[a/n]: I realize I've been dreadfully vague about events in this story, so Katara's part for today will largely be quick shorts that will give you guys an idea of what's going on. Major time skip, but hopefully it will clear up some stuff. Zuko will mope, as usual. This time, though, he has a girl who'd like to mope with him.
ARC 3: A Mountain Divides Them Apart
DAY 17: Vague
She finds herbal tea in her pack, the special kind she'd been brewing in secret at home. It helps with exhaustion and nausea (which turns out to be extremely valuable in one was journeying via Sky Bison). Except that Katara didn't put this in her pack.
Which means that Gran-gran knew the entire time.
Katara reluctantly removes her parka. It's been too hot to wear it for days now. She takes a deep breath, calms herself. Her bump is visible, straining against a spare dress that is several years too young for her (she curses her lack of clean laundry, but they haven't stopped to rest in days). With enough luck, Sokka won't notice. He's clueless enough. Katara prays that he will be just this once.
She slides down Appa's tails, trailing an affectionate hand through his fur. She can do this.
"Hey, Katara," Sokka says, examining a map with a piece of jerky in his mouth, "Would you mind—for the love of spirits!"
He chokes on his jerky. Katara sighs and gives his back a few good whacks.
"Who do I have to kill?" he sputters.
"Nobody," she says, "It was my mistake. I'm going to handle it."
"It takes two to—
"Sokka!"
She whacks him again.
"What's wrong with Sokka?" Aang asks, returning from the nearby stream.
His head is freshly shaved, though his clothing could use some washing (Katara doesn't need a baby to act motherly, she realizes). His eyes fall on her stomach (the dress must be much tighter than she thought).
"Are you gonna have a baby?" he asks, all innocent and wide-eyed (she swears, sometimes it's an act).
"Yes, Aang." she admits, glaring at her brother.
Sokka starts to sputter again.
He gives her a funny look every time she wears the tighter dress (which is every laundry day). Shooting water at him stops it quick enough (though Aang says he still does it when she can't see).
"No, really. Who do I have to kill?"
She freezes him to a tree.
"So, preggers," the snotty Earthbending girl drawls, "Who's the daddy?"
They fight and she freezes Toph in a block of ice. Aang's earthbending teach refers to her with a variety of equally insulting names, but never repeats that one.
They become tentative friends.
Sometimes, Katara feels like people focus more on her baby then they focus on her. It doesn't matter what kind of vague answer she gives them, they want a name, a nationality, the boot size of the man she slept with.
Katara could destroy an entire village, given the right amount of water. She was a Master bender at the age of ten, teacher to the Avatar himself. She's fought in countless battles, killed men and captured cities for the Earth Kingdom. The Fire Nation would take pleasure in torturing her, if not for information, then in revenge for being the wolf bit the Dragon's tail.
And yet all anybody wants to know is who the father is. Even gentle, sweet, lively Aang wants to know. Even Toph, even the cabbage man three villages over!
She doesn't see how it's any of anybody's business and she says that.
They don't stop asking.
In retrospect, visiting a library in the middle of a desert was a bad idea. But hindsight is always twenty-twenty, right? At any rate, Katara has more to worry about.
She gathers Toph to her side, pulls Sokka along behind her. Momo chatters somewhere behind her and all Katara can think of the oppressing heat. Her mouth is dry. Her feet hurt. Her back is sore, belly heavy. They have to get out of this desert.
The baby kicks, as if he agrees, and she forces herself to smile when she would rather cry.
"We'll get out of this," She tells them, "I promise."
Aang appears, sullen and upset. She strings him along and pulls her friends (brothers, sisters, sometimes it feels like they're her children) through the desert.
She almost screams when they decide to escort the pregnant woman through the Serpent's Pass. Katara is almost eight months pregnant and Aang wants to what?! Let alone the fact that the woman herself is about to pop.
But in the end, her better nature kicks in (perhaps her better nature is the abandonment of reality?)
They escort the couple through the pass. It's a long, painful journey (mostly for her feet…and the poor pregnant woman that's even further along than she is).
There are some sad moments, some hard ones. Sokka finds love again, she hopes, and three refuges find their way to Ba Sing Se. Katara focuses on those moments. On the mother smiling down at her new baby, at Suki saving Toph. She doesn't think about the new father, holding his child and thanking her profusely. She doesn't think about the small family huddled together. She doesn't think about who will be absent from the birth of her own child.
Katara holds her little family a little bit closer and they move on toward Ba Sing Se.
Jin is pretty.
Not excessively pretty. Not a little pretty. Just pretty. Not Katara, but Zuko hasn't thought of her in months. Not since they arrived in Ba Sing Se and he became a teashop boy. Not since his hours became long and his work tedious. He serves tea with Uncle. He scrapes by. Zuko survives.
Jin wants to do more than survive.
She smiles at him, chatters incessantly. It's…strange…to befriend a girl that isn't a solider or a comrade or even from his country.
She's his age, just twenty. Not married. Living with a relative, getting by in "the greatest city in the world." Though Jin really thinks it is. She thinks a lot of things are amazing. His tea. Pastries. The little fountain down the road, the vast fields that make up the outer ring. She drags him here and there, talks about this and that.
Zuko thinks he might be a little in love with her. But not like this.
Jin kneels before him, half-dressed. Her eyes are half-lidded and he's kissing her neck. She makes a sound, breath-hitching before a moan. She pulls him down over her, breasts flush up against his chest. It's not right. He can't close his eyes and pretend that Jin isn't Jin. Wishing won't make her eyes blue, skin dark, hair curly and unruly. Zuko pulls away, pulls himself off Jin before something happens that he can't take back.
"Lee," she whispers, "What's wrong?"
Jin sits, pulling her robe closed. She scoots across the thin mat that is her bed, brushing hair out of her eyes.
"Lee," her voice is louder this time, "Tell me what's wrong."
"I…Jin-I—
He's sputtering, drowning in his own embarrassment. And maybe Jin really is like Katara, because she pulls his hands away from his face, stokes them carefully.
"Is there another girl, Lee?" she asks calmly.
She's not soft, like Katara, but Jin can be gentle. For an Earth peasant, anyway.
"There was," he admits, "Before I came to the city."
"Did you love her?"
He nods. It wouldn't be right, he thinks, to tell her how much he does.
"It's okay," Jin says, finally, "I understand."
And she does, because they don't sleep together. Instead, she strokes his hair and he tells her about the blue-eyed girl that left him behind.