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Meltdowns and making up

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We got up ridiculously early to fly to Yon Rha's Island. We left Appa in this bit of clearing in the forest and went in to town to ask, discreetly, about Yon Rha and where he lived. Yon Rha's Island is a lot like our rendezvous Island. One main village and a few scattered dwellings. Yon Rha lived far outside of town and had a long walk everyday to get to the market. We found out which path he lived along and changed into our ninja outfits and waited. We followed him from the market. I think he suspected we were there because he kept glancing around nervously. He bought a few vegetables and started to walk back to his house. It was a long way. The perfect time to attack him would be enroute, right between the village and his house. We would be far enough away from both places that no one would overhear or see us. I just wanted to be sure I had the right guy. When were in a good vantage point (we could see him but he couldn't see us) Subject made a small deliberate noise. Yon Rha looked up worriedly.

It was him alright.

Subject and I came up with a quick plan and then we had to run to get ahead of Yon Rha. There was a good secluded flat bit of path a little further ahead. It started to rain which made it easier for us to blend in with the gray landscape. Yon Rha kept looking around all paranoid. Subject and I set up a trip wire for him for when he came past. Then I went a little further back to distract him while Subject tripped him. Then Subject jumped out and subdued him with firebending. And in no time at all, he was in the mud and on his hands and knees with his vegetables all spilled everywhere.

I was standing over him, demanding that he remember me.

After a few moments, he did.

He told me what had really happened that day. My mother had confessed to being the last waterbender, thinking they'd take her prisoner, to protect me. She'd been protecting me in more ways than one, on that day. She been brave and self sacrificing and he'd murdered her in cold blood. I felt that dark rage from the ship again. It was such a powerful feeling of anger and hatred. Instead of bloodbending, because I really will never do that again, I wanted to give him an awesome display of my power. I wanted to make him afraid of me. Really afraid.

I stopped the rain.

Do you know how hard it is to stop rain?

It's ridiculously hard.

But it worked.

He was terrified of me. I was really frightening him. I was frightening myself too.

I really thought I was going to do it. Because he killed her. Because he deserved it. I collected the water into needle-sharp icicles and fired them at him as hard as I could.

Then at the last minute I just froze.

I just couldn't do it. I couldn't strike that final blow. I just didn't have it in me to kill someone like that. I could probably kill if I absolutely had to, but that would only in battle or for self defense. I just couldn't do it knowingly and in cold blood. I just let the water splash down uselessly on him. I could have done it, but what point would that serve? What was the point, really?

It wouldn't bring my mother back.

She'd still be dead.

She'd still be dead and I'd be a murderer too.

My mother wouldn't want me to be a cold blooded murderer.

He started to apologise, but it wasn't a sincere apology. I have seen those from Subject. I have given them myself. He wasn't really sorry about what he did. He just wanted to save his own skin. He still thought that I would kill him and he offered up his own mother in exchange for his life. A mother for a mother. I was outraged. The man not only killed my mother, but he was willing to trade his own mother for his own pathetic skin.

Who does that?

Who stoops that low?

He wasn't even a worthy adversary. It wouldn't even be a challenge to best him. My mother had been killed by this wretched, worthless man. He was pathetic and sad and empty and I told him so. There was nothing to him. I hated him so much, but I couldn't kill him. He wasn't worth it.

I stomped away and I heard him crying softly behind me. Good. That was good. He should feel bad. Subject walked slowly backwards behind me, with his arms raised in bending pose for a few moments, to make sure Yon Rha didn't get any ideas about following us. Yon Rha didn't. Why would he?

What else was there to say?

-!-

As I was walking back to Appa, I felt that feeling in the back of my throat, the one where you know you're about to cry. It was like a sour lemon was being squeezed back there. I have been running on nothing but adrenaline and emotion for three days and it finally all caught up with me.

I'd faced my monster. I'd faced my mother's murderer and he's just been an ordinary, cowardly, pathetic guy. He wasn't even that scary now. I could have subdued him in a second. My mother had been taken from me and all because Yon Rha had been following orders. At least Yon Rha now understood what a horrible thing he'd done. I hoped that he'd think of me and how frightened he'd felt this day every time it rained.

I rested my face against Appa's side and I hoped the familiar feel of his furry body and the feel of the rain sliding down my back would comfort me and make that squeezing at the back of my throat go away. It didn't. I just had so many different emotions swirling about inside me and I didn't know what to do with any of them. I just had too much anger and grief and confusion for one body to hold. These feelings were threatening to spill out all over the place.

So I did the sensible thing.

I had an enormous big fat cry.

It was a snotty cry.

It was a cry with that really embarrassing back of the throat breathing.

It was splotchy faced cry.

Mostly it was a cuddly cry aswell.

Subject was a bit awkward when I started crying because he is more terrified of crying girls than anything else on this planet. I seriously think Subject would rather fight an angry saber-tooth moose lion that be left alone with a crying girl. At first he hovered in a worried fashion and then he started rubbing my back soothingly and I sort of leant into him. Then he put an arm around me and I just wrapped my arms around him and just snotty cried all over him. I may have also blown my nose on his shirt at one point, but Subject hasn't commented on that.

We will never speak of this again.

He was hugging me and I was just being this hysterical person who was going off their nut. He was saying all the comforting stuff that you're meant to say to a hysterical person who is going off their nut, but he said it in this really endearingly awkward fashion, like he wasn't used to comforting people. I buried my face in his chest and heard his heart beat. He was stroking my hair and saying it'll be alright over and over. We were both alive and had things we needed to do. Really, we had a war to fight and there wasn't time for me to go to pieces. I had to pull myself together. Still, in an odd way, I think my cry was a good thing for me.

It wasn't a sad cry. I think it was a cathartic cry. I think I actually feel better. Lighter even. I've been carrying around all this turbulent, heavy emotion for days, months even. Probably years actually. And now I feel like I've just cried it all out and it feels weirdly freeing.

We'd both gotten ridiculously wet because it had rained non-stop during my cry. But it was almost like the weather and I were in sync. When I finally stopped crying, the rain dried up. I looked up and there was a rainbow above us. It was beautiful. My mother had always wanted to see a rainbow. We didn't really get them in the South Pole (we got the southern lights instead which Mum thought was a good trade), but my dad had seen them on his voyages and he'd said that he'd take her one day, when we were older and the war was over. She never got to see one. Now I've seen so many on my travels. She wouldn't want me to spend my whole life mourning her and feeling angry. She'd want me to see the beauty in rainbows.

After a while I calmed down and I was just doing that back of the throat hiccupping thing that happens at the end of a big cry. Me and Subject broke apart and I bended the water out of our clothes and Appa's fur so at least the three of us were dry. Subject searched around in his pocket and pulled out a small bag of fireflakes, a stone that he'd found on the beach that he'd thought was pretty and a handkerchief. He gave me the handkerchief and I wiped my face. We just leaned on Appa and looked at each other. I don't think either of us knew quite what to say. Subject was looking super concerned and asked me if I was okay.

I really was.

He still looked worried that I would start crying again at any minute so I told him that I really was fine and that I think I had really just needed a good cry after everything. Subject asked if I wanted to talk about it, in his awkward Subject fashion. I just told him that I felt like I had made the right choice and he said if I felt like that, then it definitely was the right choice. I told him about how it wouldn't have served any point to kill Yon Rha. It wouldn't have brought my mother back and she wouldn't want me to have a murder on my conscious.

Subject said he was glad that I made the right choice for me. He said that even though he hadn't known my mother, he reckoned she would have been really proud of me. I smiled at him and thanked him for coming with me, because really, I never would have been able to do this without Subject. And then we were just sort of smiling at each other and it had been nice to just smile at him and not feel cross or frustrated. In all honesty, Subject was the best person to come along with me on this little trip. I really do feel like I can trust him now. He just supported me and I think that's all I really wanted.

I'm not sure where that leaves us.

-!-

Before I knew it, we were flying back on Appa and me and Subject's little adventure was coming to a close. I was sitting in the saddle and Subject was sitting next to me, holding the reigns. We hadn't really been saying much, but it had been a companionable silence. I had a lot on my mind. I also had something to say to Subject and I wasn't sure how to go about it. It was a combination of I'm sorry and thank you and let's be friends again.

I couldn't see to say any of this though. I wanted to, but the words just got stuck.

So I said that I thought my mother would have liked Subject instead. That is the highest praise you can get from me. Subject smiled at me in surprise and asked if I really meant that. I did. I think my mother would have found Subject very trustworthy.

I remembered something she used to say I had to suppress a smile. I asked Subject if he'd ever worn a teacosy. Subject was completely bamboozled by this question and was looking at me like I was a bit addled. He asked me what a teacosy was and I had to explain about how water tribe women would knit this little jacket for a tea pot to keep it warm. Subject said that keeping things warm wasn't really an issue in the firenation and why would he wear something that was meant to be a jacket for a teapot.

I told him my mother used to say never trust a man who, if left alone in a room with a teacosy, doesn't try it on. If he would wear a teacosy, I could trust him. Subject said, right, get me this cosy in a very determined voice. It was the sort of voice one would use for going into battle rather than facing a teacosy. And I fell about laughing at my mother's silly saying and at the thought of Subject wearing a teacosy and his determination to do this if that was what it took for me to trust him.

I was probably still feeling a little hysterical. But it was all too mad and too funny.

For the first time in forever, thinking about my mother made me want to laugh instead of want to cry.

-!-

On the way back I realized that I'd done nothing but talk about my mother and my anger and my problems for three days. I still didn't know anything about Subject's mother, but he knew everything about mine. This didn't seem quite fair. I went and sat next to him and poked him and asked him about her. So we'd be even.

He said that he hadn't talked about her in ages and he didn't know what to say. I said there was no time like the present and he often didn't know what to say but would keep blathering anyway. He talked. He didn't say much, but it is enough for me. I think we are getting to stage where we just tell each other things. This is weird but in such a nice way.

Her name was Ursa and Subject thought she was the most wonderful person in the world. She had been beautiful and sad and kind. She'd made Subject feel loved. She didn't have any weird phrases about teacosys, but she used to tickle Subject when he least suspected it. She'd woken him up one night, the night his grandfather died and told him that he should never forget who he really was.

Then she'd disappeared.

His father told Subject and his sister that she was dead. He told them that she didn't love them and couldn't stand the sight of them. He told them she had abandoned them. Eventually Subject and his sister learned to stop asking for her. When Subject confronted his father on the day of the eclipse, his father had told him she wasn't dead but she had been banished for treason.

Subject said that after the war he wanted to go and find her or at least find out what had really happened to her. I told him that with his determination to find people, even if they don't want to be found, he'd find her in a jiffy. And he smiled at me then, this really nice genuine smile.

I have done another stupid, really embarrassing thing. I can't seem to help myself around Subject.

I told Subject that after this war is all over, if he wants to go looking for his mother, I'd go with him. If he wanted me to come along that is. It seems only fair, after all he's done for me on this trip. Subject smiled and said he'd like it if I came along.

I think I'd like that too.

-!-

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Lovely wonderful readers! You've reached the end of meltdowns and making up. Congratulations! And I hope you enjoyed it. I've thrown up a few ideas about the Southern Raiders in this chapter that I think would affect Katara's decision and threw in more cuddles (I am all about the cuddles).

Huge thank you to all my wonderful reviewers! You guys know I love you! You make my day! Thanks for sticking with this story for so long. We're coming closer to the end of Katara's stalker journal keeping and I hope it's been a satisfying read for all of you!

In this chapter:

In history at uni we studied the concept of the banality of evil and the Nazi trials. People were almost shocked that most of the Nazis weren't fanatics, just ordinary, easily led people who had taken orders and done terrible things and never questioned why. I think Yon Rha is cut from a similar cloth. He was ordered by a superior to kill the last waterbender. So he did. I think this affects Katara's final decision to spare Yon Rha. He is just this pathetic guy. He's not even a proper opponent for her. She'd built him up in her head to be this giant monster, but really he was just a pathetic, empty and sad man. It accomplishes nothing if she kills him because it won't bring her mother back.

But at the same time, facing him and being able to stand in power and judgment over him and finding him unworthy will help Katara make peace with what happened. She felt so powerless as a child, but in this scene she has reclaimed that power. In fact she has all the power in this scene and everything that happens is as a result of her choices. She spares Yon Rha for herself, not because she forgives him. She does it because she doesn't want to bring herself down to his level. She knows that her mother wouldn't want her to murder someone and that I think would be one of the only things that would hold her back.

So she frightens the bejeezus out of Yon Rha and has to satisfy herself with knowing that he now understands what a terrible thing he did.

I think Katara needed a big fat cry after that scene, but naturally YMMV.

Poor Katara has been reliving extremely painful memories and dealing with incredibly dark issues and just running on nothing but emotion and adrenaline. That catches up with you eventually. I think and big giant snotty cry would have been good for her and good for the healing process and good for her relationship with Zuko. It would have been cathartic just to get some of those feelings out.

Zuko would just be all kinds of awkward at the start of her cry. I get the feeling that he's never really had to be the comforter to anybody and at first he wouldn't quite know what to do. But she's having a bit of a meltdown and he does consider her his friend so he gives it his best shot. They have a nice, if slightly snotty, cuddle. As many of my lovely reviewers have pointed out Zuko is all about the cuddles but hasn't been given nearly enough of them in his life. He projects an uncuddly exterior and a grumpy front, but really someone should just pin a sign to his back that says cuddle me.

I do think their touch barrier was broken for shiz on this trip. They are much more at ease and touchy with each other after this. I think the hug at the very end of the ep was an official lets-be-friends-hug, but it wasn't anywhere near as awkward as I thought it could be. If they hadn't gotten a bit touchy feely on the trip, I think the end hug would have been a lot stiffer and more formal. But they are so easy with each other that it left me with the impression that there had been at least one previous hug. So I wrote one.

Naturally YMMV.

"Never trust a man who, if left alone in a room with a teacosy, doesn't try it on" is a profound thought of Billy Connolly's and I think it is true. I wanted Katara to start really remembering all the good things about her mother and not have those memories tainted by anger. I wanted what Gran Gran said to hold true; one day she'll remember her mother and want of laugh instead of cry. And I think making peace with what happened and facing Yon Rha goes a long way to accomplishing that.

Also I just love the ridiculous mental image of Zuko wearing a teacosy for her.

I think it makes sense that she'd go with him to find his mother after the war and that trip would be the mirror image of this trip. However the point of the trip would be seeking reunion rather than meting out justice and it would end on a happier note.

Reviews keep my crazy brain coming up with plots and I do love them so!

In the next chapter we will explore two very important F words.

Not that one! ;)

Til then…..