A/N: The chapters of this fic will contain loosely connected vignettes based on the Zutara Week prompts at zutara-week . deviantart .com / blog / 33047058 / (remove spaces). They are all AU (in the true sense of "AU from canon"), beginning after the episode "The Southern Raiders," except for the first, which takes place after "The Western Air Temple." The other six chapters will be posted after the end of Zutara Week due to imminent situations resulting in a lack of internet access on my part.
Disclaimer: I do not own A:tLA. I make no profit from the writing of this story, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Family
Zuko watches them. They look like friends. They look like family, except for their skin and hair, and the colors of their garments. Zuko notes that he is the only one in red. The Duke, Haru, Teo, and Toph in green, Sokka and Katara in blue, and the Avatar—Aang, he reminds himself—in orange and yellow. He's been careful to learn all their names, even the non-benders' because he needs them all to accept him. So far, in fact, all of them seem to have some measure of trust in him.
Except for Katara.
After Ba Sing Se, Zuko can understand. But he wishes she could forgive him. If Katara would forgive him, Zuko knows, he could be part of their family. They seem so warm, all of them, huddled around their campfire. Happy, despite the rest of the world. Not carefree, but taking the time that they have, and living.
Zuko has never really had a family. He's beginning to think he's never really lived.
Katara is determined to hold fast in her stance on Zuko. She doesn't care, she tells herself. He had his chance to become part of their family. He chose his birth family instead. And what did it say about him, about his loyalty, that he would just go and change his mind; betray his own blood?
She's grateful, of course, that Aang will have a firebending teacher. She still plans to discretely supervise every one of their training sessions.
A corner of her mind tells her that Zuko looks pitiful, away from the rest of them, eating by the light of his own conjured fire. He's taken her warning to heart, it seems. Katara tells herself to be glad, though the part of herself that sees him lonely wants nothing more than to call him over and take care of him.
No.
Katara will stand firm. She will not forgive his betrayal of her under Ba Sing Se. Zuko's had his chances. He had a life, a family. He had a chance at their family. He lost it. And then he threw away the first one.
Zuko has had moments when he's felt he belonged here. Aang makes him instantly comfortable. Toph treats him with the same roughness as everyone else, although she has never again approached him while he was unaware. And the piggyback rides he gave her, the first few days, in atonement for burning her feet, she has demanded of almost everyone else in the group as well.
Zuko glances again at the campfire.
Katara is bending the soup into the bison Appa's mouth. She is graceful, and the firelight shows her to her best. Zuko realizes that she is beautiful. He thinks of Mai, and compares them. The two women have a different kind of grace from one another, he decides. Mai is sharp edges and steel. Katara is gentle. She moves like her element personified. He considers this. Another way that this family differs internally. If Katara moves like water, Aang moves like air, Haru and Toph like earth. He wonders if he moves like fire.
Perhaps it is not, after all, so bad to be unique in this family. Then all he needs is Katara's acceptance.
Katara can feel Zuko's eyes on her. She reminds herself to show no weakness, no sign that she knows he is watching. Though her heart cries out for her to let him closer, she will not endanger their family. Perhaps one day Zuko will prove himself to her satisfaction, but until then, she will be the silent defense against him.