Day Three: Clandestine (based on North by Northwest)
"I know you didn't do it."
She spoke to him through a curtain, her shadow matching his as he sat to keep his feet from sticking out under the tapestry. This was not the best hiding place all things considered. His frame was not large, but he was still a young man of average height and weight. He had flattened himself against the wall as much as he possibly could, his face half crushed into the stone. That none of the guards or police officers running around had noticed the obvious bulge under the ceremonial tapestry could only be explained by sheer dumb luck.
And then she showed up.
"Why should I care?"
His words were curt and harsh and entirely uncalled for, even he knew it. Especially since the person sitting next to him had absolutely no reason to be here talking to him and not getting a big posse together to take his head. He had only chased her and the Avatar all around the world with the intent of carting the latter off to his father if he caught them. He had only tied her up once and then tried to bribe her with what was clearly her most prized possession in exchange for the Avatar. How ironic it was, when he laid it all out like that, that the one time he was made to pay for a heinous act, it would be for one he hadn't committed.
"I'm just trying to help you," she said crossly. "I don't have to be here, you know."
"Then go," Zuko said, pushing his legs higher under his chin. "You don't want to get caught talking to a wanted killer anyway."
"You're not a killer, Zuko."
He scrunched his eyes closed, but then had to open them again. For the last day and a half, all he had seen in the space behind his eye lids was the lifeless body of that kindly old man falling into his arms with a smoldering burn on his back. It had been on pure instinct that Zuko had summoned a flame, ready to take on any assassin who dared strike next. When someone in the crowd had shouted, he'd been caught unaware.
"That firebender killed the old man!"
He'd been confused for a moment, lost in a daze, and when the arms of two men wrapped around him, he'd reacted without thinking. He fought his way out, careful not to bring anyone else harm. There was a time and a place for everything. A room full of innocent civilians, Earth Kingdom or no, was not that place. Loathed as he was to give the waterbender girl credit, she was right about one thing: he wasn't a killer.
"I can help you," she said again, and a dark skinned hand reached through the gap and rested over his. Any desire to rip it away and snarl at her to never touch him again dissipated upon the feel of her soft skin cooling him.
'She has very nice hands,' he thought involuntarily.
"Oh yeah? How?"
"Well, I can help you find whoever is trying to frame you."
"You still haven't told me what amazing skill set you have that'll aid me," Zuko said. "Playing with water doesn't count."
Her cool fingers became colder all of a sudden, and Zuko jerked away. The background noise was growing in volume as guardsmen read off a physical description of the murderous Prince Zuko who roamed free and prowled the streets, but he thought he could hear her laughing.
"I may not have ever done any detective work," she said, "but I'm pretty good at reading people, and I know a bad guy when I see one. You are... well, like I said, I don't think you'd ever kill anyone."
"Thanks," Zuko muttered, looking away. Maybe if he pretended to be asleep, she'd get bored and go away.
"First of all, why don't you tell me what really happened."
He shrugged. "Does it matter?"
"Most people want to know all sides of the story so they can come to the right conclusion." Out the corner of his eye, her shadow shifted. She was sitting up straighter. It looked much more comfortable than what she was doing before. "Everyone is saying that you grabbed the man and set him on fire in cold blood."
Zuko shook his head. He made the mistake of closing his eyes again, and there was that wrinkled face with a dying look of shock pain shining through sightless eyes as he pitched forward-
"I was hiding out in a tavern," Zuko said. He pulled his traveling cloak tight around his shoulders. "I was trying to be indiscreet. I just wanted to get something to eat. The old man tending bar came over. He said I looked like I was out of sorts and he wanted to know if I needed help."
"You're saying he just approached you right out of the blue?"
"Well, admittedly, I didn't look very good." Zuko looked down at his hands, thin and bony after so many months alone. "He said that he could get me a room for the night if I needed it. I was going to take him up on his offer, but when I got up... he just... I don't kow, it all happened so fast."
"Go on," she said. She was holding his hand again.
Against his better judgement, Zuko closed his eyes. It gave him the best picture of what happened. Of the old man falling, of the people screaming...
"He was hit from behind. I didn't see who did it." Zuko's free hand clenched the lining of his robe harder enough to wear a hole in it. "It might not have even been a firebender. The way the hole looked... it was sloppy work, like the killer had just one shot and only a split second to take it. I thought whoever had attacked him was after me and the old man had just been in the way. I was ready to fight, but instead, I ended up incriminating myself. All anyone saw was an innocent man dead in the arms of a firebender."
This time, when he opened his eyes, it didn't provide any relief. He saw the smoking corpse as his arms gave out, twitching and curling up in the final throes of death. He saw a mob of patrons ganging up on him, thirsting to avenge their own. He saw a bolt of black making for the door in the commotion, unseen and disregarded by all but Zuko, who was left to wonder if the real killer hadn't just slipped out under everyone's noses.
He let his head fall backwards, staring at the ceiling, counting circles and lines as a new kind of chill coursed through him. It made him shake and shiver, and only her fingers sliding up his arm could ease the churning in his stomach as bile threatened to surge up his throat.
"It's okay," she said softly, comfortingly, almost like his mother had once been. "You don't have to tell me any more."
"There's nothing more to tell," Zuko said. "I have that man's blood on my hands. Even if I didn't kill him myself, whoever did has to have been after me. He was just unlucky enough to be in the way. Now he's dead, and I have to find out who did this."
"Why? Why does it matter so much to you?"
His first thought was of what a stupid question that was, with such an obvious answer, too. To ask him why was the same as asking why the sky was blue, or why water was wet. His second thought was that what was clear to him didn't always reach everyone else.
"Ever since I was banished, all I've cared about is regaining my honor, but what honor would there be in running away from this? I have to find this man and face him or else I'm just a coward."
There was silence for a time, except for the guards calling for all able bodied men to aid in their search, and then leading the recruits out to begin the manhunt. They left without a single eye for his painfully obvious hiding place. Perhaps he was more crafty than he thought.
The curtain was drawn, and for a moment, Zuko forgot that he had been talking to another person for the past few minutes. The waterbender (he supposed he would have to learn her name now) wore a look he couldn't place as she jumped into his arms and held him steady. Her undone hair muffled his yelp of surprise. She was a lot stronger than she looked. If he was honest, her embrace wasn't as vile or objectionable as the person he had been last week might've thought it was. As his bigger, calloused hands came around her waist, he'd wager that he even liked this a little.
She wasn't so bad, this waterbender.
They stayed that way for some time, until the last few stragglers had gone home or to join in the search party, and all that remained were the two of them and the deaf cleaning lady sweeping up dust by the door. It was just them; Zuko, Katara, and the many thoughts raging through Katara's head like a herd of rampaging bulls. They always circled back to early in the day.
"I don't know about this, you guys. It seems way too dangerous."
"Don't start getting cold feet now, twinkletoes. Katara has already agreed to do it."
"I know, but I just think it's too risky. What if something happens to her? If Zuko really is capable of murder-"
"What do you mean 'really is'? We know he is. You heard about what he did that that old guy, and if that's what he does to innocent people, who knows what he'll do to us?"
She had agreed with Sokka then. That was why she'd volunteered to be the bait for Zuko, the one to hold out the proverbial olive branch and try to figure out just what kind of plans he had in store for them. She hadn't expected their first meeting to go quite like this. For him to be so open with her.
To tell her the truth even.
She had come here expecting nothing more than to play her part and bring a killer to justice. She would leave knowing that he was a better person than she could ever have imagined. Than perhaps he himself could've imagined.
He hadn't lied to her, he wasn't the killer.
And now, Katara didn't know what to do.