The odd thing about time, Katara has learned, is that the longer someone lives, the shorter life seems to be. If she didn't know any better, she'd think that these slight wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and the ghostly streak of gray in her hair had only shown up yesterday. She's older now than her mother had been when she passed, and now the sight of her own reflection opens up awful pits in her stomach; in recent years, she's made a small effort to avoid mirrors.

Today, she finds herself back in the Fire Nation for the first time in - how long has it been? Ten years, maybe… but probably less. It's best to overestimate, she thinks. But she's such a welcomed and respected friend of the Firelord's, that rather than being escorted, she's allowed to make her own way to Zuko's study.

She hesitates a little before knocking - as her hand raises, she notices her veins standing out under her skin in a way they hadn't done the last time she saw him. This is crazy, she tells herself. You should just go home before he knows you're here.

But she forces a smile - forces herself to feel the same youth and eagerness she'd have felt decades ago - and gives three firm knocks.

"Come in."

The sound of his voice almost inspires her to laugh; it's grittier, deeper, and even more perpetually annoyed than she remembers. She wonders what's got him so worked up now. Knowing Zuko, it could be anything from bad news about relations with the Earth Kingdom, to one of the chefs not preparing his tea exactly the way Uncle used to.

When she pushes the door open, Firelord Zuko is sitting behind his desk, bent forward over a stack of scrolls that his aging eyes are apparently struggling to read. All that's visible to Katara is his head of mostly gray, and he doesn't even bother to look up from his papers.

When his visitor doesn't greet him, he says, "Can I help you?"

Katara can feel him struggling not to lose his temper, and at one time this would have annoyed her, but today, she smiles.

"I don't know why I thought time might have lightened you up a bit. I've known you too well to expect that."

Then his head snaps upward, eyes wide as he presses his palms against the table, pushing himself up to stand. "Katara!" The lines in his face make it clear that he's spent the last ten years doing much more frowning and glaring than smiling, but right now, he's managing the wide sort of grin that had still been rare in his youth. "What are you doing here? I wasn't expecting you until next week!"

"Oh, you know," she says, shrugging. "We finished up some work back home a little earlier than expected, so I thought I'd surprise you." Her explanation is only half of the truth, though. The whole of the story is that she couldn't stand to wait any longer than absolutely necessary to see him. "Now are you just going to stand there like an awkward 16-year-old boy, or are you going to come over here and hug me?"

Zuko makes his way out from behind his desk and approaches her with arms wide and inviting. Beaming, Katara throws herself forward into the embrace, bounding into him with enough force to send them both stumbling backward against the table. Letting out an exerted grunt, Zuko says, laughing, "Careful, there. I'm not as durable as I used to be."

"Nonsense," she says, squeezing him tighter. "You feel just as strong as ever. It's so good to see you, Zuko." This embrace is the most familiar thing either of them have felt in a while.

"You, too." He squeezes back. "Sorry for being so sour when you knocked. I'm just a little stressed. Like usual."

Katara smirks and picks up a lock of his whitening hair, curling it around a finger. "No kidding."

"You're laughing now, but just wait," he says, reaching for her own gray strands and tugging them out from where they'd been tucked behind her ear. "You'll catch up soon."

"Speaking of catching up… how've you been?"

The atmosphere immediately thickens with tension, and Katara almost regrets asking. There isn't a lot that Zuko cares to share about his personal life anymore; even in the letters he sends Katara every month, his words are mostly limited to simply wishing her well.

"I've been all right," he says through a tight throat.

"And your daughter? How's she?"

Then, Zuko smiles a little. "I got a letter from Ilah at school in Ba Sing Se. She says she's going to be a doctor… I think you inspired her."

Katara thinks she may be the only person in the world who can get away with this next question. She takes a breath and clasps her hands together before asking. "And… and Mai? Does she still come around at all?"

Zuko's eyes narrow so slightly that Katara wonders if she even saw it. "...I haven't seen Mai in many years. She doesn't come to see Ilah anymore. Ilah goes to her."

Katara finds herself nodding rather dumbly, mouth hanging opened in a speechless "oh" shape. It was the answer she'd expected, but she's dismayed to realize she hasn't really thought this far ahead. "Um… Zuko," her voice shakes despite her attempts at equilibrium. "Can I be honest with you?"

"I expect that you are always honest with me." There's an edge to his voice that seems to cut into Katara's heart. Their reunion has gone from comforting to paralyzing in a single moment.

"Well I… I didn't just come to surprise you. Actually, I couldn't have cared less how surprised you were. I just, I needed to talk to you about something important."

His shoulders go rigid. "I'm the Firelord. You're a Water Tribe leader. We talk about important things all the time." But he knows this isn't what she means. Standing here with her now feels like standing together when they were teenagers, with so much unspoken tension - old fears, older anger, and new, strange, intimidating feelings of fondness. Thirty years ago, the feeling would have thrilled him. But right now, it's more exhausting and daunting than it is anything else.

"Do you remember," she begins, reaching forward to take his hands in hers, "when we were kids? And… and everything was so complicated. And we… well, there was that conversation we had. After the comet. The lightning. When I was bandaging you."

"I remember." He hates to remember.

She lowers her voice to just above a whisper, taking a timid step closer. "And you said-"

"Do you remember what you said?" Zuko counters, sounding much more like his volatile, teenage self.

"Yes, but Zuko-."

"You said that you could never let yourself trust me enough for what I wanted with you. You said that it wasn't worth it. That I wasn't worth it." Now he's whispering, harsh and insistent. "And I believed you. Because you were right. I told you that I loved you, and you said 'thank you,' and told me to move on. So I did."

Katara almost can't hear herself speak over the blood rushing in her ears. "...Zuko, if you'd moved on, I don't think you'd be damn near cutting off the circulation in my hands right now."

He gives a confused - but stubborn - glare before finally glancing downward to see his fingers clamped like trembling vices around her wrists. His grip softens instantly, and he swallows audibly. He knows an apology is in order, but he doesn't give one. Instead, he repeats himself - albeit in a gentler tone. "You told me to move on. I moved on."

"You don't mean that."

"Don't tell me what I mean."

"Zuko, I was scared. I was fourteen. You think that just because I've always been able to beat you in a fight that I was never scared of you, but I was terrified! The fact that I loved you, too, wasn't enough to cancel out a fear that deep. How can you hold that against me? How can you be angry with me for trying to protect myself?"

This time, he almost yells. "I'm angry with you having the audacity to try and take it all back! How dare you come to me nearly forty years later wanting things to be different? After I already…" Then he sighs. He turns around, bracing himself with his palms flat on the desk. These days, his body doesn't handle emotional stress as gracefully as it used to. When he speaks again, he's quiet. "After I already figured out how to stop wanting to be loved."

From behind, Zuko hardly looks like anyone Katara knows. But her first instinct is still to rush to him, to smooth her hands over his tensed shoulders and soothe him however she can. As she moves to touch him, though, he recoils, and she flinches away as though he'd cut her.

She asks with urgency, "What does that even mean? Of course you want to be loved, Zuko, I know you. I can see how lonely you are."

"I'm good at being lonely," he says, almost sounding civil. "This duty… being Firelord… I work best this way. Without wanting or being wanted. It's easier. Maybe if things had happened differently between us, then I could have learned to do both. But I didn't. This is what works. Me. Alone."

"Zuko…" His name passes her lips in a helpless whimper as she takes hold of his elbow, turning him to face her once more. He won't look at her. "We couldn't have been together back then. We had so much growing to do. And healing." Her hand reaches to cup his face, then. His skin has softened with age, giving easily underneath the pressure of her fingertips. But his scar seems exactly the same as it had been when he was sixteen.

Zuko covers her hand with his, inhaling the scent of perfume at her wrist and closing his eyes, remembering. "Katara…" He knows she's right. Katara usually is right about things. "It doesn't matter anymore."

Katara decides that Zuko never really grew out of his inclination for melodrama. "Don't say that. I didn't come all this way for everything we have to not matter." She leans into him, and he gives into the temptation to lean in, too, and soon their foreheads are touching. Zuko is warm, like the smouldering embers of a burnt-out campfire, and Katara is cool and soothing. The energy between them feels electric and when Katara presses forward until her lips come to rest on his, Zuko's mouth barely remembers how to return the gesture. But she grips his face with decades worth of pent up eagerness and regret, coaxing from him the same passion they'd have shared if they were still young. When he feels her sigh, though, and when he notices the way his hands are drawing her in closer by the small of her back, he breaks away. Their kiss ends abruptly with a gasp from Katara, and a disconcerted grunt from Zuko.

He's still holding her close and warm when he whispers against her cheek, "I don't remember how to do this."

"It'll come back to you," she insists, stretching upward to kiss him again, but he evades her lips.

Zuko almost chokes on his words. "You don't understand. I don't want to remember. I don't have the energy or the will to remember."

Now Katara leans back just far enough to look him in his eyes. "Are you telling me that you don't love me?"

"I'm telling you that I can't be bothered to love anyone this way."

"That's almost worse." She's willing herself not to cry; not to fall to her knees in defeat, or beg him to reconsider. "You can't even look me in the eye and say you've stopped loving me."

She's right. Again. For a few moments Zuko stares her down, wondering if he could do it. He thinks maybe if he could just get the words out - I don't love you - then it would placate her efforts. She'd be heartbroken, of course, but at least she'd have closure. At least she'd have the option of truly moving on. But as those oceanic eyes stare back at him, wide and hurt and glistening with the tell-tale signs of restrained tears, he decides that he couldn't manage the lie even if he wanted to.

He probably loves Katara more in this moment than he did even as he threw himself in front of a lightning bolt to save her life. It's an old, profound love, deep and dormant like a chrysalis, and the thought of letting it emerge now terrifies him. Zuko averts his eyes. He wants to spare himself the sight of her pain. "It's time for you to go."

"But I…" Katara can already feel him digging his heels in. If there are any words that will convince him to change his mind, they're lost to her. "I, I just got here. We can still talk about this. I know you want to fix this as much as I do."

She's right about that, too.

"You shouldn't have come at all."

"What if I refuse to go?" Now she's digging her heels in, too. No conclusions have ever been reached when both Zuko and Katara decide to be stubborn in what they want.

"Then I'll have you escorted out."

"I can still make short work of your entire security detail, and you know it."

To her surprise, he laughs. It's only a small chuckle, and hardly enough to negate the frown-lines etched into his face, but it still manages to make Katara swoon inside.

His voice lowering in resignation, he says, "You're right."

For the first time since she walked into the room, Katara feels a small victory. "So then…" She hesitates, picking up his hands again and lifting them to kiss his knuckles. "At least agree to talk to me. Think it over." When Zuko squeezes his eyes shut in a pained, exhausted look, she continues, "I know, I know it's hard for you, Zuko, and I know this is completely out of nowhere, and I know it's been so long, and it'll hardly be easy, but… I can't let you give up a new chance at happiness for the both of us without even thinking about it."

"Katara…" he sighs out her name; a desperate plea for mercy. He's losing this battle. And the worst part is, he doesn't exactly mind the loss.

"If you still feel the same way in a few days, then fine. I'll accept that. I'll try to move on. But not a moment sooner."

Then, Zuko slides his hands from out of Katara's, and places them on her shoulders. He's both firm and tender when he speaks. "You're really not going to let this go, are you?"

"Unless you can tell me right now that you don't want me at all, no."

He grits his teeth and for a moment, the veins in his neck stand out in frustration. "I cannot promise you anything. Do you understand that? I'll think, and I'll listen, and if learning to have someone in my life again feels like something I am capable of, then we'll go from there. But that is the best that I can do for us."

Us.

Katara's heart swells with hope upon the word. It isn't much, but it's enough. And Zuko must see it in her - maybe in the set of her mouth or something in her eyes - because suddenly his hands soften on her shoulders, sliding down to her elbows, along her forearms, until finally, they're fingers are laced together - delicate and shy, like teenagers falling in love for the first time.

Katara says, "That's all I ask."

Zuko nods.

Katara is tentative as she leans upward again, feeling the warmth of his face before they even make contact. Just before the kiss can be solidified, though, Zuko deftly shifts so that her lips land on his cheek. So she kisses him there instead, smiling against his skin.

He says, "I meant what I said about not knowing how to do this anymore."

"I'll help you remember," she tells him. Zuko closes his eyes, sighing into her hair as her arms wind about his shoulders. They settle into an embrace that aches as much as it soothes; this moment is many decades overdue.