A/N: First off, you guys rock. That last chapter TRIPLED the amount of reviews that this story has (from 3 to 9). A Lock is the area in a canal that separates higher and lower water levels, like the NWT in the Waterbending Master. This chapter is dedicated to AnnaAza (this was checked over by my avatar buddy), who will have a new chapter on this story at least when she returns from vacation! My profile FINALLY has something on it (Apparently, FF doesn't support Opera (my internet browser) when it comes to altering my profile. I finally broke down and used Internet Explorer)

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Avatar. But I DO own the right to call up my friend's favour and make them wait with me for the premiere of The Last Airbender at our local theatre...

Healing Lightning

Chapter IV: A Warm Welcome to the Coldest City in the World

Captain Sinaaq looked up at the Waterbenders all around the lock that separated the waterways of the Northern Water Tribe from the much lower arctic waters that flowed on the other side of the wall. A familiar smile stretched his weathered face as he watched the Waterbenders on the wall lower the lock's walls and raise the water level. He himself had once manned these very gates: that's what happened when you disobeyed Master Pakku's instructions. "Builds character and endurance" Pakku had said. Maraka had come up onto the deck and was whispering instructions to Maniitok. The young drummer and sailor nodded and managed to conceal his blush until the woman had walked back towards the hold. As he pounded out the emergency medical call, the captain looked away and rolled his eyes. If he was correct, and he found that was usually in this matter, the healer had something going on with that Fire Nation bodyguard.

- - - oOo - - -

Yugoda smiled as she worked with the newest batch of female Waterbenders. She could tell already that many of them would never pass the rank of Quarter Moon, even if they trained hard all their lives. Healing required a certain amount of inborn talent, and many of these girls simply didn't have it. But that wasn't the reason that she was smiling. She smiled because these girls would not have to grow up with the fear of war hanging over their heads. Even some of the older girls barely remember that terrible day that the Fire Nation attacked and the moon went dark. Holding thumb to thumb and middle fingers together, she made the sign of the full moon over her heart. Thank Tui and La for Yue... brave girl. She continued watching the girls hover over the dummy as one of the older students took her turn tracing the chi meridians of the body when Kirima came up to her and whispered into her ear.

"Come to the lock. Maraka is calling for you. She has an injured... and she wants you to take a look at him."

Nodding to the woman, Yugoda asked her to stay and supervise her class while she went and took a look. With a genuine smile, the younger, wide hipped healer sat down on Yugoda's mat after she got up and quickly corrected the young Waterbender who had incorrectly identified the sacral chakra.

- - - oOo - - -

Katara finally arrived in the Royal Palace after her stop at the falconry. She wandered through the mostly empty halls – they were supposed to be filled by the royal family, but after the death of Yue, Arnook's sole child, things had quieted down significantly. Nothing at all like the hustle of the Fire Nation Palace... Damn it. She really had to stop thinking of Zuko. How did everything lead back to him? She hadn't even seen him since briefly seeing him at the annual gathering of the Council of Elements last year, and that had only been before Aang had pulled her in the opposite direction to talk with King Bumi. And he hadn't even replied to any of her letters, either. Why was he always so prevalent in her mind?

- - - oOo - - -

Arnook shook his head at the young man in front of him. For the third time this week, Hahn had come to him in the hopes that he could, for lack of a better word, force Katara to marry him. He was arguing that since Katara was living here, and had been for over a year while obeying all traditional rules that govern women, that she was given Northern Water Tribe membership, and was therefore subject to all their rules... including the ones that stated that who she would marry.

Hahn argued that since Arnook was Chieftain of the Tribe, he could act as Katara's guardian and give him permission to marry her. Arnook knew that Hahn was technically correct, but his eyes had been opened by how quickly Hahn had moved on to flirting with other girls after Yue's... death. After that, he swore to himself that he would keep an eye on this young man. He didn't want to subject Katara to Hahn's advances, but unless something happened, he would have to give into his demands. Hahn's family was a major player in the politics of the North Pole, and he couldn't afford to alienate any of the nobles, especially because he had yet to name an heir.

"Great chieftain, we both know that you are delaying the inevitable. I desire to make Katara my wife, and you cannot afford to alienate my family." Arnook was snapped back to attention at these words. Is he reading my mind? No, he's just given this as much thought as you have.

"Hahn, you know that the customs are different, and although she could technically be considered a citizen, I fear that I cannot in good conscious agree to this. Her father is still alive, and, even if he was dead, her master has a larger claim to the guardian role than I do."

"So, what you're saying is that if I can convince Master Pakku to give me permission to wed her, I can make her mine?" Hahn's eyes gleamed at the loophole that the older man had given him.

"Wait, that's..." Arnook tried to take back what he said, but Hahn had already turned to leave. Sighing with despair, he suddenly had a thought and smiled as his honour guard gave him strange looks. Why was he smiling when it looked, in all appearances that Hahn had won? Then the guards remembered one vital fact.

Pakku absolutely hates Hahn.

- - - oOo - - -

Katara awoke the next feeling refreshed and unusually happy. I wonder why I feel so happy? Today's just another day, far as I remember. Shrugging aside the odd feeling, she continued down out of the palace towards Yugoda's healing hut. She had private healing lessons with Yugoda every other day or so. She told Katara that she had enormous potential as a healer – in fact, she had almost as much potential as she herself did. Katara remembered how she had flushed in embarrassment at that comment. She had almost run into a fisherman before she realised that she had nearly reached her destination. Ducking into Yugoda's healing hut, she was shocked to see Kirima on the mat in front of the chi doll, not Yugoda.

"Ummm... Quarter Moon Kirima? Is Full Moon Yugoda here? I usually have private lessons with her right now, so..."

Giving the younger Waterbender a soft smile, Kirima told her that Yugoda had a special case to deal with.

"Special case? What do you mean that she has a special case?"

"Well, Maraka brought in a patient from the Fire Nation" Kirima said with a slight frown. "It must have been pretty serious for Maraka to have to bring it back here. I mean, she's a Gibbous Moon Healer, and also Yugoda's heir."

As Kirima mentioned that the patient was from the Fire Nation, Katara's heart dropped right down into her stomach. It's serious... Zuko... Shaking her head she turned on Kirima. "Where is Yugoda, Kirima? Maybe I can help." It can't possibly be Zuko. I mean, he's the Crown Prince. There must be some sort of security, or something... he couldn't have been hurt.

With a kindly smile, the woman nodded. "Maybe you can. She's off in the long term care huts." As Katara ran off, the woman called off after her. "I've heard that he's quite the looker, our new patient is..."

- - - oOo - - -

Yugoda walked up to her newest patient for the first time this morning. Still in a coma. Laying a hand on the young Firebender's forehead, she ignored the glower that came from the man standing in the corner. He had tried to continue smoking his filthy firesticks in here, but Yugoda had "convinced" him otherwise. So now Hanzu merely stared at her, ready to intervene if the prince showed any signs that he didn't want the healer near him. He started as another woman entered the room. Oh. It was her. That water... witch.

Maraka easily returned the glare that the firebender was giving her. Two can play at that game, firebender. Especially after what you did... Putting a fake smile on her face, she greeted Yugoda warmly. Just after she started to catch Yugoda up on everything that she hadn't had time to tell the old lady yesterday, someone else burst through the door.

Hanzu muttered under his breath. "Great, just what we need – another waterbender." The new waterbender hadn't heard him, but Maraka had, judging by the look that she gave him as the other waterbender rushed to the Prince. He made as if to step towards her, but Maraka subtly froze his feet to the floor. Before he could bend down and melt the ice off, the girl had reached the Prince.

Katara hadn't known what to expect when she reached the long term care facilities. She hoped with every fibre of her being that it wasn't Zuko, but in her heart she knew that it was. When she finally burst through the door, and saw his strong jaw and his raven black hair, she nearly burst out into tears. Zuko... A single tear escaped her eye as she kneeled down next to the pallet that he was on. She never even noticed that there was other people in the room as her hands shook as she cupped the scarred side of Zuko's face. It was only when she heard a woman clearing her throat that she noticed that her and Zuko weren't alone. Whipping her head around, she gave a shallow, yet formal bow to both Maraka and Yugoda in turn. Turning to the Fire Nation Guard, she noted the look of surprise in his eyes as she gave him a quick Fire Nation bow.

Yugoda and Maraka were quite surprised at Katara's reaction. As far as they knew, Katara and Aang were happy together with no problems and were just waiting for Aang to hit sixteen before they got married. But looking at the scene before them... they gave each other a knowing as they looked at the girl beside the prince's bed. Hanzu watched the scene with a small smile. He had known of the prince's latent feelings for the waterbender, even though the prince himself may not have been aware of them. The Fire Lord himself had talked to him about it one day as they reminisced about the good old days, over a good game of Pai Sho, when he was famed general and Hanzu was leader of the Rough Rhinos before Mongke took over at the "request" of Fire Lord Ozai. It was actually Hanzu who had discovered the dozens of letters in Zuko's desk addressed to the waterbender but never sent.

It was Maraka who finally broke the silence by addressing Katara. "Lady Katara, I believe that you were the one to treat the wound originally, correct?"

Katara nodded numbly as memories of that terrible night replayed in her head...

- - - oOo - - -

After Zuko had taken the lightning strike for her and she had taken care of Azula, she had rushed to his side. Seeing his blood all over the plateau, with the extensive burning up and down his arms, her tears redoubled and began to drip onto him as she fell to her knees by his side.

"Don't... don't be sad" Zuko managed to choke out as a bit of blood trickled out of his mouth. "Don't cry, you're going to be okay."

A sad smile crossed Katara's face as tears began to fall freely from her face. "Don't die on me, Zuko, not now."

"I won't, Katara." As the words left Zuko's mouth, he knew them to be false. As she grabbed water and forced it into his chest, Zuko began to feel less and less, as if he was floating from his body. Katara could feel his heartbeat slowing down from its usual slow pace. Zuko had always had a slow heartbeat, said Toph, and so did Iroh. In fact, Toph had said that every firebender that she had met had had a slower heartbeat than she expected.

"Damn it, Zuko, you don't to die on me!" she cried as the tears fell from her face onto his wound, adding to her healing reservoir. "Don't you damned doe on me!" As she pressed her lips to his rapidly cooling ones, the world started fading from her vision until there was just a shadow of glowing light from her water.

"Katara?" Katara turned around and saw Zuko behind her, crouching down to her level. Looking down, all she saw was blackness. Looking around, she could see stars above and a slightly sinister gray mist seeping in from all sides.

"Zuko!" she cried as she threw herself into his arms, grateful to feel his quiet strength and warm arms surrounding her. As she sobbed into his shoulder, he kept one arm around her and stroked her hair with the other, trying to calm her. After a minute, she turned her waterlogged eyes up to his warm golden eyes. "Are you...are we... dead?"

"You're not, Katara. As for me..." he turned her so that she could see behind her. In the distance, there came a warm yellow and reddish glow. "My family comes for me. You have to go back now, Katara. You can't save me."

"No!" she yelled, grabbing him closer. "You can't die! You just saved my life! That makes you a hero, and heroes never die!"

"I'm sorry, Katara, I really am. But this is just the way things play out. Tell Uncle and Toph that I love them. And Katara, I want you to do something for me: find my mother. I know that you promised me that we'd find her together, but I can't. Tell her everything."

"NO! You can't die, and I can't find her without you. You can tell her everything, but you can't give up on life, Zuko. Whatever happened to the Zuko that I knew? The one that would never give up on anything?"

"Katara, some things are inevitable. Uncle always told me that death is just the start of another journey. I'll look to see if I can't find my mother here: there's no telling if Ozai was telling the truth about her even being-"

The rest of Zuko's sentence was cut off as Katara grabbed his hair and pulled his lips to her own. Kissing Zuko was everything like she had imagined it to be. His lips, coarsened by the intense heat of his Agni Kai, mixed with an incredible warmth that came from deep within him, and his scent, a mixture of smoke, sweat and masculinity, rolled over her senses. As she held him to her, crying the whole time, a rumbling came from deep within the ground. Breaking apart, Katara didn't have time to blush as a massive stone wall shot up from the now knee-high vapours and blocked Zuko's ancestors from claiming him. Looking around, they saw the stars slowly turn green and blue. A pair of figures slowly rose from the mist as Katara gasped in recognition.

"Oma and Shu..."

"Who?" Zuko turned back to her, blushing slightly from the intense kiss.

"Oma and Shu... the eternal lovers. Said to guard over all those destined to be true loves."

"Us? True loves?"

"Yes, Fire Prince." The two figures spoke simultaneously, almost as if they shared thoughts. "For too long has the balance of the Elements been disrupted, and your death was not part of the plan. Your relationship would have brought an era of unrivalled peace to the planet." Turning to Katara, the woman asked "what would you give for the Prince to be restored to life?"

"Anything!" she responded without hesitating "Just don't let him die!"

"Are you sure? Think carefully: if you go down this river, there is no swimming back, waterbender."

"Anything! Just don't let him die!"

"Very well" The woman, Oma, rested her hand on Katara's chest as her lover, Shu, placed his hand on Zuko's. Closing their eyes as they concentrated briefly, when they opened them they shone a sacred light, brighter and somehow purer than the Avatar State. "Let it be known that these mortals willingly choose themselves to be bound, heart and soul, for now and for the ages."

Katara felt a slight tug at her breast that increased in intensity until she literally fell to her knees. A bright blue glow sped up Oma's arm, travelled through her and then into Shu's arm, and ploughed straight into Zuko, knocking him back.

"It is done. But there is a price to be paid for this, mortals."

"I accept." Katara said strongly, not regretting in the slightest, although she was rather curious about what they meant by 'bound'". Zuko was alive, that was all that mattered to her at that moment.

"You will have no memory of this event until we deem it. All you will know is that you managed to save him. You will have no recollection of this bond being formed." Oma and Shu suddenly slipped into an archaic bending form and the ground opened up beneath them.

Katara opened her eyes and saw Zuko's wound being closed by water that looked suspiciously like the Spirit Water that she had used on Aang. Tears began falling afresh as she saw Zuko's eyes open a fraction before closing and opening again, this time completely. She felt a jolt of energy as their eyes locked, and she got the sudden urge to kiss him. Don't be silly, Katara. That's just the adrenalin talking. I mean, he did just save your life.

Zuko saw a hint of bright light when he tried to open his eyes, so he let them adjust before he locked eyes with Katara. He felt a jolt of energy, and he was somehow sure that she felt it as well. Seeing her bow her head and blush, Zuko managed to lift his hand and gently stroke her hair. "Thank you, Katara."

With a chocked sob, she managed to respond "I think that I'm the one that should be thanking you"

- - - oOo - - -

Blinking away her tears, she told them what she remembered. "All I can remember is kneeling down next to him and telling him not to die on me. Then I think that I blacked out for a second, and, when I came to, Zuko's wound seemed to be healed. He was weak, yes, and I tried to do more for him, but he seemed to make a full recovery in a remarkably short time."

"Well, you clearly did something wrong" all the heads in the room turned to Maraka, who seemed almost shocked at herself for making such a rude comment. "What I mean is, how did he lose control of the lightning? Lord Iroh said that he could find nothing wrong with his technique"

"I don't... I don't know!" Katara yelled as tears began to fall from her eyes and onto the man beneath her. "All I remember is what I told you! I don't even know how I healed him. I didn't have nearly enough training to heal something of that magnitude, yet somehow, I did." As Yugoda and Maraka moved over to comfort her, only Hanzu noticed what the others hadn't, in all their emotional turmoil. He saw the tears that had fallen on Zuko briefly glow a silvery-blue before sinking into his skin. A moment passed before the prince moved his arm.

"Healers!" Hanzu yelled. "There's a time and place for everything, but the prince just moved."

All three of the women immediately dashed to the pallet as Katara held his hand. Zuko's eyelids twitched, before slowly opening. His voice, hoarse from disuse, managed to croak out a single word before he fell asleep. Katara's heart leapt as she heard what he said.

"Katara?..."

- - - oOo - - -

A/N: ...and there's every Zutarian's MANDATORY lightning bolt scene. Or, at least, my take (for this fic) on it. Holy CRAP this is turning out longer than I thought: let's put it this way – Zuko was supposed to wake up in the middle of LAST CHAPTER. If you guys want to see any more of any of the OCs (or the original characters), don't hesitate to ask and I'll try to squeeze 'em in best I can. Also, about the Healer "ranks", if you're familiar with the phases of the moon, they should be easy to figure out. For those not familiar, here's the rough ranks:
New Moon: Just trained (Katara in the series after she figures out HOW to heal (The Deserter))
Crescent Moon: Katara after training with Yugoda (SotN)
Quarter Moon: middling rank, most healers never pass this rank: also certified to teach healing
Gibbous Moon: the elite among the healers (Maraka's rank)
Full Moon: The highest rank, only one in the world (like the "queen" of healing)