AN: Thank you to everyone who has commented or followed or favorited this story. When the gaps between updates get long, and when I lose the thread of my own story and have to reread a bunch to put myself back in the moment, it's your encouraging, hopeful words that bring me back to my keyboard. I suck pretty hard at social media. I'm the worst at directly responding to messages and reviews because I'm an anxious wreck. I'm inconsistent and terrible at artist-patronizing websites that cannot be named here - but I hope I can give you all a satisfying read.

Here's the next chapter. I worked really hard on this one. Hope you like it!


.

The instant Katara followed Zuko out of the jail, a roar of noise filled her head, driving away the troubled whirl of her thoughts. She watched the crowd of shouting, weeping faces, and where she had felt sympathy before, now she vividly remembered the long walk up from the docks on the day of their arrival. She remembered the press of all those bodies, the rock that had flown out of nowhere, the stench of barely-restrained violence. It could happen again. Any second. And this time, the streets were baked dry. There was no water anywhere. All she could do was watch the crowd with twitchy vigilance and hope nothing sparked a riot.

So it shocked her deeply when Zuko hardly paused to glance at the budding mob before striding forward and mounting the palanquin so he stood up high where more people could see him. If he was afraid, or nervous about having just disobeyed the Fire Lord, he did not show it. Not a trace. Instead, he raised his hand and, to Katara's further surprise, the voices quieted to a disenchanted rumble.

"Citizens of the Fire Nation," he shouted, and the rumble stilled. His words echoed back off the buildings on the other side of the street. "I see you, and I hear you. These are the soldiers who served me for all the years of my banishment. I came here to see them returned to my ship. Recognize the honor of their service! Make way!"

Katara couldn't help it. She flinched. He was so loud, so sharp and commanding. It was no way to talk people down - and yet, when he gave the order, the crowd parted. She stared at them, so many scarred and bandaged faces, so many grief-wrecked, haunted eyes. They made way, and they watched their prince step off the palanquin and walk the path they created for him.

Zuko stood straight and tall as he always did, and his stride was long with purpose. The silk of his robes flicked around him. The ornament in his hair caught the sun, and for an instant the flash was blinding. For that instant, Katara was looking at the broad, proud back of a stranger.

No - not a stranger. She'd known him before. The ground under her feet was shaking, rearranging. There was a sound rising up in her ears, drowning out everything else, a muted roar she didn't quite understand…

Behind her, the just-freed officer cleared his throat. Katara banished the troubling thoughts and scurried to catch up.

The crowd thinned near the end of the block and Zuko led his crew down a wider avenue that sloped back toward the docks. Katara looked back only once, as they rounded a corner, just to see if they were still being followed. They were.

It made sense that Zuko was in a hurry to return his soldiers to their ship. Once the Fire Lord got wind of what he was up to, he would probably try to stop them. But as she thought about it, the sinking and sloshing in her gut intensified. If Zuko had been banished for speaking out of turn, what kind of punishment would he face for releasing a shipload of alleged traitors?

It had been the right thing to do, though. She stared dazedly at the tuft of escaped hairs at the top of his neck, the ragged shell of his scarred ear. Zuko had done the right thing. Finally.

The thought was disorienting. Katara couldn't seem to settle it into the realm of reality. She couldn't even decipher the intense feelings coursing through her. All she could do was cling to the sled Zuko had set in motion and hope it wasn't about to crash in a ravine.

They came to the docks and were met by an official in a respectably tall hat. He bowed rapidly and stared at the prince and his procession with an owl-goat's bulging eyes. "Your highness! Such a surprise! I hadn't expected a visit from so distinguished a-"

"Judging by your ability to clearly respond to an inquiry," Zuko said tightly, "that's not surprising at all."

The official shuddered and bowed again. Zuko held a beat of silence that made the man squirm, then demanded to be taken to his ship. With a frightened warble, the official capitulated, pausing often to bow.

He led them down a boardwalk that zig-zagged out into the harbor. Ships were moored all around, more shapes and sizes than Katara had seen before. Some were even small sailing craft, though those were off on another, shabbier boardwalk. Most of the ships here were steam-powered, ranging in size from little transport boats to massive battleships waiting at anchor out in the deeper parts of the bay.

The official brought them at last to the smallest of the big-model warships. It was battle scarred and worn from its long travels, but the ramp was lowered for boarding. Zuko assessed the ship, growled a question about the fuel aboard, and then dismissed the official with a sharp wave when he had his answer. Shortly, he stood to one side of the ramp and turned to face the man Katara surmised was his second.

"Lieutenant Jee, you have command."

"Yes Prince Zuko. What are our orders, sir?"

The prince paused, frowning. "Your men deserve a rest. Make for the hot springs we visited last fall."

The Lieutenant's face ticked in surprise but quickly regained its composure. "Yes, sir." He turned his head to address his men in a much louder voice. "You heard your prince! Fire the engines and plot a course!"

The crew gave a hearty cheer and began filing up the ramp. As they passed, Katara looked beyond them to the people gathering thicker and thicker on the wharf.

"You should get on this ship."

At his low words, Katara's head snapped around. She gaped at him, all propriety forgotten. He went on watching his men file aboard, tacitly refusing to look at her. She scowled at him. "I'm sorry, are you implying that you aren't?"

He actually turned his stiff neck a degree to peer down at her, his expression unreadable. "I can't go." He said it abruptly, as if suddenly realizing that she might not know it yet. "My people need me here, and my father…"

However he finished that sentence, that last part was probably the best argument for him to get on the ship, but there was no point telling him that. She could see in his face that he knew.

Zuko's eyes flicked away. To his men as they passed. To the crowd on the wharf. To the ships swaying around the dock. Anywhere but her. There was really only one thing to say. Katara felt a sickness rising in her, a nausea that she couldn't quite attribute to sympathy. She didn't bother to say it gently.

"He's going to kill you."

A look passed over Zuko's face, some unspeakable feeling that dragged at his mouth, struck lines around his eyes. Katara expected him to deny it. She could practically hear the argument hovering in the back of his throat. But he didn't say it.

"Azula told me that one time," he said quietly. "I didn't believe her. I thought it was just another lie, a story meant to scare me. I thought, if I proved I was worthy, my father would treat me like he treated her."

Katara watched him. She had a feeling she was seeing something she didn't really want to see, but she couldn't look away.

"That's not going to happen, though," he said, bitter and sad. His eyes flicked to her as he went on. "Since I came back here, I haven't done anything right. I thought it was you. I thought you were… making me weak somehow. But it was never you. It…" He frowned, struggled. His voice cracked with the force of emotions straining at his control. "It was me. The person he wants me to be, the things he wants me to do… The things I've already…"

In his eyes, there was a naked realization, a raw ugly thing gnawing at him. Katara looked straight at it. She didn't even flinch.

Zuko did, though. As if looking at her burned his eyes, he abruptly looked away. "He's not right, Katara," he whispered, "and he has to be stopped."

It was not dissimilar to saying "The ocean is big, Katara," or "There are lots of stars, Katara," but Katara valiantly restrained herself from scoffing.

Nothing about this was amusing, not even grimly so. Zuko kept talking, but his words lost meaning and just struck her like pelting rain. She had told him over and over that Ozai was wrong, Ozai was crazy and evil. She had told him – and only now, after months of her humiliation and suffering, did he finally understand. And not because he had listened to her, not because he felt remorse for what he had done to her, no. He changed course because he couldn't stomach keeping his men locked up. He could keep her in a collar like a dog by his side, but he couldn't leave his crew in a prison.

All of a sudden, the nausea boiling through her, the roar rising up to swallow all sound made sense. It was a spectrum of intense feelings - hurt and fear and powerlessness - all coalescing into a single driving emotion. Virulent, pulsating rage. She had loved that stranger, that honorable boy, with all her heart. She had risked everything on the chance that he might win out over the cruel prince, and she had lost everything when he had not. And now, now that it was all spoiled and ruined, Zuko dared to show that face again. He had the gall to pretend again that he could be that brave, honorable boy.

As if she might fall for it a second time. As if he could possibly fix what he had destroyed.

Katara remained deadly still and watched him through hooded eyes. Zuko, oblivious, went on talking with a hard set to his face and a harrowed quality about his eyes. She heard him as if from far away, something about balloons and bombs and the comet. Serious things. Things that mattered a lot more than her blinding fury, but somehow slipped right by her.

"-can find him in time. He hasn't been spotted in the Earth Kingdom yet, but-"

Katara watched him flatly a moment longer, then cut him off. "What are you going to do?"

He looked at her, finally took in her expression. He tipped his chin upward as if to move it out of her reach. "I'm gonna do what's right. Just get on the ship, Katara."

It was more plea than command, but it rasped her exactly the wrong way. She bared her teeth at him, and her voice was low and rough. "Tell me what you're going to do. Suddenly you're supposed to be some kind of hero? Fine. Prove it. What are you gonna do? How are you going to help your people when you're dead?"

Even his scarred eye went wide for an instant. Then he tipped his chin down and frowned back at her. "I guess I'll just have to not die."

The words reverberated against a long-ago memory, stabbing a spike through her suddenly boneless chest. She glared at him for another wrenching moment, then turned and marched up the ramp. "You do that."

She stormed through the red corridors of the ship, scowling past every soldier and sailor who dodged out of her way. Her slippers thumped against the steel floors. Her fingers ached as she squeezed them tighter and tighter into fists.

She did not look back.

If she had, she would have seen Zuko watching her go. She might have recognized the tortured relief on his face, but she would not have viewed it kindly. She may even have recognized the set of his shoulders not just as the proper rigid square, but as the stiff determination of a condemned soul.

Zuko was glad she didn't look back, even as it tore a hole in him. He watched the ramp slowly raise one clanking degree at a time, and turned away as it latched with a final rattling click. He did not see the boards under his feet as he marched back to the wharf where his people waited for him. He did not notice as his guards glanced at him and made way. He only leapt up on a crate and stood before the wanting faces, all those smoke-reddened eyes. He looked at them, let them fill his mind and the huge gaping emptiness beside and two steps behind him.

Then he directed his guards to go round to the food cart vendors who loitered along the wharf hoping to sell to hungry sailors.

"Tell them to give everything they have to these people," he said. It was a crazy demand, he knew that. But as long as he was the Crown Prince, he could make that demand. "Tell them to tally up the debt and I will see to it they're payed."

The guards peered at him for an uncertain instant, but Zuko did not waver. To waver would be to admit that he did not have the authority to do this, not any of it, and that was untenable if he meant to make a difference before…

It was not something he could confront yet, no matter how certain Katara was. Zuko could not think about his father or the consequences of what he was doing in the same way that a tightrope walker could not look down at the hard packed earth far below and continue to steadily cross. All he could do was put one foot in front of the other. All he could do right now was trust he would make it to the other side.

The heartbeat of hesitation passed and all but a pair of the guards dispersed into the crowd. Zuko held his head higher, and drew a deep breath, and spoke to those hungry faces from his own aching, devastated heart.

"My people. I see your suffering. I see families who have lost their fathers and their brothers and their homes. I see children who have lost their childhoods. I see soldiers who have lost parts of their bodies, and parts of themselves, that can never be replaced."

He paused, setting his teeth briefly together. He had been taught that there was a line between acknowledging that peasants suffered, and insisting that that suffering was not necessary. That lesson was scorched forever into his face.

"And it's not right. It's not okay for the people who have given the most to the Fire Nation in this war to now be subjected to deprivation and misery." His voice rose. His people looked up at him, their yellow eyes suddenly shining. "I am your Prince, and I will not rest easy until I have seen your basic needs met. I will not relent until you have food, and homes, and the dignity befitting your sacrifices to this nation." Thin hands reached up into the air, fingers outstretched toward him. The murmur of voices rose, an excited undercurrent flickering through.

"On my honor," Zuko swore, "I will never give up."

.


.

Katara fully intended to stare out at the eastern horizon until the ship left the harbor, and the Fire Nation, and him far, far behind, but it turned out steam powered ships needed time for the engines to heat up. As she waited, she clamped her hands onto the aft gunwale, behind the observation tower, as far away as she could get for now.

The rumble of machinery vibrated up through her heels and hands, a pulse as endless as the storm of vivid images wrecking her inside. Zhao's wolfish smile as she fell to her knees and he bore down. Zuko's warm arm around her waist as he promised not to die until they rescued Sokka. Aang, so impossibly small and young to be hefting such a monumental burden. Sian begging with her bruised mouth to take a beating on Katara's behalf. Hakoda's hurt and disbelief as she abandoned him on that arid side of the crater. A crowded theater tittering as they watched her succumb to horror and fear in a dark valley, and trade her virtue to her enemy for empty comfort. Iyuma and Sutka waiting in her apartment back in the palace for their next bending lesson, their collars as cold and heavy as the one she wore right now.

It was too much. Katara gasped and sobbed. She couldn't hold it back any more. She couldn't stop. She covered her mouth with her sleeve as tears and snot gathered, as her head stopped up tight and her eyes grew swollen and blind. She laced her fingers in the short curls behind her head so that her bony wrists crushed her ears, and she pushed out a tortured groan.

And then the worst of the storm passed, and she was spent. She had slipped somehow to her knees, and with her arms folded under her chin on the gunwale, she was finally able to draw full breaths again that shuddered through her so much harder than the engine's rumble.

The ship had turned while she was distracted, and was now cruising steadily across the harbor. Katara suddenly had a perfect view of the wharf, and the dock. And a tiny figure that had to be Zuko, standing on a box and shouting at the crowd.

That seemed about right, and Katara narrowed her aching eyes. She couldn't make out what he was saying, but the way his head and shoulders moved, the way he raised his arms before him – the way the people suddenly cheered – he seemed to be pretty pleased with whatever he was saying.

She had a sudden impulse to bend a wave over there and douse him mid-speech. But she didn't, and she wasn't sure whether it was because he wasn't worth the effort, or because she was afraid that lashing out would invite repercussions even now. Or maybe some other reason. Maybe she had finally, truly internalized the belief that she mustn't diminish the Prince's dignity. She didn't know. She was a tangled mess inside.

The people on the wharf were moving around, and it took Katara a moment to realize they were forming into lines in front of what she could just barely make out as food carts. She took a breath and shuddered as it huffed out of her. He was feeding them. Fine. Good. Maybe they would remember this meal when they heard the news that his father had fried him like a dumpling.

The image flashed through her mind too fast and wrenching to prepare for: her fingers raised against the fire, charred to the bones, pain and flames and horror beating in her scorched ears.

Her fingers were fine though, and she looked at them and curled them against the metal just to be sure.

No one deserved that fate. But he really was awful. A treacherous fickle prince totally incapable of recognizing all the things he had done wrong – much less healing the wounds he had created or redeeming himself for creating them. …And Katara was just leaving Iyuma and Sutka and Loska and all the other waterbenders in his care, just trusting that he was going to figure something out.

She didn't want to go back, not even for them. Not even for the whole of the Water Tribe. She couldn't go on facing all the layers of her shame anymore, it was just too much. And she really couldn't watch Zuko struggle with himself, waiting for him to finally switch from ally to enemy again. Just the thought had her stomach rolling crazily with her heart and her guts.

The people still lingering around the dock were raising their hands to him as if begging a holy man for a blessing. He was their Prince. Their need was desperate and he was the only member of the royal family who might save them from poverty and injustice. Zuko really was the only person in all of the Fire Nation who could stand up and challenge the Fire Lord.

She pitied those people. But if… if he really did it this time-

Katara shut the thought down so hard she had to take a step back. She had felt something creeping in, that stupid feeling that frightened her desperately because, paired with Zuko, it had led her to catastrophe before. Not this time. Never again.

Hope could go suck an iceberg.

She was still glowering at his tiny form, so she saw the instant when he was hit by some unseen object. She saw the whirl of red silk as he spun and fell off the crate, and she saw the flashes of firebending as his guards belatedly tried to defend him. They were so far off, and the engine was so loud, that she couldn't hear the blasts. She couldn't hear the screams of the crowd, either, but she saw them scramble like a swarm of ants.

It did not register to her that she was the only one aboard who noticed what was happening, and it did not occur to her as she clambered over the gunwale that the ship would continue on without her. In fact, it was only as she was midway through the long drop to the water that she realized she had come to a decision - and there was really no point in thinking it through after that.

.


.

There was no pain at first, just the shock of impact and the slowed-down lurch of spinning, losing his balance, falling.

Then several things happened all at once. The last of the guards shouted an alarm, blasted something out of the air. People in the crowd screamed and roared their terror and outrage. Zuko hit the boardwalk on his shoulder and his breath exploded out of him.

He rolled to his back and, gasping, struggled to sit up. The wind was knocked out of him and his left arm wasn't working very well, but he managed to drag himself to his feet on the wave of adrenaline that followed. His guards were facing into the crowd, poised in firebending stances. There was a twang from the buildings along the wharf and a missile whizzed through the air. One of the guards - the captain - punched upward to knock it off its path, but the bolt hardly faltered. It punched through the top corner of the crate Zuko now stood behind, angled such that it clearly would have sunk into his belly.

"Second floor," he wheezed. "They're on the-!"

The next bolt struck the other guard in the throat. She fell back hard against the crate, gurgling and grasping at her neck, and then slid out of Zuko's line of sight. The captain stared at his fallen subordinate, the whites of his eyes flashing. It made him appear very young.

Zuko's legs shook underneath him. His left arm hung limp at his side. But he wouldn't let that soldier fight alone. He drew a breath and crouched, and stepped out from behind the crate.

The ocean rose up in front of him and hardened in a wall of ice, and suddenly she was there between him and the danger. Her hair was dripping and her clothes were drenched, but her eyes were fierce and focused as a tigerdillo's and she was here.

She took in the scene, and checked the still guard, and finally looked at him. She frowned at his left shoulder.

"You can't fight like that."

A little dazed, Zuko looked down at his shoulder. Something was sticking out of him. A crossbow bolt, like a tiny flagpole lodged in the joint. He only had a second to blink at it before Katara reached out and yanked it out of him.

It was like she had extracted one of his own bones. Zuko choked back a scream and his vision briefly dimmed. He found he was leaning hard against the side of the crate. Her fingers were on him, glowing blue with her healing water. By its light, the furrow in her brow was almost hard to see, but her puffy eyes were pretty obvious.

He knew he should tell her she shouldn't have come, make her get back on the ship, but he couldn't force the words through his mouth when it was this dry. Besides, she would do what she wanted no matter what he said. She had that look. She was still recovering from her injuries and she'd clearly been crying, but she had come here to do battle.

The tense silence between them was overshadowed by the distant cries from the crowd, the captain bending to protect himself from crossbow bolts, and the ones he missed chipping into the ice wall. Cracks began to form.

Finally, Katara stepped back. "I stopped the bleeding but I don't have the training to heal it any deeper."

Zuko tried to shrug, but the lance of pain was dizzying. He gritted his teeth. "Later. We have bigger problems right now. The assassins are in the upper levels of one of those buildings."

Katara nodded sharply and turned around, dropping into a ready stance. "Stay behind me."

Before Zuko could tell her no, he most assuredly was not going to cower behind her, she was punching and shoving. Chunks of ice broke off the shield and shot over the heads of the panicky, scattering crowd to blast into the top windows of several buildings. Wooden beams splintered on impact. There was a scream. A crossbow bolt shot toward them only to be yanked out of the air in a stream of water and sent zipping back through the window from which it had come.

It lasted the space of about two long breaths. Then, as suddenly as her assault had started, it was over. Katara stood deathly still with water hovering in a deceptively loose stream around her, poised to strike again at any sign of danger. None came. A nervous quiet fell over the wharf.

Zuko shook the paralysis from around his brain and signaled to his guards who were still scattered among the huddled people. Several soldiers rushed into the buildings Katara had hit.

Much closer, the captain looked back, panting and wide-eyed. He stared at Katara like she was… like she was a palace slave who had suddenly revealed herself as a deadly warrior.

Katara seemed to take no notice of him - or of any of the other people staring at her, as more and more were. She only watched the buildings, waiting. Only when the guards signaled an all-clear did she finally relax and let her water fall abruptly to splatter on the boardwalk and dribble back into the harbor. She sagged, clearly exhausted.

Zuko stepped up beside her before she could sway too much and clasped her shoulder. Her eyes flashed at him, but she did not have the strength to pull away. Exhausted or not, the battle light was still there, just a flicker of lightning on a dark horizon. She looked like herself. Dangerous. Powerful.

His heart in his chest beat a quick tattoo.

Someone out in the crowd started clapping, and then a lot of people were. Then they were cheering and chanting something, Zuko didn't hear what. His ears were doing a weird ringing thing the longer he looked at her.

One instant, Katara was staring stonily back at him. The next, her eyes lost their focus and rolled upward, and she slumped bonelessly against his side. Zuko scrabbled to get his arm around her before she slid to the ground.

The people cheered louder. A few whistles cut the air.

Zuko hardly registered that. He was cursing himself now for leaving the palanquin so far behind, for scattering his guards, for sending the ship off already. He was cursing his injured shoulder, because he could barely use that arm to steady her, and he certainly wouldn't be able to carry her to safety now.

"Prince Zuko," the captain said, stepping closer.

But Zuko's eyes slid past him. There was a dead man grinning at him from the front of the crowd, clapping with such annoying enthusiasm that he clearly could not possibly be dead.

"Captain," Zuko snarled, "see to it your guards catch those assassins, take care of your fallen soldier, and finish distributing food to these people."

The captain blinked at him. "But, your highness, you're-"

"Princess Katara and I will be resting." He narrowed his eyes at the dead man until his giddy expression faltered. "Private Tyno will see to our needs."

.


.

Katara drifted back to the surface of consciousness, aware of a pleasant breeze that brought with it a scent of sun-warm herbs and soap. Rain was falling on her face and neck intermittently, and it was the tickle of water dripping into her ear that finally made her open her eyes.

Zuko sat over her, fanning her steadily with a stiff paper pamphlet. He was glowering at something across the room, so she had a good view of the tic in his jaw and his flared nostrils. Then, still not looking, he dipped his fingers in a cup on the floor and flicked water on her face.

"Ugh," Katara grated, "stop it."

He looked down at her, hardly pausing a beat with his fan. "You were overheated. Can you drink?"

"What, your finger-water? Gross. No."

He let out an annoyed breath. "There's another cup for you to drink. Can you sit up?"

Katara managed to get up on one elbow and took the cup as Zuko raised it to her lips. The water was surprisingly cool and satisfying, and she easily finished it. Then she took in the room.

It was a kitchen, small but tidy, with a low table nearby set under a window open to a sunny garden - that was where the herb smell was coming from. Beyond the table was a cooking area and an open door to the same garden. And standing at the counter making a pot of tea, there was a vaguely familiar looking man. He was young, with his hair tied up in a soldier's topknot, and as he limped around the kitchen, the wooden prosthetic strapped to his right leg thumped heavily against the polished floorboards. He kept sneaking surreptitious glances at her and at Zuko. It was that familiar gesture that enabled Katara to finally place him.

"You!" She pointed at him, dropping the cup in the same motion. It clattered on the floor but didn't break. "You put us in a play!"

Tyno turned bright red and bent his head over the tea tray as he poured boiling water into the pot. "Technically, I wrote a story inspired by events in my own life…"

"I didn't see you up there," Katara snarled. She was trying to get up but it wasn't happening - because Zuko had a hand on her shoulder and was gently holding her back. She scowled at him. "Let me up. I need to talk to him."

"Talk to him from here. You need to rest or you'll pass out again."

"Let go of me!"

She slapped his hand away and Zuko sucked in a sharp gasp as the movement jostled his injured shoulder. He glared at her and finally stopped fanning. Katara immediately felt the loss of the breeze, but she sourly looked away and sat up. She was a little dizzy, but she wasn't going to pass out. She managed to turn so that her back was against the wall and shot Zuko a brief, scathing look. He didn't quite return it, and shifted his focus to the other firebender in the room.

"Tea!" Tyno thumped over and set a rattling tray on the table. Hot water dribbled out of the spout. Katara glared up at his nervous face and fought the urge to empty the pot on his head. He shuffled back two hesitant steps.

"Join us," Zuko commanded. He had turned to sit on a cushion by the table and sharply indicated the cushion on the far side.

"Your highness," Tyno murmured, ducking his head, "I'm only a-"

"Sit."

He hesitated a moment longer, then awkwardly lowered himself to the floor on his one leg. The other he stuck out in front of him, the prosthetic clunking against the floor. Katara frowned at it; it was a simple tapered piece of wood, sanded and polished and rigged with a harness that buckled around the knee.

"What happened?" It wasn't the question she really wanted to ask him, but it seemed heartless not to ask. Tyno followed her look and cleared his throat.

"I had the honor of serving in the first wave against the Rebel Mountain." He paused and scratched the stubble on his cheek. The hollows around his eyes were deeply shadowed. "I was… very lucky."

"You were listed among those killed in action," Zuko said.

Tyno sat a degree straighter and nodded. "My tags got lost, your highness. I've tried to report in at the veterans' office, but… Once you're dead, you're dead – or so they tell me, sir."

Zuko nodded sharply as if suddenly understanding. "And a dead soldier doesn't need a stipend. How are you making a living?"

"Odd jobs… but there aren't so many of those. I made a little money from my story, and from the director who actually payed me." He shot Katara a tight look. "And, uh, my mom won't take rent. This is her house."

Zuko sat back thoughtfully, but Katara just folded her arms over her chest and ran her tongue over her teeth. "Well, I sure am glad that my public degradation could be beneficial to you."

"There was nothing degrading about the character Yuka," Tyno insisted, more heartfelt than Katara had expected. "She was brave and conflicted and her loyalty to her people made falling in love with Lord Azen a compelling struggle. It's a beautiful, moving story."

There was a beat of silence. Hot faced and wound tight as a spring, Katara slowly recited, "'I live to serve your every pleasure, oh mighty Lord Azen'?"

Tyno's face went pink and he frowned at the teapot. "I didn't write that part. Usotsu made a lot of changes when he took the script to the Upper City."

"I'm sure the source material was very inspiring."

"Apologize." Zuko's voice snapped through the room. The look he was leveling on Tyno was stern verging on thunderous. "You may not have written it that way to start with, but every noble in Caldera watches that play and sees the subjugation of the Water Tribe. You've contributed to the perception of Princess Katara's people as weak, foolish, and servile, and you have made it that much harder for her to endure this Nation."

Tyno bent at once in a deep bow, then shifted away from the table and dropped to a full kowtow, his prosthetic leg scraping the floor. "Princess Katara, please accept my humblest apologies for the insult my work has done to you and your people. I swear the original is totally different, and it was taken beyond my control before it got so twisted."

He stayed that way, on hands and knees. Katara frowned down at him, and then at Zuko, not sure what to do. He met her eyes, and his look was difficult to read.

"It's your choice whether to forgive him or not."

"Fine," she snapped. She didn't want to linger on this moment. She pursed her lips and tipped up her chin. "You're forgiven. But you have to do something to fix the damage you've done."

It crossed her mind that he should apologize to Zuko, too, but she wasn't about to say it aloud. He wasn't as big a creep as that Azen character, but he had certainly done some comparably creepy things. He could extract his own apology if he wanted to.

But he didn't. And Tyno sat up at length and thanked Katara for her understanding and mercy. He was, she realized, keeping his eyes down more now, and it took her a few uncomfortable moments to realize why. When Tyno had traveled with them, he had known her as Katto, but Zuko had called her Princess just now. A reminder of their relative stations. She watched him closely from the corner of her eye, not sure what the intimidation game was about.

"Pour the tea."

Katara reflexively leaned forward from the wall. In the same instant, Tyno picked up the pot and began carefully filling the two cups. A little stunned - but slowly remembering from her lessons on the ship that a royal slave still ranked above commoners - Katara sat back again. Tyno did not appear to have noticed that she had tried to serve the tea.

But Zuko had. Zuko watched her intensely as the sound of tea splashing into cups filled the silence. Then, silence reigned again and he shuttered his expression to a not-quite-haughty blank.

Tyno presented them each with a cup and sat back on his cushion, tapping his thumbs together on his lap at a rapid pace. "Is there anything else I can provide for you, your highness? Es? Highnesses?"

"No. Go outside and inform us the minute the palanquin arrives."

Tyno bowed and hurriedly left the room. Katara stared after him, slowly digesting the words she had just heard. She didn't really understand what was going on here - why were they in Tyno's mom's house? Where were the guards? What had happened to the assassins? She shot Zuko a curious look, and he met it steadily before lowering his cup.

"I know you must have questions. Ask."

She rested her teacup on her knee. "The last I remember, there were people trying to kill you."

"They failed," Zuko said, a little more ominously than was probably necessary. "We are taking shelter here while we await the arrival of the palanquin."

"And we aren't going to talk about who hired people to kill you because…?"

"It could have been literally anyone."

"Right. Anyone."

Incensed, Zuko rolled his eyes right back at her. "You don't know who hired them! It could have been Zhao, and they just couldn't get to me until I left the palace. It could have been one of the generals who couldn't stomach the thought of me succeeding my father. It could have been Azula, as a birthday present to herself. You don't know, Katara." He sniffed over his tea and settled his temper back down to irate. "The assassins were wearing normal clothes and no identification. Short of them telling us who hired them, we can't know. And they can't tell us anything."

Katara absorbed that rapidly, and filed it away to think about when she wasn't holding something breakable. "Did I hurt anyone else?"

"No." Zuko's temper faded even more. He was being almost gentle all of a sudden. "Just the two guys with crossbows. The other buildings you hit were unoccupied."

Luckily. Rather than delving into how bad it could have been if she'd been unlucky, Katara pressed on. "The palanquin. Where are we going, exactly?"

Zuko hesitated, and that was as good as admitting that he had no idea. Katara scoffed inwardly and sniffed her tea to keep from shaking her head. They were obviously going to have to go on the run. The Fire Lord would put out an order to arrest them - assuming he hadn't hired those assassins in record time - and they would have to flee the city because it was full of guards and soldiers.

For her own part, she was in no condition to go roughing it across the Fire Nation. She wasn't sure how far she was going to be able to walk with her limbs feeling so heavy and her skin tingling extra from the exertion. Even raising the teacup was difficult. Zuko was holding his shoulder suspiciously still, too, which probably meant that it hurt a lot. Besides, palanquins, no matter what he thought, were never ever subtle.

Katara rolled her eyes up at the ceiling and then glowered dully at Zuko.

…who actually seemed suspiciously calm now. He was sharply focused on her and he breathed in slowly over his tea as if they were sitting in the garden rather than hiding out in a stranger's kitchen.

"I received a letter shortly after the duel… Lord Gan - do you remember him?"

Katara squinted at him and very nearly sneered. She had poured a lot of tea for a lot of nobles - and had borne witness to a lot of demeaning and mind-numbing conversations - but she did remember the first. The lofty mansion, the half-dozen rings, the bold way he had pointed out that Katara was being used as a tool of intimidation.

She nodded. Zuko raised his eyebrow slightly.

"He informed me that his family villa was built around a mineral spring just outside Harbor City, and that I should feel welcome to make use of it if I thought its healing qualities might ease your suffering. I declined then…" His eyes narrowed slightly, took on a cunning light. "But I think now would be a good time to take him up on the offer."

"So you just want to show up at this guy's house and, what, make yourself at home?"

"While I recover from my injury," Zuko said almost casually, "yes. A loyal citizen will always be proud to host a member of the royal family."

Which was probably how they had come to be in this humble kitchen, too.

"Until I have made a full recovery," he went on, watching her with steady weight, "I will take advantage of Lord Gan's generosity. I have already sent a note to inform the Minister of the Royal Household of my intentions. "

Katara stared at him. Zuko wasn't going to run. And he wasn't trying to hide. How long did he think he could get away with this before his father had him arrested and dragged back to the palace? Did he think that wasn't inevitable?

Zuko peered at her, but she couldn't guess his thoughts. She set her tea down and folded her arms over her chest while she spat out the only real question.

"What about the Fire Lord? He won't be happy when he hears you're freeing prisoners and feeding the hungry."

"I swore to help my people, and I intend to do it. If the Fire Lord wants to summon me from this important work to sit in the palace rubbing elbows with the Fire Court, then that's his prerogative. It's mine to decline his invitation."

Katara's eyes popped. Zuko held steady, calmly sipping his tea.

"Do you seriously think he's going to just let you do whatever you want?"

"No. He won't. But… those people in the streets, he doesn't think they matter. They can't win the war for him, so to his mind, they may as well not exist. Just like me - his son, the humanitarian." His jaw clenched, released. "I think… there's a chance he won't see the danger in what I'm doing before its too late to stop me."

Katara watched the quick flicks of his eyes as he thought. She had that feeling again, and pinched her mouth shut tight to keep from sneering at him. "Stop you from doing what?"

He licked his lips and straightened his spine as he looked up at her. "Even led by the Avatar, the Resistance can't stop my father and his armies in time to prevent the destruction of the Earth Kingdom, so I'm going to slow down the timeline. I'm going to start an uprising in the Fire Nation."

For a long, fraught moment, Katara glared back into his determined face. She couldn't stop the curl in her lip this time. "Whatever happened to suing for peace with your boundless influence?"

His expression twisted and flushed with color, though whether it was out of anger or embarrassment was unclear. "That didn't work."

"Wow. No way."

"Look," Zuko went on, scowling at the floor between them, "I can still send for the ship to take you to the Earth Kingdom, but we don't have a lot of time."

She didn't move, and after a moment looked down to observe how the shadows in her cup darkened the tea. She hadn't meant to be here. But now that she was, she felt the familiar weight settling back on her. Everything that had happened to her here, every way she had failed the people who mattered; it was all a part of her now. Leaving would not relieve that burden, it wouldn't change what she had done, and failed to do. Escaping the Fire Nation wouldn't have made the shame go away; it would have warped her very identity.

She had been brave and indomitable when she came here - she hadn't just imagined it, it had been true. She had been a fighter who took hits and got back up. She had been a girl who hoped for impossible things and put herself on the line to make them a reality. Leaving was as good as admitting that she was not those things anymore.

It had been an act of self-preservation, jumping off that ship. And anything else that might be drawing her to stay - well, that didn't matter right now.

"There's no reason for you to share my fate," Zuko said quietly. "You saved my life. You've fulfilled your oath. Justice demands that you go free. And-"

"You can't have justice and slavery in the same system," Katara said flatly. And then, because she needed to say it, she went on, "I didn't come back for that stupid oath, and I certainly didn't come back for you."

There was a silent beat in which Zuko watched her, his eyes just a fraction wider than usual. It did not last long enough to be remarkable, and Katara mistook it for offense. In reality, it was Zuko rearranging his understanding of reality, trying desperately to squelch the possibility, the pathetic clinging hope, that she really had come back for him, that she couldn't leave when she knew he was in trouble. Of course she was here for her people. Of course it wasn't him, it would never be him. How stupid, to allow himself even for a second…

He dismissed the thought and the moment ended. "Alright. But if you're staying, who's going to tell the Avatar about the comet and my father's plan?"

Katara blinked at him, a hint of confusion slipping past her mask. Zuko's eyes widened and his voice ratcheted higher as he pressed on.

"His plan? The plan I heard in the war meeting? The one I told you about before you got on the ship so you could warn the Avatar?"

"Aang knows about Sozin's Comet," she snapped, but he could see her blushing. "All the firebenders get supercharged for a day. We assumed that meant the Fire Nation was going to take the opportunity to do something awful."

She hadn't been listening at all.

"'Something awful' doesn't really cover it." He frowned at her and set the teacup down hard on the table. "Before the comet even starts, my father will launch an invasion force against Ba Sing Se that can drop bombs like rain and could kill thousands of civilians."

"But, the walls-"

"He's sending flying machines. War balloons."

Katara gaped at him. "The Fire Nation has those?"

"They're new."

She sat back, incapable even of a pithy response as she processed the information. Zuko knew the feeling, but he couldn't stop there.

"The earliest arrival date for that force is in four weeks. That's not enough time for you to get to Ba Sing Se by ship - and there's no guarantee you'd be able to find someone who would listen when you got there. But, if you know how to find the Avatar, both of those problems go away."

She looked horrified and torn, but then suspicion washed over her face. It stung, but Zuko accepted that as his due.

"I'm not asking, Katara. If it's within your power to get a message to him-"

"It's not."

Zuko's stomach plunged, but he only nodded. "Okay. There is… one other thing I can think of to try. It's kind of a long shot."

In fact, it seemed like such a long shot, he'd hoped he wouldn't have to do it. It could risk all the healing and kindness he had started with his people on the wharf, not to mention an even more public signal of his break from his father. But, for the sake of all those lives, he had to do something.

Katara was still watching him with that cutting suspicion, like she knew his idea was going to be substandard and she meant to punish him preemptively.

"Listen," Zuko finally said, settling his fingertips around his teacup. This was probably a long shot, too. "Since you're staying and we're out of the palace, a lot of the old rules no longer apply. You should advocate for your people as my guest, and let me remove that collar."

"I'm not free until all the waterbenders are free."

"That's not fair! You fulfilled the oath! You can't just change the central goal of our arrangement without any kind of negotiation."

"That's my prerogative."

Zuko drew a great calming breath and carefully sipped his tea. It was a lot closer to boiling than it should have been, but that was his own fault for letting his hands get so hot. Accepting responsibility for it didn't alleviate the discomfort, though.

"Alright," he said at length, not bothering to restrain his testiness. "Noted."

Watching him primly, Katara nodded and raised her chin in the same motion. He wondered if she realized what a regal gesture it was, what a vast improvement it was over her slumped defeat of just a few days ago. Probably not. If she knew it made him feel better to see her sitting up and making demands, she might stop.

And it did make him feel better. Even her arguing eased his temper in a way it had not before, because it meant she had a new purpose, a new mission. She had something to fight for, and he really didn't care if she was fighting him, so long as she had it in her to fight.

If she needed to eviscerate him, fine. He could take it.

.


.

Zuko did not know, and could not have guessed, that the missive he had sent to the Minister of the Royal Household was presently making a fortuitous and indirect journey. He had simply scratched it out the moment he arrived at Tyno's mother's house and put it into Tyno's own hands to be delivered to an express hawk station. Unfortunately, there were no such stations in the immediate area of the city and Tyno, being slower on his feet than he had previously been, had entrusted the letter to a girl he knew to be one of the fastest runners hanging around the neighborhood, with the promise that she would get a silver mark straight from the Prince when she returned from the delivery.

Only, Tyno failed to explain about the hawk station, and the girl, having never sent anything by hawk before, was given to believe that she was expected to deliver the note herself. She thought this was rather a lot of running for one silver mark, and was not sure why the Prince was being such a cheapskate, but figured there was an enormous return in bragging rights for performing a service for the Prince, and one mark was better than none anyways.

So she ran. She ran up from the poor districts, up through the main gates, up the zig-zagging mountain road, and through the grand entry to Caldera – where she was promptly stopped by some guards who wanted to know just where this dirty urchin was going in such a hurry. The girl, by now panting very hard and incapable of explaining who exactly she was looking for, showed them the seal on the missive and was gratified when they let her pass. When she got to the palace itself, more guards waylaid her with more pressing inquiries. The girl flashed them the seal again, and when that turned out to be insufficient for these guards, she managed to gasp out a single word.

"Household."

So the guards escorted her to the overseer of Prince Zuko's household, who was at that very moment in her new office sharing lunch with a guest– a particular laundry supply agent. At the guard's arrival, Machi looked down at the panting girl and her eyebrows crept up.

"Corporal Min, what in Agni's name did you do to that child?"

"Did it to herself, Majordomo. Running a letter up for you from the Prince."

"Oh? Let's see it then."

The girl crossed the room and presented the scroll in a trembling hand. Machi hesitated at the sight of the seal, then took the scroll, gave the girl three silver marks, and ordered the guard to get her some water before sending her back.

"What am I? A babysitting service?" the guard groused, but she escorted the girl away patiently.

Machi waited until the door had shut behind them before she held up the scroll and slid a sly glance at her friend. "This letter is almost certainly not for me."

Lan Yi frowned thoughtfully. "Then you ought to forward it along to whoever the Prince intended it to reach."

"As duty commands," Machi agreed. "But that messenger was so out of breath I couldn't very well ask her where she was going. And a majordomo isn't worth much if she's not discreet."

Lan Yi's mouth dropped slowly open as Machi produced a letter opener from the desk and began warming it over her candle. "You wouldn't! The Prince's privacy-!"

"Oh, phooey. Princes don't get any of that. What they get is people who spy on them for personal reasons-" She raised an eyebrow at Lan Yi as she slid the warmed metal under the wax seal and very gently pried it away from the paper. "-and people who spy on them for their own good. Prince Zuko wouldn't have chosen me if he hadn't wanted an overbearing snoop going through his things."

"Or perhaps he just didn't realize what an overbearing snoop you really are."

"All the greater his need, then."

Machi unrolled the letter and read it over quickly, then read it again with wide eyes.

"What? What does it say?"

Machi peered down her nose at the way Lan Yi twisted her fingers together in her lap. "For his highness's privacy, I couldn't possibly divulge-"

"Oh, stop teasing and tell me!"

"There was an attack. The Prince was injured-"

"Oh no!"

"-and is making arrangements to recover at Lord Gan's villa." Machi tapped her ring finger on the desk next to her forgotten bowl of noodles. "He wrote at once to inform the Minister of the Royal Household."

"Ah! Not his nosy majordomo, at all."

Machi was quiet for such a long moment that Lan Yi started to wonder if maybe she had hurt her feelings.

But Machi was only thinking of an earlier time, and other princes who had gone off to do good in the world. She had been here, in this very office, in this very chair, when she received the order to fire her entire staff – because Prince Lu Ten was dead, and Prince Iroh was no longer the Crown Prince, so what did he need with such a grand household? And after they were all gone, what did he need with a majordomo? So Machi had quietly become Head Laundress, and counted herself lucky to have a job at all.

But now she was a majordomo again. And not for much longer, if she was reading this letter correctly. Prince Zuko had sent his letter to the Minister of the Royal Household, which was correct if he was merely going about his princely duties. But he had been shot by an assassin. Someone had attempted to murder the Crown Prince – and he had for some reason decided that the situation did not warrant a letter directly to his father.

Machi did not know her new prince terribly well, but she knew the inevitable truth that everyone in Caldera knew about Zuko and his father; either the son would fall into line, or the father would destroy him.

And this, this accidentally-intercepted missive, this snap decision to remove himself from his father's stronghold at his moment of vulnerability was a clear signal that Prince Zuko did not mean to quietly accept his place at Ozai's heel.

"If you were to choose between a long life or the chance at a happier life," she asked quietly, sitting back in her old, creaking, heartbreakingly familiar chair, "which would you choose?"

Lan Yi's eyebrows crept upward. She seemed to consider the question, but not for long. "Happier. Always."

"Even if the happier life is more of a possibility than a promise?"

"Nothing is ever promised. The long life isn't promised, either. It just seems less risky." Lan Yi looked at her friend for a long, heavy moment. "Besides, you're old. You won't live all that long. Better if you try to be happy."

Machi laughed, and began rolling up the missive again, carefully lining up the seal with the mark it had left on the backside of the paper before heating the wax again and sticking it back together. She would send it along to the Minister – but not right away. There were some arrangements to make, first.

"What a funny coincidence," Lan Yi said at length. "The Prince must be in my neighborhood; that girl lives just down the street from me. And he happened to use just the same cheap paper, and the very same sealing wax that I used for writing letters to my Tyno."

"Oh, there's not a poor person in the Fire Nation that doesn't use these same things," Machi chided as she rose to her feet. "Now you're just being silly."