The more time the man spends with their group, the more puzzled Katara is.
Their reunion was tearful. Heartwarming. It's been obvious for a while now by the way Zuko talks about his uncle just how much he loves and respects the man, and how guilty he felt for betraying him, and it very quickly became just as obvious as Zuko apologized exactly how much the older teen's uncle cared deeply for him in return.
At least, that was Katara's original understanding of the situation. The more she watches them interact, though, the more uncertain she is about her initial assessment of their relationship.
Admittedly, so far none of the things she's noticed have been particularly alarming. Katara will also admit that it took her a while to realize something was off-even if only slightly. She will also concede that whatever's going on, Zuko himself doesn't seem upset by it, and Toph, who has never been shy about intervening on behalf of their group's resident firebender, has given absolutely no indication that she's noticed that Zuko's upset, which usually means he's fine.
She can't deny though, that all the little things keep piling up, and it's starting to make her uneasy.
Or was she uneasy first, and then started noticing things? She's not really sure.
At any rate, the first thing Katara notices is that their initial greeting aside, Iroh keeps his distance. For a while she doesn't see it, but once she does, then she can't stop seeing. Especially when the members of their small group are constantly invading Zuko's personal space; in a flash she remembers that he wasn't always like that. When he first joined them he kept his distance in very much the same way Iroh is now.
She notices when Toph elbows Iroh and grins up at him as if she's known the man all his life, and he doesn't seem to mind. Nor does he have a problem rubbing elbows with Sokka at dinner-though he does take care not to do the same with Zuko, who is on his other side.
Zuko's also sitting at the end of the table, Katara realizes, with nothing but empty air on his scarred side. Toph's across from him, laughing with both Zuko and his uncle, and no one looks uncomfortable, but it strikes Katara as odd that the old man would put more space between himself and his own family than he would a not-quite stranger.
As the evening wears on, the pattern continues. Iroh does not seem to worry about his own personal space, an almost necessary trait when traveling with an at-times over-affectionate airbender and an earthbender who most often shows her affection with her fists, but keeps a polite, almost formal distance between himself and his nephew at almost all times.
That evening they brush shoulders as they sit down before the dying embers of the fire used to prepare their most recent meal, and Iroh winces and apologizes. Zuko waves it off easliy, unbothered. He turns his attention to attempting to coax Aang into stirring up the fire, and misses the way the older man studies him a moment before he, too, turns his attention to the Avatar.
Aang's attempts are largely unsuccessful at first. Katara isn't too worried. It's been a long day, and they're all tired, and the added presence of Iroh, Dragon of the West, is probably making the twelve-year-old nervous.
Zuko leans back abruptly, one arm reaching out to pull Toph in the same direction. Recognizing the action, Toph goes along with it, and Katara leans back as well, just in time for to keep her eyebrows from being caught in the column of flame that suddenly flares up.
"Oops." Aang grins sheepishly even as the fire steadies under Zuko's influence. "Sorry."
The firebender snorts. His uncle is studying him again.
Iroh is once again sitting on Zuko's unscarred side. Toph is on his other side, positioned unapologetically in what Katara is pretty sure is his blind spot. Every once in a while, Iroh shoots a glance past his nephew, but the waterbender gets the feeling that even when he isn't looking at Toph, he's still keeping an eye on her-and on Zuko.
They end up talking late into the night, Aang and Sokka cheerfully filling the older firebender in on Zuko's adventures since joining them, and for his part, Iroh seems to take a genuine interest. Every once in a while he shoots a quick, sharp glance at Zuko that the younger firebender completely misses-most likely because he's busy trying to figure out how to convince Toph not to use his arm as a pillow. Nobody else seems to notice either.
Toph eventually gets tired of his fidgeting and sits up. Katara winces, knowing full well what's coming. Zuko knows, too, but seems more resigned than anything else.
Iroh, however, visibly startles when the earthbender turns and punches his nephew. He catches himself immediately, and refrains from getting involved as Zuko turns and scowls at the girl, rubbing his arm. For now, at least, the Dragon of the West is content to simply watch.
He's definitely watching. Whatever's going on with between the two of them, Iroh has been watching the way his nephew interacts with the rest of the group.
Or maybe she has it backwards, and he's watching them interact with him. She's pretty sure though, based on the he abortive motion he makes in his nephew's direction when Toph chooses to respond to Zuko's continued grumbling with a specialized earthbending move specifically designed to knock someone sitting next to her on to their backside, and the way his eyes narrow for less than a second in the blind girl's direction, that he's keeping an eye on them.
Iroh relaxes when Aang laughs, nobody else bats an eye, and Zuko accepts the earthebender's offered arm as leverage to pull himself back up.
The mystery doesn't solve itself that night, and after a good night's rest, Katara wonders if maybe she was just making a big deal out of nothing. After all, she was pretty tired.
Katara awakens at dawn out of habit (her own fault, she started when Zuko first joined him and by the time she decided to trust him it was already too late-now she rises with the sun as if she were a firebender herself). When she finds Iroh silently studying his nephew as he goes through his usual morning routine of trying to figure out how to get Toph off him without waking her up, she knows she was right. Something's going on, she just can't quite figure out what.
He doesn't intervene this time either, and once Zuko has finally extracted himself and stumbled off to go wake Aang, Iroh decides to join Katara, starting a fire while she prepares breakfast.
Breakfast is usually porridge of some sort. Hot, filling, and plenty to go around. Iroh notices the way everyone, including Toph, gathers right as the meal is ready-Katara can see it in his eyes-but doesn't comment.
He also doesn't comment on the way Zuko snaps at Aang as they sit down. Aang rolls his eyes as he accepts a bowl of porridge. Based on the way he devours his food, the twelve-year-old isn't upset, though, so Katara doesn't say anything either, and Sokka ignores it.
Iroh's eyes dart first to her, then to her brother, as if he's clocked both of their reactions, and Katara realizes that as friendly as he's been so far, he's also been paying very close attention. Their eyes meet for only a second, but Katara suddenly realizes that he does not entirely trust the four of them around his nephew.
She looks away before she can laugh. The idea is absolutely rediculous.
Toph claims Aang for earthbending practice after breakfast. Sokka leaps at the chance to get some sword practice in, and Zuko agrees. Katara waves the two of them off before they can remember that clean-up duty should fall to them.
Iroh enjoys a cup of tea by the fire while Katara starts on the dishes, but his focus is on the two teenagers currently trying to smack each other with sharp objects about thirty feet away.
Katara's not worried. Sokka's not going to get a hit in, and Zuko has better control than to accidentally hurt her brother. The fact that her brother's been dumped in the dirt three times in five minutes doesn't particularly concern her.
Sokka abandons his sword and throws himself at the other boy's feet, effectively tackling him to the ground. Zuko has the presence of mind to throw aside his own weapons as he goes down, and soon the two are rolling around on the ground and exchanging insults.
A pained yelp suddenly splits the air, and Iroh charges with a speed Katara would not have expected from the old man. He's crossed the distance faster than Katara would have thought him capable, and in the next second is bearing down on his nephew.
Sokka, well out of arm's reach and waiting for Zuko to make the next move, lunges toward Iroh to pull him back and misses. Iroh stops himself just inside his nephew's personal space and calls the boy's name.
Zuko, predictably, drops into a crouch, shifts his weight, and bolts. Sokka reaches out again when the older man moves as if to follow him. Iroh shakes him off, but by this time Zuko has effectively vanished.
"Toph?" Katara calls, because she knows the earthbender is paying attention, and Iroh still looks very much like he wants to go after his nephew.
"Sheesh, give him some space!" the girl shouts back in the middle of lobbing a boulder at Aang's head. Katara looks at Sokka, who shrugs.
Iroh turns to Sokka as well, and for a moment Katara thinks her brother looks nervous.
"He can't be too badly hurt, or he wouldn't have run off." Sokka's going for reassuring, but it doesn't seem to be working. "He knows better than to make Katara go after him."
"That's true," Katara offers, for all the good it does. "He'll be back once he's calmed down." The Dragon of the West narrows his eyes again, this time at her. This time Sokka notices.
"He never goes too far, but if he's hiding the only person who has even a chance of finding him is Aang," he supplies.
"Aang's busy!" Toph shouts as she hurls another boulder in the Avatar's direction.
Iroh looks at Katara for a long moment. She can see the exact moment he decides to let it go-for now.
Zuko appears behind Katara without warning fifteen minutes later, startling her into nearly hitting him in the face with her water whip.
He jerks his head back just in time. "Sorry." The apology is automatic. The follow up is genuine. "I didn't mean to startle you."
"Does that hurt?" she asks, nodding in acknowledgment, and he grimaces.
"His elbow clipped me," he says. Katara doesn't ask for clarification. By now they all know that he has trouble controlling his reaction when something unexpected comes in contact with his face. "It hurts a little, but I have no idea what it looks like."
The admission is soft, just for her. An acknowledgment of her role as a healer, that he offers it up without her having to pry it out of him.
"May I?" she knows to ask first. Even after he nods, her hand hovers a moment before making contact, checking to make sure that the injury isn't worse than it looks.
He flinches anyway; he can't help it. But the good news it that Sokka's elbow has not, on this occasion, managed to do much damage.
"Your eyebrow-er-" she stumbles over the fact that there is no eyebrow on that side of his face briefly before continuing. "It's bleeding a little bit." It's only a few seconds' work to heal it. She lowers her voice conspiratorially and takes a risk. "You should tell Sokka he's blinded you, though."
Zuko snickers. And since his uncle is currently nowhere to be seen, she takes another risk.
"Everything all right?" she asks, "Between you and Iroh?"
Her question is met with utter bafflement. "What do you mean?" He frowns for a moment before adding, "I-panicked when your brother elbowed me. That's all."
Because he always does when something hits him in the face. It hasn't happened often since he joined them, but enough that they've all noticed.
It's also happened more since Sokka got comfortable enough around him to start roughhousing, Katara realizes. "You can tell him to stop, if it bothers you. Sokka, I mean." She clarifies before Zuko can assume she's talking about his uncle.
"I don't mind." This admission is soft as well, but for a different reason. He offers up an awkward smile. "It's kind of nice."
"Nice." Katara stares at him. "That he tackles you." Zuko tries to duck is head and shrug at the same time and fails miserably. Then he blushes, and Katara is pretty sure she's not ready for whatever he's about to say next.
"Azula and I used to do that, when we were younger. The end result was usually much more serious."
It's one of those statements that somehow manages to convey an entire history without offering up any specifics. It's also not something he would ever say around the younger members of their group. Katara is a little bit warmed by the trust implied by the admission, but mostly perturbed.
She usually is, when she thinks about what it had to have been like for him, growing up with his sister-and his father.
He clears his throat. "So just the cut, then?" Katara pulls herself together.
"Not even that, anymore."
Katara doesn't think anything else about the whole affair until Iroh appears while Zuko is doing his usual strangely intense meal preparation at lunch and stops short, fury sparking plainly in his eyes for all of a second before immediately banking. By the time he joins his nephew, he looks like nothing more than a friendly old man.
Zuko never notices.
They're halfway through lunch when the firebender pauses, his spoon halfway to his mouth, and looks over at Katara, who is trying not to let Iroh know that she's noticed that once again, he's rubbing elbows with Aang while entirely avoiding physical contact with his nephew. Or that Zuko is once again on the end. Or that Iroh is discretely studying the teen's face intently as if looking for some sign of injury. Or that the attempt is made nearly impossible by the fact that Zuko's scar is on the side of his face farthest from his uncle.
Zuko then looks at the older man. After a moment, he goes back to eating, but the furrow in his brow and the way he frowns at his meal are both clear indicators that he's either upset, or confused, or thinking hard.
Toph is threatening to give the firebender another "lesson" in earthbending though, an exercise that mostly involves her throwing boulders at him for not getting the movements right and then laughing, and the fact that she's teasing him means he's probably not upset.
His frown gradually deepens into a scowl, accompanied by a glare directed at his now empty bowl. He's deep in thought, then, enough that he's not actually paying attention to anything Toph says. Katara wonders if she should intervene.
Toph does not like being ignored.
Sokka swipes the firebender's bowl as he passes by on his way to get seconds, balancing the bowl awkwardly on top of his own so he can pat Zuko on the head while he says something about raising teenage firebenders and how it's important to keep them properly fed, so of course Katara has to retaliate by commenting on how much the boy's grown and lament that he's eating them out of house and home.
It gets Zuko out of his head. He looks from one water tribe sibling to the other, eyes wide for the several seconds it takes for him to figure out that they're joking, and then he blushes, ducks his head, and scowls for an entirely different reason.
"I'm not a child," he grumbles, sounding exactly like a small child in desperate need of a nap.
Toph cackles and forgets that he was ignoring her.
And through all this Iroh, Dragon of the West, watches.
Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender does not belong to me.