Chapter Sixteen

Katara needed to get out of the the study. She'd been there the entire morning, Zuko's stamp in one hand and a brush in the other. He was in a closed door meeting with his governors and councilors. She'd wanted to sit in on that, but he told her he needed her more in the study than by his side and she knew better than to argue. Things had quieted down, but they all knew that only meant that something big was about to happen and Zuko wasn't going to be caught unprepared this time around. He wrote, or had her write, at least a hundred orders a day, each to be signed, sealed and delivered to his commanders. They were going out faster than they could be met but the Fire Lord couldn't be dissuaded.

The quiet wasn't good for another reason. Sokka's words echoed in her mind and there was nothing she could do to lock them away. When it came to her, Sokka was too protective and too intuitive, but he should have known what he was doing when he voiced the thoughts she'd been ignoring for the past few weeks. It was true, she was involved and she was as tangled up in this as Zuko was. Her mind told her that she was doing it to protect the world and the peace they had fought for, but her heart was telling her something else altogether. Her heart whispered the names of the children she'd come to love and the man who put his armor back on to fight for them. For all of them. She seemed destined to stand next to men who did such things.

Lost in her thoughts, Katara walked down the corridors towards the family wing and she tilted her head up to where she knew Toph was sitting. The Earthbender waved at Katara, but said nothing. She was fairly well hidden in that alcove and assured both Zuko and Katara that she was getting all she needed from her perch. Their plan hadn't yielded any results of note but neither Zuko nor Toph were willing to give up and were focused on their tasks—the Fire Lord obsessively so.

It was almost impossible to talk to him in regular sentences and his conversations with Katara had devolved to simple monosyllabic answers or his assurance that he'd be back in a few hours to relieve her from his duties.

Katara intended to change into her training clothes but the sounds of laughter in the nursery had her stopping. She pressed her ear against the door and heard Zuko's familiar voice mixed in with the children. She knew she should let him spend some time with them on his own, but she couldn't seem to stop herself from opening the door.

There he was, sitting cross-legged on the floor in his gray outfit—he no longer bothered to wear any color the past few days. In the presence of the children, he avoided wearing his armor and at first Katara thought it was so he wouldn't frighten them, but now she knew it was so he could hold them. She was happy to see that instead of the haggard intensity that his expression had become of late, he was almost relaxed as he helped Lu Zuo built a tower of blocks and listened to Maiko's story. It was like watching him take a breath of fresh air and Katara felt her load lighten somewhat.

"I was on my way to find you," he said, not looking at her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I just heard you in here..."

The children perked up at the sound of her voice and Maiko was off like a shot, her brother close behind. The princess wasn't one for hugs, but she gripped Katara's pants in one hand as Lu Zuo tried his best to climb up her leg. Laughing, Katara picked him up, hitching him up on her hip.

"Are you ready to bend today?" she asked Maiko.

"Yes. Can you do the water snake again?"

"Maybe."

Zuko stood and it was as if he'd mentally unsheathed his swords. His face hardened, his amber eyes sparking with a dangerous light. It seemed so easy for him to switch from a loving, laughing father to a fearless, deadly warrior. It scared her that he could slide down that path with the blink of an eye and for a moment, he was almost unrecognizable. The prince she'd known and the Fire Lord she'd come to know had never looked so terrifying, so cold. The change was startling and Katara's first instinct was to push Maiko behind her.

"I'll get back to work," he said curtly.

"Zuko, I didn't mean to interrupt..."

"It's fine," he said. "I'll see you later. Maiko, practice hard."

He walked past them, but not before his hand brushed the top of Maiko's head, Lu Zuo's cheek and to Katara's surprise, her shoulder. It was a simple gesture of affection but one that touched her almost as violently as his metamorphosis seconds earlier. She felt a tug on her pants and was grateful for the distraction Maiko could bring.

"Daddy's scary," the princess said, her lip trembling.

Katara knew how she felt, having seen her own father in his war paint, his club held aloft. It was always a shock for a young girl to see her father the way his enemies saw him and Maiko got a big helping of that without any warning at all. Kneeling, Katara looked into her big golden eyes and with a gentle finger, stroked her cheek, tapped her chin.

"Only because he loves you," she said. "He wants to protect you and your brother, Maiko."

"And you."

"And me. He doesn't want to scare you, though. He'd never scare you."

Maiko nodded. She was about to say something else when they heard a horrific bang that was immediately followed by a tremble. Katara moved before she could think, shoving the nursery door closed and running into the adjoining bedroom. She gripped Maiko's hand tightly in her own and had Lu Zuo in a death grip as she backed them into a corner. All the while, she wondered where Zuko was, if he'd managed to take cover because it sounded as if the crash was not too far from where they were.

"Stay close to me, Maiko," she said, struggling to keep the shaking from her voice. "Hold on to me, no matter what, okay? I have to let go of you and put your brother down so I can get to my water. I need you to stay with him, hold on to him when I can't."

"Okay," Maiko said in a small voice.

Katara put a protesting Lu Zuo down behind her. She uncapped her water skin and readied the water, readied a whip when she heard the nursery door fly open, but she returned the water when the bedroom door open and Zuko's frantic face appeared. He had his children in his arms in three steps, his breath coming out in shaky gasps.

Katara put a hand over her racing heart but gasped when she saw his ripped sleeve and the blood soaking through the material. Before the children could see, she covered her hand with a layer of water and put it over his wound, meeting his eyes. He thanked her silently, the naked fear on his face making him look more vulnerable than she'd ever seen him. He held Maiko and Lu Zuo tightly as if he'd never let them go.

"What happened?" she demanded.

"The ledge Toph was on..." he started.

Katara was off like a shot. She raced down the corridor, skidding to a stop when she saw the rubble that blocked the junction that attached the family wing to the main palace. Her heart leapt to her throat and she saw Sokka in the middle of the fray, his motions frantic as he spoke to the gathered soldiers. Katara couldn't listen to what he was saying as she searched the rocks for a scrap of green or a pale hand...

"Relax, Sweetness," Toph drawled. "I'm fine."

Whirling, Katara pulled Toph into a hug and tears threatened to spill. It had all happened in the space of a few minutes but she'd lived a lifetime in those minutes, a lifetime without Toph, without Zuko...

"Are you alright?" Katara breathed. "What happened?"

"If it hadn't been done against me, I'd be very impressed," Toph said. "Our little assassin nearly took me and Fireball out. He's good too, probably put the bomb there the second before I got here because the timer isn't all that sophisticated but it did the job."

Katara stared at the rubble of the ledge where Toph had been sitting, saw the bruises and cuts on her friend's feet. She could see Zuko, crouched down with his children, bleeding on nursery floor, frozen with fear. They had scrambled and they had planned, but it was clear that they were outmatched. Someone was laying siege on the Fire Lord and Zuko couldn't move while there were people he loved in danger.

"They can't stay here anymore," she said softly. "It's not safe."

Sokka turned, his blue eyes angry. "Where's Zuko?"

"With Maiko and Lu Zuo," Katara answered.

Iroh came running up the corridor, followed by yet more guards. He barked out orders with the authority of a man who spent his lifetime doing just that.

"There was another bomb in the Fire Temple but this time it went off. The ore mines of Kitashi have been destroyed and the garrison in Beihai is on fire," he said grimly. "We can't stop it. It'll burn to the ground in a matter of hours."

"What's happening?" Katara asked, in shock.

"The Fire Nation is being destroyed from the inside out."

----------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------

Exits were blocked, visitors were detained, and no one left the Fire Palace until late into the night. Soldiers were pouring out of garrisons, old captains and generals being called back into service as Zuko rallied his army to protect their home once again.

Still in his torn clothes, the Fire Lord sat at his desk, head buried in his hands. At first glance, his posture was of a man defeated, but his shoulders weren't drooping and the expression on his face was bordering on feral. He was on the very edge of his control and it wasn't going to take much to make him snap...but neither Katara nor Iroh wanted that to happen.

Sokka and Toph were with Maiko and Lu Zuo in Katara's rooms. They'd been there all day and had been asking for their father, but when Zuko had finally been able to leave them, he'd thrown himself into the aftermath of the collapse like a madman and hadn't seen them since. He couldn't seem to find the strength to leave them again so he didn't want to see them.

"We have to send them away," Iroh said.

"To where, Uncle? There's nowhere in the Fire Nation where they won't be recognized and someone who was able to get so far into the palace would learn where they were in a second," Zuko said, not raising his head. "We need to find this bastard and rip his head off."

"Before we do that, we have to make sure the children are safe," Katara said.

"And what's your solution? Lock them up in a ball of ice?"

It took a great deal of willpower not snap back at him. "In a way. I want to send them back to the South Pole with Sokka and Toph."

"The South Pole?" Zuko repeated as if it left a bad taste in your mouth. "Have you lost your mind?"

"It's a wise move, Zuko," Iroh interjected. "It's apparent that we can't trust anyone in the palace..."

"So we can trust a bunch of ice-loving, Waterbendering, fishing peasants a world away?" Zuko interrupted, sounding like his old self.

Katara slapped his arm out from under him and he nearly fell head first into his desk. He started to stand, temper ablaze, but she pushed against his chest with a strength that caught him off-guard. To her relief, he didn't try to fight her back and stayed where he was.

"Yes," she answered simply. "Yes, because I belong to the same tribe as those ice-loving, Waterbendering, fishing peasants and I will place Maiko and Lu Zuo under my protection. Sokka, my father and Toph will protect your children with their lives. They will make sure that the heir of the Fire Nation throne will not come to any harm so that her father can get his head on straight."

"My head is on straight," he growled.

"If it were, you wouldn't have insulted me and my people so easily," she retorted. "You know we're right about this, Zuko. They need to go somewhere else so when we meet with this assassin face-to-face, you won't be distracted thinking of what might happen to the children if you fall and neither will I."

Zuko couldn't seem to find an argument against that. He rubbed tired eyes with a trembling hand.

"And one more important thing," Iroh said. "You need to be married right away."

Katara and Zuko turned to look at him.

"If anything should happen, we need to make the alliance between the Water Tribe and the Fire Nation permanent as soon as possible, especially with Princess Maiko there," Iroh explained. "We need to strengthen the ties, finalize them, and keep this enemy from getting the final prize. I understand how powerful a promise of protection can be, Katara, but more powerful than that..."

"Family," Katara said, glancing at Zuko. "As members of my family, members of Chief's family, they will be considered Water Tribe. Thousands of people will stand between them and the assassin. I can promise you that. You attack one member of the Water Tribe, you attack us all."

"If anything should happen, the Fire Nation will be protected by the alliance," Zuko mumbled, more to himself than to them. "Maiko will be protected by the Water Tribe and the world won't unravel...at least not yet. Not because of me."

Zuko pushed the hair back from his forehead. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a leather folder. In it was a lengthy document, written in beautiful calligraphy and Katara didn't have to read it to know what it was.

"Uncle, please get a monk," Zuko said.

Iroh nodded and left them. Katara brushed a hand over the paper, her eyes tracing the words, tracing their joined names, and the flowery language that hid the cold precision of their union.

This was it. This was to be her wedding day.

Zuko stood and took her hand in his. He was standing so close to her that she could feel the heat radiating from him. She tipped her chin up to look at him, saw the echoing sadness in his eyes that was in her heart.

"I'm sorry it had to be like this," he said with a compassion that nearly broke her. "I'm sorry about...all of it."

"What's life without its little challenges, right?" she said with a brave smile and she squeezed his hand. "You have nothing to be sorry about. I was angry in the beginning but I came. I was angry while I was here, but I stayed, and now...we're a family. I don't know how it happened or why, but your family became mine and I will stand between them and danger, Zuko."

Something passed over his face that she couldn't name, but in a swift move that made her breath catch in her throat, he pulled her into his arms. He held her, his cheek against hers and his arms tight around her waist and across her shoulders, his hands warm against her back. She hesitated for a beat, but then reached up and wound her arms around his neck. There was comfort in the touch and it surprised her.

"I'll fight," she said in his ear. "I'll fight with you."

He pulled back, a quiet expression on his face. He couldn't seem to find the words. His hand came up to cup her cheek, his thumb sliding across her cheekbone and the gesture meant more to her than anything he could ever say. He let her go and pressed his seal onto the bottom of the paper. Katara picked up a brush, dipped it into the black ink, and signed her name next to his.

In unison, they looked up when Iroh came back in with a Fire Temple monk and everyone else.

In front of the fireplace, with the flames low, they gathered: Iroh, Toph, Sokka, Maiko and a sleeping Lu Zuo. Katara glanced at her brother as she took Zuko's hand, saw the warning and the worry there. She tried to convey to him that she knew what she was doing, but his expression was studiously blank.

Then, those gathered watched, silent, as Katara held Zuko hand, echoed his promises, and became his wife.

In the next moment, Zuko placed a golden fire in her hair and she was, finally, Fire Lady.