ARC 3: A Mountain Divides Them Apart
DAY 20: Ripple
While Katara is over-joyed to see her father again, delighted to meet up with the many friends they've made in their travels, it's still awkward. Some never learned of her pregnancy, others fall silent when Aikka is presented (she's been dressed in water tribe blue for the occasion, but it's clear which parent she takes after). Haru goes far enough to apologize, as if Aikka is some sort of burden she must bear (Toph is sweet enough to toss him in the ocean). And yet, Katara fights the self-conscious urge to hide her baby.
Either Fire Nation natives look upon her with distaste, smiling at her fortune of being blessed with such a light-skinned child, or her own kinsmen think she has been raped and see a violent act behind Aikka's honey colored eyes.
And yet, her father is so different. He hugs his daughter close, kisses her forehead, and then proceeds to completely monopolize his only grandchild. Aikka warms up to him right away and there's something that warms Katara's heart. Her child may not have a father, but she has a loving grandfather and uncles and one very dirty Toph.
Their love turns out to be a problem; everyone seems to assume she'll sit out of the invasion. With the baby. She doesn't care if it would be the right thing to do; there won't be a point in keeping Aikka safe if they don't stop the war.
"Katara," her father says, "It's not safe for Aikka."
"Dad, I need to be there," she says, "If we don't end the war, there won't a world worth living in for anyone."
She gotten heated and angry, pacing like a tiger-puma, but her father is as calm as snow fall at midnight.
"And if we won the war," he says, "But the price was our future, would it still be worth it? Would it be worth losing your child, spilling her blood and your blood in the process?"
His eyes grow colder than ice, angrier than anything she's ever seen, "Will it be worth ending the war if in ten years, you hold her blankets and her clothing and wish you still remembered what her face looked like?"
"I—
"Will it be worth it, Katara?"
Tears flood her eyes, because they're not talking about Aikka. They're talking about Mom and she feels frozen in place.
She imagines a child, dark haired and honey-eyed, clutching at a filthy blue and white necklace, crying herself to sleep because she hasn't got a mother to hold her.
"It won't be." She whispers.
But it won't be worth it if in ten years, that same little girl has to watch her mother raped, then murdered before her very eyes (if the same isn't done to her as well). Katara tells her father this and his face sags with grief. Years creep into the lines on his face and her father looks much older than the smiling chief he was minutes ago.
"I just want to protect you." He says softly.
Katara goes to him, wrapping his arms around him and her baby. Her father smells like leather and home, like family. She closes her eyes and tries not to bawl.
"I know, daddy."
In the end, they don't have enough waterbenders. They need every bender they can get.
Katara swears up and down she'll stay on Appa, she'll keep Aikka strapped on her back and she won't take a step off him until the battle is finished and over.
She breaks her promise and saves her father's life in return.
In the end, he writes Mai a letter.
She'd been so thrilled at their engagement, so happy and relieved. It was strange to be wanted so badly, to be appreciated like never before. But Mai is not Katara. And just as she is not his other half, Zuko is not the obedient prince his father wants.
The war is wrong and a thousand war meetings will only strengthen his resolve. The enslavement of women and the murder of innocents is something he will never condone (he will find his Katara and apologize for wronging her).
He doesn't write a letter to his father. Zuko straps his swords to his back, pulls a hood over his head. He'll give the Fire Lord his farewells in person.
Katara nurses the baby from her mat, reaches one thin hand out to send the cooking pot stirring again. Zuko watches from across the fire, mending a shirt (he's stabbed himself twice for every stitch so far).
To think that he's faced down his father, waltzed right out of the Fire Nation without a look back, faced down the assassin he'd hired, and yet he won't risk incurring her wrath. She has frozen him out and he doesn't know how to melt the divide between them.
Aside from the thinly veiled death threat on the eve he joined their group, she hasn't spoken to him. Every time he tries, she simply walks right past him. Katara is indifferent, icy, vindictive even. His food is always a little burnt, slightly salty. His freshly cleaned laundry turned up in his room, muddied and damp. She scrutinizes him when he trains Aang, and yet has not shared a word with him.
Katara burps Aikka, then sets her child down on the roll. She bustles around, picking up this, stirring that, sweeping things away. Her shoulders are tense and she watches him out of the corner of her eye.
The baby is always a few feet away, kicking chubby little feet into the air. His daughter is beautiful. His fingers twitch, he wants to scoop her up and kiss her little face all over. Zuko had thought fatherhood would scare him, but to imagine that he'd helped make that little thing? It's unthinkable. Aikka is too perfect, too small, too precious.
And yet she won't let him get close enough to touch her.
Zuko knows that he deserves a lot of things, a lot more than thinly veiled death threats and petty gestures. But he's not so sure he deserves to be barred from his child.
"Katara." He says.
She doesn't look up, but emotions ripple across her features. Her body tenses even more (if that can be imagined) and her mouth settles into a grim slash.
He stands, approaches her.
The warrior in her forces the scorned woman to stand straight, meet his eyes.
"What do you want?"
"We need to talk." Zuko says.
"There is nothing to say."
She turns back to her cooking pot. Zuko grabs her arm.
"You can't freeze me out like this," he says, "You haven't even given me a chance."
"And I suppose you'd like another one of those," she hisses, "What will it be this time, you'll throw the baby off a cliff for your sister? Maybe she'll let you polish her shoes when she's finished razing the world?"
"Katara—
She jerks herself out of his grip, a fresh hand-print sized burn gracing her arm. Her eyes are wide and for a moment he sees the pain and hurt and anger. Her lip trembles, but then everything hardens over.
"Wait, spirits, Katara, I'm sorry," he babbles, "Katara—
"Stay away from me and my baby." She hisses, voice low.
She scoops up Aikka, who immediately begins to bawl, and marches away.
"Wait!" he cries, "Just give me a chance, she's my child too!"
Katara turns, marches back, and breaks his nose.
She's crying by the time she reaches her room. Aikka, herself, has stopped crying, watching her mother with curious eyes and a slobbering rosebud mouth. She sets the baby on the bed, curling up around her.
She knows that he deserves a chance. If it were anybody else, she'd given them that chance. Katara would sit and listen and try to understand. She would let him hold his daughter and try to coexist, if only for the sake of their child and the Avatar.
But every time she looks at Zuko, all the emotions she'd thought were buried come rushing back. All the hate and hurt and intense fear that she's just waiting for Ba Sing Se to happen again cloud her thoughts until she's somebody else. Not Katara. Not Aikka's mother or Sokka's sister.
"I'm sorry," she tells her baby, sobbing, "that I'm your mother."
Aikka's eyes are wide, body tense. She looks like she's about to open her mouth and cry again. Katara tries not to laugh, the look on her face is precious. She wipes away her own tears and sets about comforting her baby.
"It's okay," she soothes, "We'll be okay."
She falls asleep to a little pair of eyes watching her.
The room is dark when she wakes again, Aikka is not by her side. Katara jerks up, scrambling to her feet.
"Calm down," Sokka says, "Aang's got her."
She sits back, combing a hand through her frizzy hair.
"Did you guys—
"Dinner was just fine," he brother says, "We even saved you a bowl."
She slumps back over her pillow. The tone of his voice tells her that he's not pleased with her (nobody has been pleased with her behavior as of late). This is the first time they've spoken in days.
"You know then?"
Sokka fiddles with his boomerang. He's sitting at the edge of her bed, facing the door. Outside, children are laughing as Toph tells a joke she can't quite hear (though she imagines it's probably inappropriate).
"The entire temple heard the last bit," He says, leaning back a bit, "Zuko, huh? Should have seen that one coming."
Katara curls into a ball. She's avoided and dodged questions for so long it's almost second nature. Telling the truth is harder, but she forces herself to come clean. Sokka doesn't say much, only sharpens his hunting knife as she recounts her harrowing capture and eventual escape.
He looks at her when she's fallen silent.
"Is he the father?" he asks.
She nods. Sokka gets that thoughtful look. "Do you want me to gut him?"
She shakes her head just as quickly. He stands, sheathes his knife.
"I'll bring some soup and have Aang return Aikka before bed," he says, "You should get some rest."
Katara sits up, "Wait, Sokka. What should I do?"
Sokka shrugs.
"You don't want him dead, right?" he says, "Then maybe you should give him a chance. Just listen."
"Should I forgive him?" she says, voice small and unsure.
He doesn't answer, only shrugs again and walks out the door.
Katara heals Zuko's nose the next day. She hesitantly offers Aikka, showing him how to hold her. No other words are exchanged, though she watches him carefully.
He tries to apologize, but she shakes her head (her eyes are puffy, as though she has been crying). Katara pats Aikka's head, then returns to the laundry.
Much later, he finds clothing folded neatly at the foot of his bed. His turtle-duck pendent is missing, but he finds it meticulously cleaned and pinned to Aikka's sling.