characters: aang, katara, zuko.
etc: let's dive right in, shall we?

…

viii. living right and you can say i'm dead wrong
of learning the crooked path
…

Zuko wants to look away from her, an angry ocean in her gaze, but for some reason, he finds he cannot turn. From the corner of his eye, he can see Aang fidgeting again, but he takes a step back as if to concede to her demands.

He can hear her teeth slide over other another, and the fist tangled within his shirt releases its hold. All he can think about is how far away they are from their usual mediation, how far away his mind has been from those topics in the last few days. Zuko hasn't stopped to think about it, to think about going into the week before Sozin's Comet alongside this hateful girl.

Katara hasn't changed, but there is something so dark around her now, something that Zuko doesn't remember ever noticing before. She sits down on the ground opposite him, and he finds himself sinking into the dirt across from her.

"I'm supposed to share important things about myself, right?" A rhetorical question, because Katara doesn't even pause for an answer. "The most important thing to me is my family. And for some reason, some reason beyond the scope of my wild imagination, you helped my brother bring my father back here. So, help me, if you're planning some sort of scheme, Zuko? I will make sure you pay for it."

It doesn't surprise him, really, at all. Katara's anger is glowing in her eyes, and it is all his strength not to laugh at the insinuations she makes towards him. But on the other hand, he isn't quite sure what to say to her now that she has gotten it off of her chest, because the way Aang stares at him, he knows that he is supposed to say something.

Why? Why do you want to help me? Sokka had asked him that question before they'd left on their great expedition, and when he had posed it, the answer had been erased from Zuko's mind. He just wanted to help, is the only thing that he could tell himself. But looking at the way they'd embraced, acknowledging the way it made him feel, that had given him enough of an answer to give back to Katara.

"I know what it's like," Zuko says quietly, tapping his fingers together, "knowing he's out there and that anything could be happening to him. I had a way to help, so I did, and I'm glad. I have no intentions of bringing any harm to your family, you know. I…I don't have any intentions of bringing any harm to anyone, if I can help it."

He doesn't meet her eyes because he knows she is watching him, can't be lured into deciphering the meaning of her gaze because there is such a long way to forgiveness and understanding and Katara has just barely grazed the surface.

"Can you help it?"

It stings, but Katara's voice is soft, tremoring with tears held tight in the corners of her eyes. And he wonders about it himself, whether or not it can be helped. Sometimes, he thinks, there are just some things that are too close to the fire.

"Of course he can." Aang's voice is strong, stronger than the doubt in the back of Zuko's mind. It reminds him of the warmth of his fire after refining his technique in the ancient temple, the fire that surges within him radiating from a source of peace. "Zuko is the one who taught me how."

For a moment the two of them overlap, confusion a low-hanging cloud between Zuko and Katara, but Aang simply smiles his knowing smile and continues to explain.

"Firebending is all about breath and control, and I was reckless with it. It's easy to be, but it's the one element that can cause so much reckless pain. I'm still kinda scared," Aang's eyes drag along the ground, flicker up to meet Zuko's hazy golden stare, "but there's power in firebending, the kind of power that teaches great care. And I have a great teacher."

Zuko doesn't smile, but there is something warm in the shadows of his eyes, a tightness in his chest that threatens to burst full of warmth. Katara is still silent, speechless across from them, and Aang's smile is enough to sit between the three of them. But he doesn't linger; the wind sweeps him off of the ground and onto his feet, smiling between the two of them before leaving them alone, together.

He can't help the nervousness that wells in his chest; it has been days of faded out anger that comes in surges, so Zuko isn't quite sure how he feels towards her. There are still some moments where the look in her eyes reminds him of the way she tensed under the pressure of his hand cupped over her eye, some moments where the thought of her mockery paralyzes him and injects him full of fresh wrath.

But sitting opposite of her while her eyes are lost in the dark clouds of the sky, Zuko feels unnecessarily vulnerable, willing to curse Aang to hell and back for softening him with his words.

"I don't care anymore." Her voice is low, empty of every emotion he anticipates—malice or sorrow or discontent or ambivalence, and he finds that he likes it even less than her anger, likes it even less that she feels nothing at all.

"Your father," Zuko starts, but he's surprised to hear the breath that she draws, long suffering and heavy in her throat.

"My father," she echoes with exhaustion, "has been fighting my entire life. And it was worse when…when the Fire Nation took my mother away, because there was nothing to distract us from it. He's fought so much, and I don't know if I'll even live to see him stop."

It bubbles in the back of his mouth, the privilege of wartime and loss that wound its way closer until dismantling his family from the inside out. But Zuko can't bring himself to sympathize with her, partially because there is a part of him that tempts the risk of being burned by the fire that forged him.

"I'm sorry."

"You're not." Her smile is pained, stretched for every moment she holds it in place, counterfeit. "You lost your mother too, didn't you? And the rest of your family is tyrannical, and you're so hurt, you have no room left. You can't be any more sorry for me than you are for yourself."

Zuko feels his skin ripple under the tone of her voice, piteous and mocking and tinted with a rosy melancholy that seems to keep her eyes from meeting his. Katara's fingers dig trenches in the dirt and he watches the mud cake under her nails, rolls her words over in his head.

A deep breath, and then, "I had years to be angry at the world, Katara. About my mother and about my family and about my—my scar. I was angry when you met me. But now," Zuko untucks himself from in front of her, shakes the dirt from his clothes, "it's your turn to be angry, and my turn to trust you."

It seems against his better judgment, but Zuko holds his hand out towards her. His offer isn't as much of an olive branch as it is full of thorns, and he knows there are still light years of distance between them ever being companions.

But this once, when she clasps his hand with a dark look in her eyes, he thinks something may be changing.

…

notes: i have so much in store for the next five or so chapters that it's ridiculous. i really thought i'd be able to condense this story into ending in the book 3 timeline but apparently not...also, i really get so emotional over all of my stats, so even if you favorite or follow or review my fics, it does more for me than you could understand! thank you so much for sticking through this journey with me, we'll be halfway through it soon!