Chapter 5
To Trust or Not To Trust
Disclaimer: All rights belong to M&B and Nickelodeon
She had needed to get out of there before something happened. Katara grabbed B's reins and continued walking, glancing back at Zuko quickly. He was looking down at his hand.
She loved the full moon and all of it's beauty. It was rare when Katara was able to get a chance to relax on a night of the full moon and just enjoy herself. Zuko had wandered off towards the town without so much as a word in parting and Katara had opted to bathe in the river rather than to reminisce on Zuko's possible encounters in town. She had made the mistake a couple days past on asking what he always did in town. After glaring at her for what seemed like endless minutes, he told her it was a personal matter and to leave it be. Katara had connected the fact of being in a men's only prison for years plus any humans desires that were repressed throughout the years would probably leave someone a little more than wanting. She never asked again after that.
She removed her cloths and opted for only her wrappings as she dove into the river. The feel of ice cold water against her skin felt like home. After a long soak, she stood and walked to the rivers edge. Drips of water fell from her nose. She knew she'd be shivering to the bone within seconds but she had missed the feeling of her element too much.
Katara moved through old bending motions she hadn't practiced in a while. The slow movements done with ease from years of practice. She was finally getting the stress out of her bones when she heard a movement from the surrounding trees.
She threw a couple ice daggers at a few trees above head level to scare either the wild life or any encroaching persons. It's not like a surprise, but she had already guessed who had walked up to the river's bank. She relaxed her arms when familiar gold eyes appeared from the darkness of the forest.
"Careful where you throw those things." His voice was tipping towards annoyance.
She turned her back to him and caught her reflection against the ripples in the water. Heat started crawling its way up her neck and cheeks when she realized she was only in her wrappings. Too late to go back now…
Katara looked at Zuko from the corner of her eye, "wanna join me?" He didn't move at her question, staring up at the moon instead. Katara turned back around, she didn't like the disconnect they were having and during their most recent mission their client had almost become a casualty because of it.
"I'm not a waterbender."
"No, but you can come and do the movements with me." She waved him over. Slowly taking off his shirt, he couldn't help but think if Katara was trying to play a trick on him and was waiting for the right moment to jump.
With his shirt and shoes removed he stood with her at the edge of the bank. Zuko took a good look at Katara and waited for any movements that would indicate an attack. The blue sparks in her eyes made him think her eyes held flames under the moonlight.
"Now just follow my movements." Katara raised her arms forward, extending her body and raised her arms slowly above her head. Zuko followed in sync. While Katara created a wave from stealing the water from the river, she slowly moved a moderate sized ball of water between her and Zuko. She took a step back to create enough space, Zuko furrowed his brows in confusion.
With slow movements, Katara started to move the water around the empty space in a circle. It took a second for Zuko to realize what she was doing and mirrored her movements. To the untrained eye it would have appeared that the both were waterbending the single orb.
Neither kept count of the time as they moved together. After Katara felt the last of the tense energy leave her body she lowered the water to their feet with a splash.
She centered her hands over her chest, her left fingers over her palm in a prayer position, signaling the exercise was over. While she had her hands in that position she sent a silent prayer for strength to La…and while she was at it, she asked Tui to pitch in too.
Peeking through her right eye, she glanced towards Zuko. He was standing similar to her, taking large deep breaths. His eyes were closed but his hands were in a funny position. She focused her energy towards him. The feeling of his pulse was strong and the steady rhythm calmed her.
After what she felt like ages, she finally spoke. "Are we ok?" It felt like she had weights in her chest, Katara moved to face him directly.
Zuko didn't move at first until he let out a low whisper. "Yeah."
Katara stopped biting her lip. She had to force her next words out, she hated stating her true feelings. "I don't like this. We're imbalanced and it nearly made us fail our last mission." She pushed, hoping that he would pull.
Zuko let out a breath and walked away, "you're over thinking things."
"Zuko, what's going-"
"What are you doing?" Katara paused.
"What do you mean?"
"What are you doing with someone like me? T, I'm not a good person to be around."
There's that nickname again. She couldn't stop her face from showing her worry. "What are you talking about?"
Zuko kept his back to her, "you deserve to be partnered with someone better than some dead-beat prisoner escapee." When he didn't hear the outburst he was expecting, he turned around to make sure she was still behind him. Katara's head was down, her fists clenched at her sides, shaking. Was she crying?
When she looked up, Zuko saw pure anger in her eyes.
"Say that one more time and I'll punch you. No one is better than anyone else. I hate it when people think someone's above or below someone else. It's not-"
"Hey, you asked…I was being honest."
Katara stopped her ranting to glare at him with all her might. The sparks had turned to pure flames and he felt like he was facing a wall of blue fire.
She crossed her arms over her chest and looked away. "Fine, whatever." She felt too exposed to him, and it didn't help that she was only in her wrappings. In a fit of fury she began gathering her cloths that laid on the riverbank and decided to storm back to camp.
When he sensed that she wasn't going to say anything else before storming away, his mouth had decided to blurt out against his will.
"I'm jealous you know." Katara had paused mid-stomp and looked at him confused. "Being able to waterbend, you make it beautiful, like the art it was intended to be." Katara relaxed a little at his words and felt another blush dust her cheeks.
"Thanks." With one last look he grabbed his shirt and headed back to camp. Katara thought she saw a ghost of a smile on his face before he turned away from her towards the dark forest.
"KATARA!"
"SUKI!"
Both women had sprinted to each other and were screaming, crying and laughing as they hugged on the docks.
"I'm so glad you're finally home! I was wondering how long you were gonna stay away from me!" Suki's smiled in excitement and hugged Katara again. "I'm so happy you're back!"
Zuko stood a couple paces behind the crazy women with B. Sokka walked up and stared up at the large animal. He had always heard of the dragon moose but had never imagined it would be so large in real life.
Sokka was about to comment on Zuko's need for large animals to compensate when he was cut off by his wife.
"Katara and I are heading to the bath house. We need to catch up on some girl time so no boys included." Sokka's shoulders slumped.
Zuko turned towards Sokka's shed and muttered something about 'crazy women' to B.
Not even ten whole minutes had passed and the girls been able to claim a room of their own in the town's spa house. They propped a chair against the door for added security and started to undress near one of the three large hot bath pools.
"I can't believe we commandeered the bath house!" Suki was giggling in excitement.
Katara sprinkled peach and mango infusion oils into the bath while Suki opened a bottle of liquid soap.
"Just letting you know Kat, I can't stay in the pool for too long."
"Oh yeah? Worried you'll wrinkle up like an old lady?" Katara jeered.
"No…apparently I have to start taking care of myself and someone else now." Blue eyes went wide as saucers.
"When did you find out?!" Katara couldn't keep the excitement from her voice.
"Well I haven't exactly been regular for almost three months and I wanted you to check and make sure I wasn't hallucinating before I made an announcement to Sokka." Katara lifted a small globe of water from one of the bathing pools and enclosed it in her hand. She cooled it a bit before pressing it to Suki's stomach. Sure enough, the beginning of a baby bump was just starting to show.
The globe illuminated as Katara pressed it to Suki. It didn't take long for Katara to feel the push and pull of Suki's qi between mother and baby. Katara looked up at Suki and nodded her head and smiled. Suki who had been holding her breath let out a short breath and jumped. Katara was sure she would have fallen into the pool if Katara hadn't grabbed onto her and steadied her. Smiles and hugs were exchanged. The excitement didn't die down as the girls jumped into the hot pool.
"So now that you know what's going on with me, tell me what's new with you and that smokin' new partner?" Suki wiggled her eyebrows.
"Oh my gods, Suki." Katara splashed her shoulder. "I don't ogle my partner that much! Besides this isn't going to be a Jet thing again.
"Kat, Jet was a psychopath and a weirdo from the start. Zuko doesn't seem too bad. He's lasted longer than Jet and I don't see a massive psychotic following. It's been three months since you two teamed up right?" Katara nodded her head. "He doesn't eat random leaves does he?" Suki mimed Jet chewing a leaf stalk. Katara laughed a bit awkwardly and tried to swat at Suki who easily dodged.
"But anyways Kat, have you found anything new about Zuko?"
"Well he's a great fighter that's for sure. He hasn't firebent around me nor when we're on a mission. Sometimes he feels really warm but I'm always freezing cold so I can't really tell. I haven't seen any firelust let alone any firebending. I'm starting to doubt the Warden's suspicions of him being a bender. No one would be able to last that long without bending, especially a firebender since they're cursed to kill every time they bend their element." The memory of the morning at the inn and the mysterious blood stain jumped to the front of her mind. She buried the thought before Suki had a chance to catch on.
"And he's really good without a shirt too." Katara winked and laughed.
Suki let out a huff. "I'm so sad Sokka lost his six-pack. I blame it on the seal jerky."
Katara faked throwing up at the thought of her brother being attractive. The women laughed a bit and Katara started to tell Suki about her travels and what's she's learned. She mentally shivered as she remembered Zuko's past with the baby and how his wife had been murdered.
"He's even really good with kids, especially the one we rescued from the bounty hunter a little while back. I think it really got to him and he thinks of his son more often now. He's been grumpy ever since that mission but I'm starting to think he's always like that." Katara rolled her eyes at the thought.
"Wait…what happened to Zuko's kid?" Suki unknowingly covered her stomach with her arms. Katara let out a slow sigh.
"From what he said, the baby died from a disease it was born with." She paused and let the water slowly seep out from her cupped fingers. "His name was Cahir. You should have seen his face when he was talking about his kid. He's never been that open with me. It's like I could read all of his emotions and feel his pain with him."
Katara told Suki about their latest mission on stopping a caravan raid. Zuko had been able to take all of the guys out on his own. Katara wasn't even needed. She figured Zuko probably just wanted to let off steam. But eventually he started to become careless with his moves and almost attacked the client. If Katara had reacted a second too late with an ice block Zuko's sword would have swung down on the wrong person. She had tried to get him to pause, breathe, think, anything for him to clear his head but he just glared at her while and yanked his sword out of the ice and turned to the nearest attacker. Something from his past was bothering him and he was taking it out on their mission. Suki nodded the whole time Katara talked.
"I haven't even had my baby yet and I can't even imagine that…" a sad silence feel over the two. "I can't imagine being next to a fire nation man either."
"It's not like he's that bad a guy though…well so far…" Suki had an evil smile on her face.
"I can imagine he's extremely hot with all those muscles. He must have a huge raging…" Suki made suggestive motions with her hands.
"SUKI STOP! It's not like that at ALL!" Katara was almost speechless. Her body betrayed her as she felt the heat from blushing on her face. Suki couldn't help the evil giggles escape and pinched Katara's red cheeks.
"But Kat, I'm worried about you." Suki's face went serious. "I know you still have feelings about wanting to settle down. You better not still be blaming yourself with what happened to Sangok are you?" Katara shook her face and detached herself from Suki's grip.
"No…that was a long time ago. It's not my fault he took a suicidal mission after I broke off the engagement." Katara leaned back and recited her words as if they were out of a textbook. Suki raised an eyebrow. "Trust me, Dad brings it up every time I see him, especially my marital status. And besides, it's not like that anymore Suki. I had my opportunity and I gave it up. I don't want to settle down anymore." Katara inwardly groaned at the idea of seeing her father again. She had said some not-too-kind words to him last time she had seen him and wouldn't be lying if she said she was trying to avoid seeing him again.
"I can sense a lie when I hear it and I don't even need my mommy instincts to kick in!"
"You're being ridiculous and that's not even possible this freaking early!" Katara huffed. "Besides I'm too old now."
"Be careful I'm older than you!" Suki wagged a finger in Katara's face. "Kat, I'm not the only one that's worried. Even Sokka has mentioned it once or twice. I'd even take the fire nation guy if it meant you could be happy." Tears started to gather up in Suki's eyes. Katara forced herself to remain still so that she wouldn't groan and roll her eyes at the sudden emotional roller coasters coming from Suki.
"Suki…that idea ended when Dad marked me as captain of the SouthEast branch. No one from my tribe wants me, you've heard what they say. A couple years ago? Yeah, it sucked but I'm over it. What I'm doing to end this war is my baby. My team is my family. I have everything you have, it's just that the faces are a little different than what I imagined. Besides I wouldn't raise a family with my life style. And if I did, I'd have to stop and sit on the sidelines to raise some fat water tribe babies for some egotistical dum-dum. You'd KNOW I'd die of boredom from the first week. What you're doing right now with that," Katara pointed to Suki's stomach, "is more brave than anything I'd ever be able to do."
Her father had tried repeatedly to engage her with any acceptable man that walked within a hundred mile radius of their home village and it only got worse when she entered the army. All offers of marriage were based on the idea that she'd stop fighting in the war and stay at home with the rest of the women. Of course, Katara had told them to shove it where the sun don't shine if they couldn't handle a real woman. After her twentieth birthday, the offers seemed to almost slam to a halt. She still had mixed feelings between sadness, regret and overwhelming joy even to this day.
Suki's tears were spilling over. "I just want you to be happy." Katara sat on the pool's ledge with Suki and hugged her.
"I know, I want to too. But not all of us get happy endings." Suki hit her shoulder.
"Don't be complaining about unhappy endings! You still got the hot guy as a partner." Suki sniffed. She leaned away a little to look at Katara. "But you gonna be okay?"
Katara felt the lie slip out from her lips before she could stop it.
"Yeah, I will."
"Come on Zuko! I can't stand being in the house any longer. Let's go already!" Katara had Zuko by the sleeve and wouldn't let go. She had managed to drag him out of the house and down the street a ways before Zuko fought her off and walked with her.
"So what are we doing now?"
"We just need to get out of the house for a little while." Katara turned left towards the city central market.
Earlier that day, Suki had asked Katara if she could help with the dinner plans and asked if she and Sokka could have the house to themselves when she announced it to her husband. Katara was over the moon helping Suki. Zuko had guessed right away at the special occasion saying something about Suki's temper or her walk, neither woman could understand what he mumbled exactly. Katara had managed to only roll her eyes and shake her head when Suki looked her way.
In town, Katara dragged Zuko to different stalls, bargaining with each vender. When Katara had spotted her next "victim" (as she liked to call them) Zuko took a couple of coins from her purse to buy the next few items on her list. Shortly after she had explained in (painful) detail how to pick the perfect sea prunes, Katara wandered towards her destination with an evil gleam to her eye.
Ten minutes later Zuko was wandering around town with his groceries in a bag on his shoulder. He hoisted the bag behind him a little more to get away from the awful smell of the sea prunes. He hadn't been paying much attention to Katara's lesson on the perfect sea prune but apparently a blinding, rancid smell was one qualification.
Zuko was about to pass a tea vender's stall when he picked up a hushed conversation.
"I promise on my own grampi's grave! What I'm sayin' is true!" Two old geezers sat perched over a table and seemed to be arguing.
"Yew haven't seen an airbender yew old coot." Old man number two slapped the other's shoulder. Zuko felt his body freeze. In less than a second he placed his sack next to an empty seat at the bar closest to the bickering old men and ordered whatever tea he pointed at on the menu.
"He's livin 'round these parts I'm tellin' ya! I saw him with me own eyes, weird cloths and all!" Their voices became hushed whispers once again and it took all of Zuko's might to not storm over to the old men and demand to be let into their conversation. The bartender placed a small cup with a tea pot next to his left arm, poured the tea and handed the finished product to Zuko who nodded his head in thanks.
He gripped his cup with a little more force and pulled his hood down a little. The smell of the tea wafted around his head. It smelled so much like the brew his uncle made, Zuko relaxed and tensed at the thought. He hoped his uncle was okay. It had been years since he'd seen the old man. Was he even still alive? He was old when he was imprisoned, it shouldn't be a surprise if he-
Zuko almost jumped out of his chair when he felt a smack to his shoulder. Katara stood there next to him with a furrowed brow and hands on her hips.
"Geez! I've been calling your name for a while, you ok?"
Zuko gave a curt nod before grabbing their bags with more force than he'd liked. He couldn't believe he let someone sneak up on him. Katara gave him a once over pointing her head in the direction of a water tribe shop. "Lets go get the last things there and head home."
When they made it back to the house, Katara and Zuko dropped off their bags gave the expecting couple their privacy for the special dinner under the guise that they had eaten earlier and weren't hungry. Sokka had gotten excited at the smell of stewed sea prunes and it had taken all of Zuko's will to not gag at the fumes. He tried to get a quick peek at the dish making the pungent smell only to comment that it looked like prison food and was quickly pelted with various kitchen objects by the other three.
As Suki and Sokka headed outside for dinner, Katara made some quick excuse about going into town. Sokka eyed Zuko and Katara wearily before being dragged outside by his wife. When the door had finally shut, Katara sprinted up the stairs and creaked the window at the top of the stairs open to hear their conversation. Silently, she waved him over to sit next to her.
"I just want to hear the announcement and then we can go." She mouthed the words.
After a couple minutes of listening to the couple downstairs Katara quickly became bored and started to unravel her braid and hair loops to relax for the night. They were talking about sea prune recipes and hoping to visit GranGran at some point before the heavy snow season. She chanced a quick look at the Fire Nation man sitting next to her and couldn't help but think of the early conversation between her and Suki.
With all the excitement about a baby and Suki's never ending questions about her love life, Katara couldn't stop the words from coming out.
"Have you ever thought about settling down?" Zuko turned to her.
"You forget, I've already done that. Didn't turn out well. I'm not the kind of person who likes to make the same mistake again." He brought his arms over his knees and rested his head against them. She couldn't help but notice the hard edge to his voice.
"Is that what happened with your sc-" her hands flew to her mouth and clamped it shut. She had never imagined that his glare could turn so fierce. "I'm sorry, forget I said anything!" The muscles in his jaw flexed. She saw him glance at the bottom of the stairs before looking back to her again.
"I've done a lot of things in my past that I'm not proud of. I've also been punished for them. This just happened to be a very permanent educational statement." His voice sounded even more strained as he whispered.
"Is that what it's like? Living in the Fire Nation?"
He quickly stood and went down the stairs after he muttered a few expletives under his breath. She raced down the stairs after him and had only reached the front door right after he slammed it.
"Zuko! Zuko!" It had started to pour outside. Zuko's face looked even more menacing with drops of water hanging off. With the lack of light she couldn't see the gold in his eyes anymore. Why did she suddenly miss that?
"Why me?" He shouted.
"What?"
"Why me? You had a million men to choose from back in that prison. Why did you choose me? If you're as smart as I think you are, you'd have looked at my account scroll back at the prison. Do you have any idea how dangerous of a person I am? Katara I was accused of murder!" His voice had drifted off at the last word, whispering it like it shouldn't have even reached her ears. Even in the darkness she could clearly make out the lines and wrinkles of his scar.
Katara bit her lip to stop it from trembling in anger. "Of course I'm not stupid! Why are you even bothering to tell me this? If you're so dangerous wouldn't you have slit my throat long ago?"
Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Why are you so bothered by the fact that I keep asking questions?!"
Silence.
"Why are you always turning away from me?"
Silence.
"I'm your partner. I need to trust you and in order to do that I need to know who you are. You need to be able to trust me too."
She was about to slash at him with a waterwhip to get him to talk, move, something until he finally did.
"Trust huh? Then why have we been circling Omashu for the past three months? You've been saying we've been heading to base camp this whole time. I've memorized the surrounding land of Omashu we've been aimlessly wandering around for so damn long! What are you waiting for? You trying to kill me? What have you been planning? WHAT?!"
Now it was her turn to be silent.
"Figures," he scoffed. Zuko turned to walk away but her hand flew out to grab his sleeve. This wasn't over just yet.
"I'll tell you, but you need to listen. To the entire thing." Zuko stared right back. She took his silence as a yes.
"I've been waiting for orders about your status in the rebel army. They know you're a fire nation royalty. They know your background, but they don't know enough of you to trust you. They asked me to gather intel before I brought you to them. My mission was to figure out if you were still loyal to the Fire Nation. They don't really want the enemy so close to home." She paused to take a steadying breath. "They wanted information from you and it was up to me to figure out if you can be trusted." Her hand tightened it's grip on his arm. "But I need to know Zuko, back in Omashu…why was there blood on your cloths…Firebenders are susceptible to firelust which is just a fancy word for bloodlust. If you're gonna turn into some fire breathing monster it's my job to find out. Now tell me…why was there blood?"
"My kind aren't the only ones who turn into monsters." He spat his words at her like venom. "You should do well to remember that tid-bit. But for you're information I'm not the fire bending monster you're making me out to be." Her veins turned to ice at the thought. She knew well what he was talking about but she would never let herself get to that point. Unlike the others, she had control over her bloodbending.
"…then why?"
She caught minute movement of his eyes widening in shock. The gold was back. He slumped his shoulders, but only a little.
"I was protecting my partner. Everything I do is to ensure your safety." His gaze hardened. "I owe you my life for getting me out of prison. Until I have repaid my debt, I will always do what is needed to be done to keep you safe…it's what I swore to you, remember?"
She tried to find any hint of fault or lies. Katara felt her hair had finally been completely plastered to her face by the rain. Her entire body soaked to the bone. Zuko was in the same state. She felt a hand on both her arms and then felt them rise up to her shoulders. His hands were warm.
"Katara, can you be honest with me?" She nodded hesitantly after a couple of seconds. "I need to know, can I trust you…really trust you?"
Katara put a hand on his chest, never breaking their gaze.
"Zuko, be honest with me too, how much should I trust you?"
They held that pose for what felt like forever as they waited for their answers. A sound behind them and they both turned with lightening speed to look. Katara didn't want to move her eyes away from his. Zuko was the first to look away to the sound behind her. Their hands didn't move until they saw Suki and Sokka with their weapons drawn on the front porch. Katara noticed that the grip on their weapons had been more relaxed than she liked. How long had they been standing there?
"We heard yelling." Suki explained. The rain had finally died down to a mist.
Zuko let go of her. The familiar chill set in, she started to wonder when she had gotten used to being so warm. She loved the frozen temperatures of her element. Why is it that whenever Zuko touched her she felt like she was boiling over?
A second after the couple on the porch made their appearance, Zuko turned and walked away. She barely caught his "be back later". His shoulders seemed to hold more tension than she was used to.
It was Sokka who spoke next. "You alright?" Katara looked at Suki and Sokka and nodded. Sokka's eyes didn't move from Zuko's retreating form until he disappeared down the path. "By the way…you're going to be an aunt." Katara remained silent. When Zuko was out of sight Sokka walked toward the shed on the side of their small house.
"Katara come inside before you get sick."
Katara gave Suki a look, "if I can't get wet every now and again, I really got stuck with the wrong element." Katara walked over to Suki and bent the water out of her cloths. She left the water in her hair and wrung it out with her hands.
Looking down the path that left from the front of the house, it had taken all of her might debating whether or not she should follow him. Sounds of plates clanking came from inside and, slowly, she turned inside to help.
A/N:
Holy craaaaaap it's been a long time since I updated! I am still alive! I've been trying to balance 2 and a half jobs plus family drama and life kinda carried me away :/
This chapter was a B…it originally was going to be a lot longer but I was less than half way through working on the outline I was almost hitting 7K+ which is just too much so I thought this was a nice break. Besides the chapter had started to become a raging bat-shit crazy monster…whoops…
So in this chapter we've been able to glimpse more at the idea that's been circling in my head for a while. I always had assumed there would be a yin/yang to the usage of the elements. The show had always emphasized balance and this story will really focus on the idea of balance of power. For firebenders, it's the same effect when you have a high fever and you start becoming loopy. The heat scrambles your brain. The hotter the fire, the more of a negative effect it will have on your mental status and obviously the longer the use of the hot fire the more permanent the effects. Zuko has now hinted that it's not only the firebenders who have a problem with the negative effects of their bending, it's just more commonly known with the 100 Yrs War going on and the focus is on the Fire Nation.
Sorry for the suuuper long AN but I figured to clear up any confusion as to where the hell I've been heading with this story. Thanks for reading this far if you are and see you in Ch 6! R&R and let me know what you think! Sorry for any grammar mistakes:/