AN: Thank you for reading, thank you more for reviewing! (Reading is like a cool-kid nod of recognition from across the room. Reviews are sweet, sweet high-fives of appreciation. Love you guys.)
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Zuko flexed his aching hand as he stalked back to his quarters. Sokka was so stupid. He was just a stupid, stubborn, pathetic excuse for a man. He knew he couldn't win that fight, but he refused to admit defeat and just let it end. He insisted on dragging it out and now Zuko would have to beat him again tomorrow.
…which didn't actually bother Zuko as much as it really should have, since not knocking the idiot's face in at the end had made him look weak in front of the guards. He had known it was happening as it happened. He had felt them watching him as he stood over Sokka, waiting for him to land the final blow. He had felt it, but looking down on Katara's brother, Zuko just couldn't raise his hand to the task.
Because Sokka was only a bewildering idiot. He had left Zuko's knife on him in that trunk. He had said they could be brothers, and then he put Zuko in chains.
Admittedly, that made a lot more sense now. After all, Zuko had to keep Sokka and Katara locked up to prevent them from doing something stupid. And he still… he still felt very strongly about them.
Zuko arrived at his quarters and an attendant opened the door for him. He waved the man off before he could even start offering all the usual personal services. "Just a basin and some water, Yotsu."
Yotsu dropped his chin. "Yes, of course, Prince Zuko. Forgive my assumption, but I took the liberty of preparing them for you already. Shall I heat your water, Prince Zuko?"
"There's no need for that."
"Very well, Prince Zuko. Please tell me if I may be of service, sir."
Yotsu shut the door and Zuko was alone in his silent dressing room. He began stripping off clothes slowly, mindful of his stiff injured places. For all that Sokka was an idiot, he had landed his blows well. Zuko's wounds throbbed all over - arm, ribs, shoulders, chest. No deep cuts, but he would have some impressive bruises tomorrow.
And yet he felt… okay. Not happy, but not as sick and furious as he had felt before, and not as overwhelmed as he usually felt when faced with Yotsu and other members of the staff. He felt calm. And as he calmly heated the water in his pitcher and calmly washed the sweat from his skin, kneeling over the basin on the floor the way everyone had on the Water Tribe ship, Zuko almost escaped from the feeling that had been hounding him for so many days and nights, that feeling that he had ruined everything.
The calm followed him to his bed and pressed him into a heavy sleep, rich and dreamless. Zuko awoke relaxed and hungry late in the afternoon and only then realized he had neglected to dress after his bath.
He was tying the silk strings of a fresh pair of lounge pants when there was a soft knock and Yotsu entered the room with his head unobtrusively bowed. "Prince Zuko, your honored sister waits in your sitting room."
Zuko gritted his teeth and yanked on a light undershirt before the marks on his upper body might be noticed. Yotsu was an excellent servant - he noticed Zuko's preferences and anticipated his wants, he knew when to be quiet and leave his master alone - but even a good servant might gossip.
"What does she want?" Zuko had learned that it was futile to command Azula's staff to tell her he didn't want to talk. They would get a panicky look, as if suddenly finding themselves pinched between two boulders, and Zuko would just have to deal with her himself.
Yotsu had a mild case of the same look now. "She did not say, sir. I could inquire…"
"Don't bother." Zuko pulled on a formal tunic with a high collar and little silk flames embroidered all along the hem and began fumbling with the sash.
"May… I help, sir?" Yotsu was staring at the floor before him in the appropriate way, holding perfectly still. Holding his breath.
Zuko sighed and stuck out his arms at shoulder level while Yotsu darted about tugging and adjusting and tying off the sash just so. He worked fast, as if time was limited. And maybe he believed it was. Zuko had snapped at his attendants before for taking too long. He had dismissed at least two valets. Maybe that was why only Yotsu ever seemed to come to him anymore. Thinking of this now for the first time, Zuko felt even more uncomfortable.
At last, Yotsu stepped back and folded his hands before him once again. Zuko lowered his arms and watched him.
Yotsu blinked at the floor. "Thank you, Prince Zuko. It is my honor and pleasure to serve the Crown Prince," he said, measuring his words.
"Right," Zuko said under his breath, and strode through the door into the adjoined sitting room. He did not see how Yotsu looked up from the floor to watch his back as he went.
Azula was seated at his low table, peering distastefully into his box of cakes while a servant poured tea. "You've eaten almost all of these. Honestly, Zuzu, I thought you had taste."
Zuko sat down across the table and frowned at her. "What do you want, Azula?"
Azula waved the servants off and waited for the door to close before leaning back on one arm and fixing the knuckles of Zuko's right hand with an airy look. "A brother who doesn't embarrass me at every turn, to start."
His knuckles were red and swollen from where he had punched Sokka's sword hilt just hours ago. Zuko snatched his hand off the table and placed it on his knee, out of sight. "The Water Tribe doesn't believe-"
"I really don't care what they believe," Azula sighed, "and neither will the Fire Court. If you want to whip him yourself for the satisfaction, just do it."
"If I did that," Zuko said carefully, "he'd only think more of himself."
"I fail to see how he could rise with more dignity after being tied and flogged."
"He would think I needed him to be helpless," Zuko snapped. "And I don't. If I have to beat him a hundred times to teach him respect, I'll do it. I don't care how it looks."
"Clearly." Azula fixed him with a dry frown, then shrugged. "I suppose it's a small matter, so long as you never lose."
Zuko scowled at her. "I won't."
She watched him steadily. "Of course not."
Zuko met her stare a moment longer, then glanced at the door. "Is that it?"
"You aren't even going to invite me to stay for dinner?" Azula lifted one eyebrow. "You really have turned to barbarism."
"I don't feel like playing games with you, Azula."
"That's just as well. You never were any good at them."
Zuko shifted and made to rise, but her next words stopped him.
"Do you remember the year I turned ten? When that circus came to the Capital?"
The year before Zuko was banished. Against his better judgement, he sat back down and watched her closely, suspecting some trap. "Father forbade us to go. He said it was beneath the dignity of our station."
"Of course he did. You were so pathetic about the whole thing, going on about how you just wanted to see the exotic animals." Azula rolled her eyes. "Honestly, you didn't miss anything. They were all just a bunch of pitiful beasts in cages."
"Wait, you got permission to go?" Zuko scoffed and folded his arms. "I guess that shouldn't surprise me."
"I didn't get permission. I snuck out of the palace with Mai and Ty Lee."
"And you just left me behind? Why are you telling me this?"
"We didn't invite you because you would have either gotten caught or decided to be all noble at the last minute and turn us in. It's what you always did, Zuko. Don't take it personally."
Zuko, of course, took it very personally, and scowled at his sister over the cooling tea.
"The point," Azula pressed on, "is that you have never understood how to get what you want from Father. You make it a lot harder for yourself than it needs to be."
"Easy for you to say. You're his favorite, the prodigy. He's happy to give you anything you ask for. You have no idea what it's like to be me."
Azula frowned at him, untroubled by sympathy. "I'm trying to help you, Dum-dum. I know there's something you desire, something that Father isn't going to want to give you, no matter how heroically you return."
Zuko's breath came a little harder and he watched her more warily than ever. Was she talking about his honor? His throne? Or… She couldn't mean Katara. She couldn't know about Katara. Zuko steeled himself. "You're lying. Father will be pleased that I've returned. He wouldn't refuse to restore me to my proper place now that I've captured the Avatar."
"You know that's not what I'm talking about." Azula narrowed her eyes and leaned forward to brace her hands on either side of her knees. "If pretending ignorance is the only trick you've learned in exile, the Fire Court is going to eat you alive."
Zuko glared back at her and didn't speak. It was safer to be silent.
After a tense moment, Azula heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes. "Alright, fine. I know I haven't been very nice to you in the past and you're having trouble trusting me. But this isn't some game where I trick you into making a fool of yourself for my amusement. We aren't children anymore, Zuko. The stakes are higher now, and you can't afford any more blundering."
She seemed so sincere. But Azula was good at that. She could really seem to mean things she didn't mean at all. Zuko narrowed his eyes as if that would help him see the truth.
Azula met his stare for a long moment, then finally let out an annoyed breath and stood up. "Maybe you need more time to think this through. Take as long as you want. Just don't be stupid, Zuko - you know you'll need my help to get on Father's good side." She tipped her head to the left, assessing him one final time. Considering her next words. Then Azula shrugged and turned to go. "When you decide you want to keep the waterbender, you know where to find me."
Then, while Zuko was still staring at her like a speared fish, Azula strode from the room. The door shut behind her and Zuko sat in silence for a full minute before remembering to breathe. He placed both palms on the table top and stared at the untouched cups of tea.
The set was pink, marked in gold leaf, flames becoming flowers becoming flames. Iroh would have pointed out that it was the pink glaze - rare, and prized for the rosy flush at the base of the vessel - that made the set truly valuable. But Iroh was not here.
Zuko snatched up the nearest cup, lurched to his feet, and hurled it at the door. A servant, who happened to be peeking in to see if she was needed, had to duck out of the way to avoid being hit in the face. From the hall came the sound of porcelain smashing against the far wall. The servant would probably think Zuko had been aiming at her, and that just annoyed him more.
"Get out," he shouted, though he was alone in the room and the door was already closing. The shoulders of his fine robe creased as he threw his arms up in the air. "Get out!"
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Katara thought she knew how to deal with tedium, but the brig went far beyond the dragging days she had known at the South Pole. Back home, she had always had a task to perform. Mending, cooking, preserving - there had been no end to the work. At the time, it had seemed like a curse. Now, alone in a cell with nothing to occupy her for days at a time, Katara looked back on those years with no small amount of longing.
In particular, she wished she could speak to Gran-gran. She wished she could remember all the details of early stages of pregnancy. She wished she could ask questions she had never thought to ask before. Then again, the thought of facing Gran-gran now that she had decided to bring a baby into the world young and unwed made Katara cringe.
But she didn't think much about Gran-gran during her empty days in the brig. Every morning, Sokka was taken from his cell and they shouted a few words through her door as he was hustled past. Katara, asking what was happening. Sokka, saying he was going to be fine. The guards, telling them both to shut up. Every afternoon, he returned quiet and weary, but angry. She could hear it all in his voice when he said he was fine, fine.
Katara worried, but the guards would tell her nothing so she found other ways to fill her time. She exercised her body gently, careful of her injuries and her constant weariness, and she ate the salty food and drank the sparse water. She glared in silence at her keepers and conserved her energy for carrying her chains and holding her head up high when anyone was looking.
And she thought. She thought about her conversation with Azula, replaying it in her mind and trying to understand the unease she still felt. She thought of what she would say to Zuko when he stormed in, and then, when days passed and he never came, she thought of things to say to him with regard to his absence. She began to wonder whether he wasn't worse than she had thought, so cold he wouldn't even bother to speak to the woman carrying his child. She cursed herself for a fool for expecting more from him, even now.
But mostly, Katara thought about her baby. She worried about Azula's threat, about the ways a pregnancy could be terminated. She picked at her food looking for unfamiliar herbs. She drank her water in cautious sips, tasting for anything out of the ordinary. There was no sign of any drug, yet Katara still worried. She thought again and again of the Fire Lord, every day a little closer.
And then, when the worries became almost too much, she covered her face with her blanket and shut her eyes in the almost-dark, breathing her own humid breath, and she stroked her flat belly through the ratty prisoner's tunic. In whispers, Katara told her baby that everything was going to turn out alright, no matter how hard it seemed now. She promised to love and protect her baby from all the rest of the world, from its own father if need be. She sang the songs her mother had sung to her as a child, soft and close against the rough wool.
This was what she was doing when Zuko finally came. She heard some activity beyond the door, but that wasn't strange, so Katara didn't pay it any mind. She just stayed curled under her blanket, humming over the words to a lullaby she only half-remembered now.
Then the door clanked open and the peace she had built evaporated. Katara threw off the blanket and sat up with a rattle of chains. Zuko stepped into the room. Behind him, the door clanked shut.
Katara wanted to stand up and face him on her feet. She had planned to be undefeated when he came, she had promised herself she wouldn't let him know how this imprisonment had affected her. Yet now he stood before her and Katara wasn't certain that she could stand without staggering. Better to make her point where she sat on her pallet than to show such an obvious sign of her growing weakness.
But at just the sight of her, Zuko stood arrested hardly past the threshold. "You look awful," he said.
Katara could tell from his tone that it came more out of shock than a desire to criticize. Still… "Back at you," she sneered.
It wasn't true. The glossy black silk of his tunic fit well to his shoulders, and he looked healthier than he had when she saw him three or four… or five days ago. But it wouldn't do for him to know that.
He didn't seem inclined to care about his own looks anyway. "Are you being mistreated?" he demanded.
"Yes," Katara spat, "but I don't think you're about to change the way you do things."
Zuko looked at first incensed - as if he meant to storm off and find whoever had wronged her - and then stung when it turned out to be him. Then his jaw tightened and the expression was gone. "Sokka doesn't look this bad."
"Sokka probably gets enough water to drink. He might even get to actually wash his face sometimes. I don't know." She fixed him with an especially dark look. "I still haven't seen him."
Frowning harder still, Zuko banged on the door until it opened and then he stormed out into the corridor. The door swung shut again and, through it, Katara heard his raised voice and the much quieter apologetic tone of the captain. Moments later, Zuko was back in the cell, suddenly crossing the room, stepping over the restraints in the floor to get to her.
Katara didn't want to seem alarmed - she had planned to appear unafraid - but she backed away from him as he crouched before her, his knee almost brushing hers.
"Here," he snapped, and Katara finally noticed he was holding a canteen out to her.
A canteen heavy with water. It may have been her imagination, but Katara was sure she could smell it through the open spout. Water. Stale and room temperature and perfectly thirst-quenching.
And in just the one set of restraints, her hands were free at last to bend it.
The plan assembled unbidden in her mind. First, she would take Zuko out with a surprise strike. Then, while he was still sprawled on the floor, she would break out of her chains, rush into the corridor and fight all the guards, rescue the others, figure out where Appa was, and escape.
This was it. This was her chance. She raised her hand to draw water out of the canteen.
Zuko watched her steadily. From the corner of her eye, Katara spied the open door. Through it, an anxious guard looked on. Her empty hand seemed to weigh ten extra pounds. Zuko watched her, waiting.
Katara licked her cracked lips. This might be her best chance to escape. If she didn't take it now, she might never get another.
But if she did try now, and then failed because her strength was low, how much more security would she have to fight her way through next time? And besides, the full moon was coming in just a few days. Katara could feel it, that high tide of power drawing ever closer. Better to drink now and be strong then.
Her fingers fumbled against the metal vessel, but Zuko didn't let go until she had a firm grip. Katara upended the canteen and gulped down mouthful after mouthful until her lungs were screaming for air, until Zuko was pulling the canteen away. Katara pulled right back. The metal slipped through her fingers, but she managed to catch a grip on the canvas strap and held it taut.
Zuko stopped pulling and fixed her with a look somewhere between disapproval and concern. "You'll make yourself sick."
"I don't care. Give it back."
"It won't help you to throw it all up again."
"I'm not going to throw up." Katara's stomach ached and sloshed a little, but she kept on glaring at Zuko. "Don't be a jerk."
The words hung between them as the silence stretched on. It felt suddenly like a strange thing to say, too personal for this setting. Finally, Zuko passed back the canteen, not quite surly about it but not happy either. "Suit yourself."
Katara took another sip, just to prove she could, then settled the canteen on her folded legs. Zuko hadn't moved away, he had sat down, and it was weird how the knees of the fine pants he was wearing were almost touching her filthy prisoner clothes and bedding and he didn't even seem to notice. It made her kind of angry. Everything about him made her kind of angry.
"So you finally got around to coming to talk to me." Katara tipped her chin down and glared at him. "Don't think you're going to change my mind with a little water."
Zuko frowned at her for a beat, then turned to bark over his shoulder at the guard holding the door. "Out."
The door shut and locked and Zuko turned back to her, not sitting quite so straight as before. "I didn't mean to leave you here for so long. Azula… somehow, she knows about you. And me. I thought if I stayed away she might let it go." He shook his head. "But then I realized that was stupid. She'd never fall for it."
Katara watched him speak, her fingers tight as wire around the canteen. Her stomach churned. She had to shut her eyes. Something wasn't right here.
"She's got to be up to something," he went on, then huffed and rubbed vigorously at the back of his neck. "Or maybe I'm just not being fair. Maybe she really does want to help me this time, and by being paranoid I'm only sabotaging myself."
Katara swallowed hard and fixed her eyes on a steady point beyond him. Zuko didn't know, she realized. Azula hadn't told him. Why wouldn't she tell him? Why would she leave it to Katara to tell Zuko about the pregnancy and her plan?
"The worst part is," Zuko said, shoulders hunching minutely, "she's right. I really do need her help."
Katara's head was buzzing with too many thoughts, too much information, but one thing was clear. Azula wanted Zuko to feel this way - she wanted him to feel dependent on her. She wouldn't risk straining his trust by telling him Katara meant to usurp him with their child. Zuko wouldn't really believe that until he heard it from her, anyway. Then, while he was reeling from Katara's news, Azula could comfort and console and guide him into doing whatever it was she wanted.
But Katara couldn't just not tell him. Could she? Zuko had betrayed her but, loath as Katara was to admit it, he really hadn't lied to her about his intentions. He hadn't even misled her. He had only ever urged her to join him.
This was different, though. They weren't wary allies going up against a third party. There was no uncertainty now about what side they would choose when the time came. That time had come and gone. They were enemies now. Katara was threatening Zuko's crown and her only claim to that power was the fragile life she carried. It would be smarter to keep the secret for as long as she could and throw a wrench into Azula's plans.
Katara licked her lips and looked away from the fretful line in Zuko's brow. It was too familiar. "Why are you even telling me this?"
"It involves you," he said in a high, halting tone. "I don't know if I believe her, but Azula says she knows a way that I can keep you with me when we reach the Fire Nation."
Katara reeled back, repulsed. "Keep me with you? You want to keep me on hand like some kind of slave?"
"No! You will never be a slave!" The words echoed off the steel walls, but for all Zuko's conviction, they rang false in Katara's ears. "You're a royal hostage," he went on more quietly, with the same intensity. "You belong in the palace, in a decent room with enough food and water. Not-" He flung his arm around as if to lash the room in which they sat. "-drying up in some prison."
"That's great, Zuko." Katara folded her arms tight over her chest. "I'm so glad you have such a generous understanding of how I really deserve to be confined."
"I never wanted to imprison you at all," he snapped. "You chose this."
"No!" Katara stabbed a finger at him, furious. "You don't get to blame me for the things you're doing, Zuko! You chose to capture Aang. You took me prisoner, you sent me to this cell. If you don't like something about the way all this has played out, you need to think about all the things that you've done and quit lying to yourself about not having any other options."
Zuko glared at her the way a cornered animal glares. "I didn't have other options. You asked me to abandon everything that makes me who I am and turn my back on my people. I'm trying to do the best I can for you right now, and all you do is rip into me because things didn't go the way you wanted. That's life, Katara. It doesn't always go your way."
"Don't you dare lecture me about the unfairness of life, Zuko. Not now." Katara turned her face from him, hot with anger and mortification as a few tears spilled down her cheeks. They had crept up on her. They had been creeping up for days, ever since she had realized she was pregnant. Her chains rattled as she swiped the tears away.
Zuko was silent as she drew several long breaths. Katara didn't look at him. She didn't want to see whatever look he was giving her. She didn't want him to see the panic and pain in her expression. This wasn't how she had wanted this talk to go at all.
Then his arms swept up around her, shocking and familiar, and for a moment all Katara could think was how clean and good he smelled, like some spice she didn't know. His warmth sank through her tunic and into her back and shoulders, and it was so good, so good to be held by these particular arms. Katara ached with the sudden awareness of how she had missed this. Her hands settled all on their own against his silk-covered chest.
And then she remembered where they were, and all that had happened and all he had done, and she shoved him away. Zuko sat back hard, startled. Katara glared at him, and she didn't care now if he could see that she was crying. She didn't care about Azula's scheming or any of it. All she wanted right now was to make Zuko back off. To make him stop reminding her of that unbearable fantasy.
"Don't ever touch me," she snapped. "I don't care what you think you feel, you have no right to touch me. I don't love you. I don't want you anywhere near me."
Zuko stared at her, a helpless tilt to his brow. He looked troubled, but not beaten. Not yet.
Katara straightened, holding her head up high and glowering back at him. "I'm pregnant."
The immediate flash of emotion in his eyes was so strange, Katara didn't even want to know what it meant. "I thought you'd decided to end it." His voice was low, strangled.
"I changed my mind," she ground out. "When I escape with my friends, I'm going to raise this baby far away from you and the Fire Nation. I'll teach him how to treat the people of the world with respect and dignity-" Katara bared her teeth. She'd forgotten all about the tears still wet on her cheeks "-and when he's old enough, I'll clear his path to the throne myself."
Zuko had gone pale. His mouth hung slightly open and his good eye was huge. Even his scarred eye had stretched far wider than usual. Slowly, he mastered his expression. And climbed to his feet. For a long moment he stood there, glaring down at Katara where she sat, looking as if he meant to say some angry, horrible thing.
But he didn't. He just turned away and strode out of the cell.
Katara watched him go, breathing hard. For a long while, she only stared at the shut door. Her fingers began to ache and only then did she realize she was clutching the canteen hard enough to strain them.
It was half empty, not enough water left for an escape. Not yet. Katara fitted her mouth to the spout and tipped her head back and drank until she couldn't hold any more. Then, finally, she wiped the tears from her face.
