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Please enjoy this chapter as a small token of my gratitude.

Chapter Seventeen
The Past

"Ow!" she cried, and squeezed her eyes shut, knowing if she tensed her muscles, the pain would be worse. Fire burned her veins and swept up the column of her throat until she let out a whimper, trying to dispel the pressure. She felt a warm hand touch her hip, keeping her down as her body flexed and bowed. She opened her eyes, frowning up at Blue.

"How the hell did you learn to do stitches?" she groaned, and he shrugged before once more poking the needle through her skin. She bit back a scream but couldn't control her body, and was instantly glad he was holding her in one place. Her limbs strained, her skin was on fire, and his hands were there, anchoring her to the earth and keeping her together. His hand was warm, lovely, comforting- like Zuko's had been.

And suddenly, she hated it. She didn't want his hand on her ribs, feeling the breath in her lungs, cleaning the flow of her blood. She didn't want him healing her- it felt too personal, too close. She couldn't acknowledge the pull she felt for him, and when his thumb ran over her hip bone, she broke.

"Stop it!" Katara snapped, and he hesitated, then took his hand off her body. She bore the rest of the tidy stitches in silence, and sat up without looking at him when he was done. She stared at the floor, dizzy at the pain, and felt heat in her stomach, traveling up her throat as a metallic taste flooded through her mouth.

She jumped off the table and hobbled as fast as she could to the bathroom, ignoring the quiet footsteps coming behind her. A swift wave of nausea brought her to her knees, and she leaned over the sink, feeling his hand on her shoulder. She pulled a tiny icicle from the spout and flicked it at him. "Go away," she muttered, and then her stomach flexed and she got sick.

Blue was holding her hair out of the way. He was still touching her, and she straightened up, forcing back the sickness as she leaned against the counter and pushed him. "I said go away!" Katara snarled, "I don't need your help! I was just fine before you came along!"

The waterbender watched as his shoulders stiffened, and he left the bathroom. She knew to wait for him to come back, but every passing second, she was getting angrier. She heard quiet plops behind her, and turned to see water dripping quickly out of the faucet. She took a deep breath, felt it fuel the rage inside her, and the drips of water became a stream.

Katara didn't fight it. She craved the anger, the heat- she wanted to lose control, lose everything. She wanted to start over.

The door creaked open, and the Blue Spirit held out a pad of paper, black ink spattered in chaotic drops, furious words snaking across the page- 'You weren't fine. You were more dead than alive.' Katara shoved the paper back at him with a sneer.

"I wasn't talking about when you found me on Ember Island!" she shouted, and the man scribbled something else and held it up for her to see.

'Neither was I.' She narrowed her eyes, thinking back, trying to remember another time when he'd saved her from the brink of death. "What are you talking about?" she demanded, and rolled her eyes as Blue began to write. She cast a glance around the room, sick of the cool, clingy air and sick of being alone with him and her memories. She left the bathroom and heard him coming after her, into the living room.

The Blue Spirit tapped her shoulder. Katara whirled around, taking steps back, and he threw the pad of paper to her, watching as she caught it and began to read. 'I'm talking about the very beginning. From the first time I saw you I wanted to protect you, even from yourself.'

Katara bit her lip, thinking back. It had been after Zuko's funeral that she'd moved- but when had the man in the cerulean mask started coming for her? It was almost as if he'd just been there all along. "Blue… when did you start watching over me?" She handed back the paper and sat down, fighting to stay calm and control her curiosity.

The response seemed calmer, his letters erect and fluent. 'Think back to your first patient as the Painted Lady in Caldera.' Katara looked at her guardian, then back at the note, running a hand through her hair and ignoring the twinge of pain that shot through her newly stitched up wound.

It hit her suddenly, and she gazed into the black eye sockets of the mask. "There was a woman and an infant," she breathed, "they were… they were outside the tea shop. Crying- the woman was crying."

She couldn't sleep, knowing that someone outside her home was sobbing hard enough to wake her. Knowing that some poor soul had endured all they could in silence, and that tears were the only thing they had left to give. Katara sat up in bed with a sigh, then drifted to the window, feeling ever more like a ghost of who she had been. Her white funeral dress was still crumpled on the floor next to the cheap apartment's bed- the room itself was the size of the closet in her house in the Upper Ring of Caldera.

Still, she had grown up in a tent, surrounded by snow and humble people who worked for everything they had. She had never been meant for glamour, or even happiness. Zuko was gone. It was all just so tiring, and she wanted nothing more than it to end.

But the cries from outside brought her to the window, craning her neck to see a woman slumped in front of the tea shop, her dark hair shadowing her face and her shoulders shaking. Katara watched blankly. She knew that before everything had fallen apart, she would have helped the woman, but Zuko was gone. There was no reason.

'Stop it,' a little voice murmured in the back of her mind. She cocked her head to the side, shivering as the woman gave a wail of deep, penetrating sorrow. She couldn't take it anymore- it was as if she was looking down at her own heart in that woman's body, feeling nothing but pain. She couldn't listen to it, didn't want to recognize the loss buried between the cries and feel them echoing in her own body.

She turned away from the window, but something stopped her- a sudden movement outside. She froze, trying to see what shouldn't be there, knowing nothing but her instincts telling her that something was watching her.

Katara felt something cool touch her hand and jumped, not even realizing she'd pulled a stream of water from the wash basin by her bed. The feeling of anxiety disappeared, and she turned back to the window, strengthening her grip on the water, making it swirl faster in her fingers.

She saw a flash of blue, and jumped, peering out at the dark world, interrupted by the slotted length of her blinds, leaving too much unknown. There was movement right in front of her window, and she shoved the blinds up and out of the way, her heart beating in her throat, the adrenaline rising in her stomach like a dragon awakening from a hazy dream.

The blue thing vanished, and suddenly all that was left in the night was the crying woman. But Katara felt different. For the first time since going underground, she was conscious of her heart beating. There was a woman who needed help, and she could no longer feign the death in her life. She couldn't deny herself.

Katara let out a breath, concentrated, and the water began to glow blue. She smiled, her dry lips cracking from disuse, and then went away from the window, to her front room. A heavy black cloak had been purchased from a street vendor, as well as red henna paint that the vendor had said would lighten her hair. She put on the cloak and spread the paint over her cheeks, drawing dramatic lines and swirls around her eyes, dabbing it on her lips.

She threw the cloak on, pulled it over her head, and gathered water in both hands. She took a deep breath, then shook the water free violently, watching it hang in the air and spread out into a fine mist. She took the mist with her, out the door and into the night.

The woman had turned to watch her. Tears glistened on her cheeks, and Katara knelt down next to her and wiped them free. "Tell me why you are crying," she murmured huskily, and the woman held her arms out, revealing an infant that was too pale, his little chest heaving.

"My son… he is sick. The doctor took all our money and said my baby h-has water in his lungs, and won't live." Katara felt a surge of energy, and straightened up. Water- she could heal, she could help.

"Come with me. I will do all I can." She turned and heard the woman get up and follow, and the baby boy started coughing, a hacking, wet sound. Katara flinched, but opened her door and let the woman in. "You must go in the other room and wait," she ordered, knowing that whatever happened, the woman couldn't see her waterbending. She's just gone underground- it would do no good if she flaunted her bending.

"What?" she asked anxiously, but Katara just shook her head and pointed to her bedroom. "Who are you?" the mother asked, and Katara thought quickly.

"A… messenger. From the spirits. I will do all I can, but you must leave," she said again, and the woman bit her lip, beginning to cry again as she handed her baby to Katara and shut the door quietly behind her.

Katara breathed a sigh of relief, then looked down at the boy. He was breathing shallowly, and was waking up, his tiny fists clenching and his legs twitching weakly. She laid him down on the rug, took a deep breath, and laid her hands on his chest and stomach. She could feel the moisture in his lungs, and began to move it, tenderly pulling it out through his mouth. The boy's eyes opened, and he gazed at her with curious, golden eyes.

The color was exactly the same shade as Zuko's had been. She bit back a whimper and braced his body, siphoning the water from his lungs, healing his throat and mouth and trying to bring down the fever. She felt someone watching, but heard the mother sobbing in the other room- it was just a leftover reaction from her unease at the window, it had to be.

When she was done, the baby was sleeping again, peacefully. She knocked on the door, and the mother opened it quickly, her eyes guarded but hopeful. "You can take him home now. Bring him back if he begins to get sick again." Katara's words were met by more tears, and a disbelieving glance towards the baby.

"You… saved him?" she asked quietly, then covered her mouth with a shaking hand and scooped up her child, cradling him close. Katara felt a pang of desire for her own mother, but squashed it down.

"Thank you… thank you so much! Who are you?" the woman asked again, and Katara smiled gently, leading her to the door.

"The Painted Lady. Please, tell no one of this." The woman nodded, touched her shoulder in tentative thanks, and then left. She began to close the door, enjoying the feeling of being useful again, then froze as another small flash of blue caught her attention. It was gone within the instant, but she could just make out the black figure disappearing over the rooftops.

Katara shivered and closed the door, unable to shake the feeling that whoever it was had been watching her every move, and had seen everything.

"It was you?" she asked the Blue Spirit, and he nodded. She got up, running a hand through her hair again. "Why?" she demanded, "Why were you so interested in me?"

His note came quickly. 'I knew who you were from the first time I saw you. I also knew that you needed help, because you couldn't help yourself.' She looked up at him, about to argue, then thought it over- spending days in bed sobbing, losing weight, interest, contact with the real world- and closed her mouth, continuing to read instead. 'That night, I saw how it helped you to heal others. So I decided to give you more business. If I saw someone who was injured or sick, I told them to go to the Painted Lady over the tea shop, but said if they revealed who told them, you wouldn't help them.'

Katara smiled grimly, remembering the curious silence of her first patients. Some had just pointed to the injury and said nothing, while others had asked if she was ghost. Over time, they had come to realize she was just a healer, but there had still been an air of mystery and intrigue whenever she allowed a person into her home.

Every time she had healed someone, she'd felt something inside her lift, as well. It had been distracting, seeing people, trying to stay secret and never letting them see her. But she'd liked being able to help them. Some of them were victims of Azula's mistreatment- like the man who was in an accident at work, or the child burned by a guard for stealing bread. They all had stories to tell, and every story had lessened the impact of Zuko's death until she had been completely free of the void. Until nothing but the deep, permanent sorrow remained.

The Blue Spirit had looked out for her long before she knew him. Katara closed her eyes, felt the muscles in her stomach curl, felt the pull Blue held for her. She stepped closer to him and looked up into the mask, wondering for the thousandth time what a man had to have gone through to hide himself from the world.

"Thank you," she murmured, and went up on her toes, pressing her lips to the cool metal cheek of the mask. She felt him still beneath her touch, and stepped away, her heart pushing blood to her cheeks and her mind whirring. She turned and left the room, striding back to her bedroom and pushing the door shut, holding her body together as it threatened to pull into two parts- the one that loved Zuko still and always would, and the one who was careening into love with a man she didn't know, and never would.

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