitting at the foot of Zuko's bed. She's long since checked him out for the day, making sure his bandages are clean and suitable, his heart rate normal, his motor skills as fine tuned as one could expect after the trauma he suffered. Mai wanted to be present at the rendezvouses when she first heard about them (probably from the gossiping staff, Katara supposes), but she'd become bored with watching her beloved be examined by the waterbender, and she soon decided it be best not to show her face at all. Still, Katara considers it progress that Mai doesn't feel the need to be around (perhaps this is a subtle way of Mai showing some trust?) and there's at least one less person she has to prove herself to.
"Of course I'm alright," he says, slowly flexing and relaxing the muscles in his arms to encourage circulation. "You see me every day. You know how I'm doing." It's true, she's had the chance to check on him every day in the time she's spent thus far in his nation and physically he does seem to be doing better. His spasming, which is much less violent and debilitating, has decreased exponentially. Even though he still goes into fits, his body control is almost comparable to what it was before the Agni Kai. But, when his muscles twitch, Katara finds herself waiting for the moment he seizes up like he did during Sozin's comet and be left on the floor, clutching his chest and trying his best not to die and—
She has nightmares, especially about him.
Still, physical progress doesn't mean he's okay, and that's something that Katara is sure Zuko picked up from her tone.
It was Iroh who pointed it out first, that something wasn't quite right with Zuko. The latter was obviously healing in a timely fashion, and doing everything he was supposed to as Fire Lord. He was getting out of bed in the mornings and going to meetings, but when he wasn't needed somewhere, he was hauled in his quarters, silent and secluded from the rest of the world. Katara noticed it too, in the time she spent with him daily, helping him change his bandages and pressing cold water to his chest to soothe his aches. Just because his physicality was improving didn't mean he was getting better. Even with their banter, his rare laughs, and the few, authentic smiles he spared her, Katara knows, deep in her gut, that something isn't right.
"I mean it, Zuko," Katara says. She looks at him, eyes wide and concerned before she looks down at her own lap. As always, she's wearing blue, on top of his red comforter and she looks so, so out of place in his palace, but in his room, she feels welcomed.
"I don't know what you want me to say," Zuko tells her.
"Are you okay?" Katara asks again. He pauses. He'd been lying in bed the whole time she'd spent there, listening to her explain yet again what she was doing to heal him, checking his temperature, gently jabbing him to check his reflexes, all the minor things to make sure he was alright. Now, he sits up to face her better, especially since his chest only hurts some of the time when he's upright. Katara notices when he winces, but she lets it slide.
"Are you?" he asks. He doesn't think about it often, asking how Katara is, because that's not something he's ever really had to do in his life. He grew up as a prince with people waiting on him hand and foot, catering to his every whim. He lived as a refugee silenced and pushed through the streets of the Earth Kingdom. His social skills are lacking, he knows, but he cares. He really does.
It's not entirely his fault, some of this is all up to fate. She's never really needed anything, and too often he'd seen her step up as a maternal figure, strong, level headed, and unwavering, that he's certain even after all they've been through she'll never accept any assistance.
"Yes, Zuko," Katara says, and he has no reason to think that she's lying.
"Then I am too," Zuko says. His words are definite, and Katara knows from past experience that this is the end of the conversation.
She still knows in her heart that something isn't right.
.
.
.
"I don't know if I made the right choice," Katara admits, when she and Zuko board Appa again. It's been nearly a week since they set out to find Yon Rha. Now that they have and she's looked her mother's killer in the eye, all she wants is to go back to the rest of the gaang. At first, it's silent, with Katara steering and Zuko watching from the saddle. He knows from watching his own mother that Katara is crying silently. He's been watching her cry the whole trip. She cries when she's angry, she cries when she was tired, she cries when she's stressed. She cries. Loudly. Angrily. But now she is sobbing, eyes wide and mouth closed, and like all the other times, Zuko waits to see what she says. He's told himself this whole time that if she needs anything, she'll ask, but now he knows she's too stubborn for that. She'd rather cry herself to death than admit she needs anything.
"I understand why you did it," Zuko tells her, breaking the silence among them. Katara doesn't reply. She doesn't even face him. But for the first time since he's joined the gaang, she's not yelling at him. Waves crash from miles beneath them, and, as the wind blows behind them, Zuko takes the opportunity to keep talking. "I almost killed the man who took my mother away from me too."
"Yeah?" Katara sniffles. Her voice croaks and her shoulders are slumped, and Zuko can only imagine how red and puffy her eyes might be now. He's tempted to ask if she needs comforting but he knows he should not be the one to do it. She'll come to him, if and when she's ready.
"I couldn't do it," Zuko continues, staring at the mass of water that stretches out before them. He vaguely remembers the Day of Black Sun; him, facing his father and having the perfect opportunity to end Ozai's life once and for all. He remembers how it felt for lightning to pass through him and to nearly strike his father the way his father struck him when he was just a child. He remembers picturing Ursa's face, and how, in a split second, he'd made the decision to spare his father and find a new way to avenge his banished mother. "I wish I could have murdered him, but even if I relived that moment, I don't think I would've gone through with it."
"I wouldn't blame you if you had," Katara says. She looks at him, solemn, quiet, soft. He stares right back at her.
"I wouldn't blame you if you had either."
She turns back around. They continue back to the rest of the group. Katara continues to cry.
.
.
.
The next time Katara has a nightmare, she's surrounded by her Fire Nation comforter, clinging to the fabric and muttering Zuko's name in a horrified, anxious tone. She cries so much her throat hurts. She cries so much that her tears stain her jaw. The moonlight dimly illuminates the room, gives her a chance to breathe and calm down. It's not the first bad dream she's had and she knows it won't be her last, not as long as she lives. In her dream, she watches Zuko die, out in the Fire Nation courtyard, sacrificing his life the way his mother sacrificed hers those years ago. Katara had that same dream so many times before that she's almost desensitized to it. Almost, until her mind adds a new twist to make her nightmare worse; at the end of her dream, she looks at Azula, vulnerable, weak, and ready to be attacked, but yet again, just like she fears she would have if Zuko had actually perished, Katara shows mercy.