Zuko once again wakes up screaming. He bolts upright, hands clutching desperately at his face, breaths coming in harsh, ragged gasps, his entire body shaking.
Everyone's awake. Nobody moves. Nobody wants to spook him, especially not when nobody knows which Zuko just woke up screaming loud enough to wake the dead.
After a long moment his hands lower from his face only to wrap around his torso. He leans forward, rocking slightly back and forth as he hugs himself, eyes far too large in a face that's far too pale, silent tears flowing freely.
It's far too long before he sniffs, reaches a hand up to scrub at his face, and lays back down.
He never gets back to sleep, but neither does anyone else.
Breakfast is a quiet, subdued affair. The sound of utensils scraping against bowls, chewing, and the occasional yawn take the place of regular conversation. Even Aang seems to be struggling, and though he keeps shooting glances in Zuko's direction, he doesn't seem to know what to say.
It's their Zuko (older Zuko?). Katara can tell that much at a glance. The difference between their Zuko and the Zuko of the past-four or five or however many years old-is like night and day, and even though Katara's never really cared for him (or trusted him) it's a little painful to notice.
"Soooooo..." Sokka breaks the silence reluctantly near the end of the meal. "Should we be worried about the nightmares, or should I just add that to the list of things to ignore?"
Zuko hunches forward, shoulders coming up almost around his ears. "I-"
He stops, takes a breath. Tries again.
"I can't stop them from happening."
Sokka's eyebrows shoot up. "That's not why I was asking," he says. "What I meant was more along the lines of, you've woken up screaming two nights in a row, and as far as I'm aware, that's never happened before? At least, not since you've joined us?"
Zuko takes another breath.
"Last time was when I accidentally burned Toph," he mumbles.
"When you were trying to join us?" Sokka asks. Zuko nods, but doesn't look up. "So not a normal thing, then?"
"I think it's the stress?" Zuko sounds like he would rather be talking about anything else. Looks like it, too.
"It makes sense," Sokka says. "So is there anything we need to do-anything we can do-?" He stops, because Zuko's already shaking his head, and looks about half a second from bolting.
"There's not-" Zuko swallows. "There's not anything anyone can do to help. It's just-a nightmare. Sorry." He hesitates. "Being too close to people makes it worse," he adds reluctantly.
"After?" Sokka asks. Zuko nods. "So we'll just give you some space, if it happens again," he says, and somehow manages to sound nonchalant. Like Zuko didn't sound like he was being tortured last night, like he isn't lying about it being just a nightmare, and like the kid isn't currently fighting tooth and nail against the urge to run away from both them and the current conversation.
Zuko stalks off to meditate as soon as breakfast is over. Aang watches him go, hesitates, and then follows. The two spend next hour meditating, and if Aang gets a little fidgety now and again, well, it's obvious he's trying.
Zuko doesn't acknowledge the Avatar as he rises and shifts into a firebending stance, or as he starts slowly working his way through the basic forms with a clumsiness that surprises Katara, or as Aang eventually starts working through the forms himself.
In fact, he acts like he doesn't even know Aang's there.
Katara sticks around, just in case, but Aang seems determined to prove that he can, in fact, focus properly on his training, and Zuko seems every bit as determined to ignore him.
Aang keeps working at it, though, so at least he's getting some practice in.
Zuko-however-
Zuko seems to be struggling. Even going through the first form he ever taught Aang seems to be giving him trouble-the motions are awkward, stiff, and more than a little bit clumsy. Katara wonders idly if it's because the firebender is used to doing this in an older, stronger body, or whether there's something else going on.
Zuko catches her staring and glares, losing his balance in the process. He lands hard, growls at nothing in particular, and climbs back to his feet.
"Muscle memory," he snaps at her before starting the form over.
Aang looks up. "What?"
Zuko sighs and stops what he's doing. "Muscle memory? The whole point of doing it all over and over and over again is to train the body to respond without you actively having to think about it."
"Oh." Aang's expression clears. "But since that's your four-year-old body you don't have that."
"Right," Zuko grumbles. "I know how to do the forms. This body doesn't."
"But you can't firebend yet anyway," Aang points out unhelpfully. Zuko closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
"Well that didn't help at all," he grouses. "Aang, I'm going to need you to stop talking to me for at least an hour."
"Oh. Sorry." Aang looks a little hurt, but also like he's trying to be understanding of the fact that Zuko's self-control is not what it usually is.
He continues to practice quietly, at least until Zuko somehow manages to trip over his own feet and land face down in the middle of the stone courtyard.
"I'm fine-get off me!" Zuko snaps when Aang tries to help him up. Zuko jerks free, turns on his heel, and stalks off, grumbling under his breath.
Sokka, who's been sitting with Katara for the last twenty minutes, lets out a low whistle. "You know, I thought he was grumpy before all this happened. Who knew he was holding back so much for our sakes?"
Zuko pauses, gestures ineffectively at the sky, and continues to storm off. The grumbling has by this time turned into a full-on rant, vehemently delivered in deceptively sweet-sounding, high-pitched soprano.
Katara passes out lunch. Zuko accepts his bowl wordlessly, looks down at it and grimaces.
He starts eating anyway, but the damage is done.
"Is it bad?" Aang asks, wary. Zuko looks up, nonplussed. "You made a face. You never complain, not even when Toph cooks."
"Like you're any better," Toph scoffs.
"I'm not worse."
"Just awful in a different way," Sokka attempts to mediate while only making things worse. "Why the face?"
Zuko finishes chewing, swallows, and takes another bite.
"You just did it again," Aang says.
And suddenly Katara remembers him-or at least, the younger version of him-helping her pick out food to prepare lunch the day before. More accurately, she remembers him pointing out multiple ingredients and loudly declaring "yuck" and making a face similar to the one Zuko just made as he took a bite.
Even more accurately, she remembers him pointing to the mung beans currently mixed in with the rice porridge Katara made for lunch.
"Not a fan of mung beans?" she asks.
"They're okay," Zuko says after swallowing his current mouthful.
"That's what you said the last time Aang cooked." Katara points out. Zuko looks up, caught. "Unless that was less about the dumplings, and more about the cabbage?"
"I'm hungry," Zuko snaps. "Is it okay if I eat, or do I have to prove that Mung beans are my favorite food in the entire world first?"
Katara resists the urge to snap back, partly because she knows he didn't sleep well last night, partly because he's still stuck in the body of a small child.
He takes another bite, catches them watching for his reaction, and storms off.
He takes the bowl with him, a pointed reminder that Zuko has never once of his own volition missed a meal since joining them, and never once left a meal unfinished.
"Wonder how long it took him to get used to not eating palace food," Toph wonders aloud, picking out a bean that somehow made its way into her own bowl (Katara knows the earthbender won't eat them and stopped trying to get her to shortly after she joined them) and flicking it across the courtyard.
"What, mung beans aren't fancy enough?" Sokka asks, mouth full of said beans-and rice. Katara shudders.
"Gross,"
Toph shrugs. "A little bland, maybe, considering Sparky's got a thing for spicy foods. Not that he's ever complained..."
It's a fair point. Zuko's never complained about anything anyone has served as a meal. He didn't actually complain this time either. As a matter of fact, he's the only one in their group that hasn't indicated at least some kind of preference for (or against) any specific food.
He brings the bowl back while Katara's cleaning up, carefully slipping it into the dishwater so as not to splash Katara or risk damaging the bowl, in spite of the fact that he has to stand on tiptoes to even reach the edge of the wash basin.
"Thanks," she says. She waits a second or two, debating, but when he doesn't immediately leave, she decides to risk it. "You know, nobody expects Aang to eat meat."
Zuko tilts his head back to look up at her. His expression suggests he knows she's up to something but doesn't know what.
"And everybody knows there are certain vegetables that if you try to feed Toph she'd send flying across the courtyard." Katara adds, and Zuko's expression clears.
"I'm not going to waste good food just because I don't care for the taste," he says. Katara shrugs.
"I'm just saying, we all have foods we think are gross. Nobody expects you do choke something down in the name of not wasting food. Even Sokka has foods he won't eat."
Zuko doesn't look as if he entirely believes her, but shrugs anyway. "I can't eat turtleducks," he admits, because he seems to realize Katara's waiting for him to say something. "M-I used to feed them, back at the palace, when I was younger." He tenses, then shrugs again. "That's about it, though."
"You seemed to have a lot of things you don't like," Katara suggests. "At least you did yesterday, when you were helping me prepare lunch."
"I was four," Zuko protests. "That was before I left the palace, before my injur-before Uncle and I had to figure out how to live like refugees." He lets out a breath that's probably supposed to be calming but isn't. "I don't like tea either, but I drink it."
An act of deference to a man he's not sure will ever forgive him, or that he'll ever even see again. Katara's not sure the two are even remotely the same.
"Fine," Katara says, because he's starting to look upset now that he's mentioned his uncle. "Just-if it ever comes up, let us know?"
Zuko nods, albeit reluctantly, and Katara decides to take it as a win.
By mid-afternoon Zuko is clearly dragging. The fact that he was up most of the night before aside, he's still physically a small child, and it's becoming increasingly clear that that part of him at least, is exhausted.
Sokka tries to coax him into taking a nap only to get growled at, and Aang's mere approach is enough for Zuko to shout at the Avatar to leave him alone. Toph tries to talk some sense into him only for him to snarl at her with a vehemence that leaves even the normally confident earthbender at a loss.
Katara's fairly certain there's a temper tantrum on its way in spite of the fact that mentally the kid scowling at Toph is their Zuko, and therefore decidedly not four-or five, or however old he currently is-and figures they probably need to figure something out fairly soon.
A second later he stomps his foot as if he were, in fact, no more than four, and Katara makes up her mind.
"Go away," Zuko snaps at her before she can say anything, and Katara comes to a stop before him, hands on her hips.
"You're acting like a child," she points out. "A cranky, overtired child, but a child nonetheless. And everyone's trying to help, and you're being mean to them. I don't care if you feel bad, that's not okay."
"I'm not a child," he replies, the sheer amount of petulance in the response belying any such claim.
"But you are overtired, and you are cranky, and you are being mean." Katara says, reasonably enough.
"If people would just leave me alone-" Zuko's voice catches in his throat, and he tilts his head back to stare helplessly up at her. He swallows, sniffs, and swallows again. "I don't want to sleep," he admits, fear creeping into those golden-yellow eyes at the admission. "I don't want-"
He swallows again, but doesn't say anything else. After a moment he climbs to his feet and turns, walking dejectedly towards the part of the temple where they usually sleep.
Zuko wakes up from his nap all smiles, the surest sign that their Zuko is no longer with them. He grins at Katara before throwing himself at her, wrapping her in the sort of hug that up until now has mostly been reserved for Sokka.
Katara smiles down at him and tries not to think about the difference between the two Zuko's. "Feel better?" she asks, and gets a nod in reply. "And how old are we today?"
"Five," he says. "I'm five." He smiles again. "Can I pet Momo?"
"If we can find him," Katara agrees. "And if he wants to be petted."
He slips his hand into hers on the way outside and starts chattering about turtleducks. "We don't have lemur-monkeys," he says. "But there's a pond. And it has turtleducks. And there's ma-mother turtleducks, and father turtleducks, and baby turtleducks, and sometimes they eat out of my hand. I used to give them bread, but bread's not good for them-it doesn't have enough nu-tri-ents. So now we feed them seeds and berries and fruits and vegetables and even worms!"
"Worms, huh?" Katara asks, and Zuko nods, grinning even while he makes a face.
"I can't do it if Azula's around, though," he says, his expression suddenly dimming. "She likes to throw rocks at them. One time she hit one of the babies. Da-Father said that in nature, only the strongest survive. And then Azula said that she was stronger than me, and pushed me in the turtleduck pond. And then Ma-Mother got upset."
They don't find Momo. The lemur-monkey is nowhere to be found, and Zuko, while trying to be a good sport about it, is clearly disappointed.
"Hey," Katara says as an idea strikes her. "Have you met Appa yet?"
Zuko stops and turns to look up at her, eyebrows nearly disappearing beneath his hairline. "He's big," the boy says warily.
"He is," Katara agrees. "He's nice, though. And super soft."
Three minutes later Zuko is staring up at the flying bison with eyes the size of saucers, Appa is staring down at the child with a particularly indecipherable expression, and Katara is wondering if she's made a mistake.
Appa opens his mouth and licks the boy, leaving him drenched.
"Ewwwwww!" Zuko protests, but he's giggling at the same time.
Two minutes later Zuko has completely disappeared into the flying bison's side, fur completely enveloping the child. The only reason Katara can tell he's there at all is the fact that the kid can't seem to stop giggling.
He pokes his head out of Appa's side abruptly as if coming up for air, golden eyes sparkling, grinning ear to ear.
This is clearly not their Zuko.
Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender does not belong to me.
