AN: Possibly helpful refresher: Somebody commented recently and I can't seem to find the comment again, but they were remarking that Katara seemed to be aware that Ozai had scarred Zuko when she was leaving with his crew after Zuko freed them but that they couldn't remember her ever learning that info. Appropriately, I can't remember now whether I replied (my brain is going, I wrote a response but I have no memory of posting it and it may have been refreshed out of my browser or something) but Here's the Handy Recap: When Tantec confronted Zuko way back in the resistance base about poaching the Southern Princess, he said something about being able to tell by Zuko's face that he was an unwanted son. Katara read into Zuko's reaction and had a low-key awareness that his father might have scarred him, but she didn't bring it up until after he had betrayed her and was trying to resume the relationship and she wanted to emotionally devastate him. So he said something like "sometimes we have to hurt the people we love for everyone's good" and Katara said something like "let me guess; your father taught you that" with a brutal stare-at-scar emphasis. So that's where they are on that... like two hundred thousand words ago, which is about to become relevant... right now.

Thanks for reading! And those of you who review, you really give me something to be excited and proud about every time, so thank you so, so much for that. (Building a house, and my currently rocky relationship to housing in general, is not exciting in a good way and mostly just makes me sad. So, very seriously, you taking the time to drop me a note about what you think or moments you liked or questions you have brings me so much joy and relief.)

Finally, expect a pause in updates after this one. This conversation was so important and I have spent over a month getting it just right, so I've got minimal progress on the upcoming chapters. Meanwhile, real life demands my attention for a bit. Yikes.

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Zuko didn't wait for Katara to issue her next probably-biting response. He just rose and made his way to the tea table and carefully did not look at her as he settled on his sitting cushion.

So it was a bit of a surprise to find she'd slouched over to the other cushion, a third turn around the table. She looked down her nose at the food and watched, narrow-eyed, as he poured the tea - her cup, then his. After he settled the pot back on the table, she scrutinized him as he sat back and raised his cup to inhale the fragrant steam.

"His highness the crown prince of the Fire Nation deigns to pour my tea," she said with icily feigned astonishment. "What an honor."

Zuko didn't lower his cup, only snapped a glare onto her. "You're my honored guest."

"Shouldn't you have a servant do such menial tasks?" She asked, wide-eyed. "I mean, what if you strained your royal wrist?"

He set his cup down with care and let out a long breath. It was like she wanted to argue, and it was getting harder and harder to not give her what she wanted. Instead, Zuko grabbed onto the opportunity she was providing him.

"Look. I know pouring tea for me and all those nobles wasn't fun. I'm sorry I-"

"Wasn't fun?" Katara repeated in open-mouthed disbelief. "I'd like to see how you feel being paraded around for a bunch of hateful strangers."

"What do you think my life is?" Zuko asked a little nastily. "I've been paraded around for the Fire Court since I was born, Katara."

He could plainly see the anger building in her expression, but he could not see the way a wound in her ripped open again. Katara glared back at his scowling face and tried not to let her temper carry her away - tried to remind herself that her obligation was to the healers, their needs came first. So when she spoke, her voice was tight with the strain of her control.

"Yeah, as a prince," she emphasized. "Their prince. You sit in a position of power over all of them."

"You think that means they don't say stuff about me? If anything, being a prince puts me under more scrutiny."

"It's not the same. You say 'wasn't fun' like it was a disappointing beach day. But I was on display constantly-"

Zuko threw out his arms. "And I wasn't?"

"-and I always had to be a perfectly humble slave for the prince. It was humiliating."

That shut him up. He stared back at her, and a look of dawning realization broke over his face. So Katara went on, working to keep her voice level even though she wanted to be shouting these things.

"You got to sit up straight and meet their eyes and talk like a human being. I was the spectacle in your shadow. An exotic curiosity and a tool for making your threats." She frowned a little harder at him, his too-straight spine and his tense, thoughtful face. "You're your nation's pride. The heir apparent. Whatever they said about you, they didn't hate you. Not like they hated me. Because I'm Water Tribe, and they all believed I was beneath them. You have no idea what it felt like to get on my knees and let those people watch me serve you. I was close enough to reach out and slap the back of your head every day, but we were living in totally different worlds."

"I'm not-" Zuko's frown deepened and he seemed to struggle for words. He heaved a breath. "Yeah, we were. When I said 'not fun', what I really meant was miserable and frustrating and embarrassing. I didn't realize it was humiliating for you. I'm sorry. I know what humiliation in front of the Fire Court feels like and it's... awful. But I didn't realize you were going through that constantly. I was... pretty preoccupied..."

His eyes dropped oddly to the table and he scowled for a second at the teapot, seeming to have some little internal battle. He straightened quickly and looked back at her and said words that sounded just faintly as if he had practiced them. As if he was falling back on something he had planned to say.

"I'm sorry I was dismissive and cruel on top of what you were already going through. When you told me I was being cruel, I figured it was better if I just didn't speak to you at all, but shutting you out like that wasn't great either. You had no choice about being there, and you had nobody to lean on but me, but instead of listening to you or showing you any compassion at all, I just focused on my own frustration and even took it out on you. There's no excuse for that."

Katara's frown deepened marginally. She wasn't going to just swallow his prepared remarks as if she was some stranger he could make speeches to. He'd made her bleed. She wanted it back in kind.

"No, there's not," she easily agreed and then zeroed in on the thing he clearly didn't want to talk about. "What do you know about being humiliated in front of the Fire Court?"

He flinched. Then scowled. "That doesn't matter right now. What's important is that I understand how it feels. I-"

"No. You don't get to just decide what's important and brush me off. If you want me to believe you understand, you're gonna have to back it up. I can't just take your word for it. That's where we are right now."

Zuko curled his lip. "I don't exactly feel like baring my soul to you."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Katara mocked a concerned look and pressed one hand to her chest. "You thought I was the only one who needed to trust? You thought you could apologize to me in a way that would matter without being vulnerable? You thought you could just recite a speech about what you've learned and I'd just be cool about it? Is that what would feel more comfortable to you?" She shook her head and folded her arms over her chest. "If that's as far as you're willing to go, fine. But it's not enough."

Zuko glowered at her, then at the teapot. "Fine. Just... give me a second." Then he picked up his tea and sniffed at it angrily and shut his eyes.

Watching this, Katara squinted in bewilderment and no small amount of disbelief. It was as if an actual ice bear had sat down for tea; his anger was so obvious and such a looming presence over him, it seemed impossible that he would just sit still and breathe that way with the little cup so delicate in his hand. But that was what happened. Zuko just sat and breathed in the steam, and his face slowly relaxed to just a frown and a deeply knitted brow.

As if from a previous life, she remembered his uncle, the way he had sat so peacefully in the ship's eating area, savoring his tea. The way he had sometimes gotten Zuko to join him. At one time, it had even occurred to Katara to use tea as a way of drawing Zuko into conversation so that she could talk to him about the tonic. It had worked for Iroh, she had thought, and it could work for her...

And now Zuko was doing it himself. Steadying himself for a conversation he didn't want to have but was willing to try because she had asked. Well... demanded.

It was stupid and there was no reason it should, but it made Katara's heart beat a little harder, watching him work to gentle himself.

Finally, he set down the cup and met her eye.

"Remember how the entire Court gathered to watch your Agni Kai?" He waited for her nod, then went on carefully. "They gathered that way for mine, too."

"You were in an Agni Kai?"

"Before I was banished. Like right before. I had challenged a general's plan during a war meeting, when I shouldn't have spoken. I probably shouldn't even have been there. I was... young. But the point is-" He waved off the thoughts and refocused, and his eyes fell a little reflectively to his teacup as he went on. "-I thought I was going to be fighting that general. I went into the Agni Kai thinking I would fight an old man and maybe he'd win, but it was a matter of honor so it was worth a little embarrassment to make the point that his plan was wrong. He wanted to sacrifice a whole division of new recruits as a distraction. It was wrong."

He looked up at her with some force she didn't really understand. Katara nodded, thrown a little off-balance. "Yeah. That seems wrong."

Zuko nodded back, and the force solidified into certainty, anger. That anger cracked as he went on, and it was only because she was looking that Katara saw the raw thing concealed underneath. "But when I turned to face my opponent, it wasn't the general. It was the Fire Lord. Because I'd spoken out in his war meeting, and even if it was for a good reason, it was an act of disrespect."

"That... also seems wrong to me..."

He peered into her face like he was looking for something, searching sharply for it, but then shook his head and glared at his tea cup. His hands were braced against his thighs as if he was holding himself down.

"The Water Tribe does things differently than the Fire Nation. It's just the way it is here. I had to answer for my disrespect. But I didn't want to fight my father. That honorable cause I meant to defend went up in smoke. I tried to apologize-" His mouth was twisted up tight, his eyes were furious. "-got on my knees and begged, swore I was loyal to him and the nation-"

Katara listened, her disquiet quickly being replaced by horror as she realized this story didn't end in any kind of forgiveness.

"-and they were all there to witness that weakness and cowardice. The Fire Court. The generals and high-ranking officers. Zhao was there. Gan. Hito. Pretty much all of them." He met her eye again, his scowl back in place. "How's that for humiliation, Katara? Think I get it?"

Katara just stared back at him, too caught up to dignify his snide prodding with a response. "What happened?"

"What do you mean what happened? You know what happened." He jabbed a finger at his face, snarling. "My father taught me the price of disrespect and sent me to capture the Avatar."

"Zuko, that's awful," she uttered, still struggling to fully hold in her mind how awful it really was.

"I don't want your pity!" he shouted. "You wanted to know and now you know! Pay me the courtesy of not treating me like some kind of-!" He paused, baring his teeth and searching for words and digging his fingers hard against his legs. Katara stepped in.

"Drink your tea," she said, primly picking up her own cup and lifting it toward her mouth. "Before it gets cold."

I don't need any calming tea!

The words were on the tip of his tongue. It was so familiar, such a well-trod path in his mind. Rage and then denial of anything that might wind him back down. Tea most of all.

But everything was different now. He recognized what was happening inside him now. He knew the girl before him was not the old man who had endured Zuko's long years of constant, barely-restrained rage. He knew neither one of them had ever deserved that.

She sat beside him at his table now, sipping her tea and then making a little face into the cup as if it was good when she hadn't expected it to be. She was such a strident, demanding, presumptuous pain in the neck... but the way she pursed her lips against the rim of the cup and blew softly to disperse the steam made his own temperature rise, redirect. Zuko wasn't sure which he wanted more - to shout at her, or to suck the heat from those lips.

He picked up his tea and inhaled deeply, angrily over the cup. The tea grew hotter in his hand. He sipped it and let a fat gulp sear its way down into his belly. It hurt. And then it eased.

"Sorry," he said at length.

"It's okay," Katara returned quietly. "I'd be angry, too, if that happened to me."

For a long moment, they sipped tea in silence. Zuko felt his anger fade slowly like the seethe of a well-fed furnace and, a few degrees at a time, he let it go. He let himself feel her presence at the table with him. The rustle of her clothes, the scent of her faintly on the air. The shape of her, leaning against the table with... just awful posture.

"Thank you for telling me that," she finally said. "I know it wasn't easy to talk about, but knowing helps me understand why you were being such an unrelenting jerk."

"It doesn't make what I did okay," he insisted with a resurgence of heat.

"No. But it's like..." She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. "This one time, my Gran-gran caught me hitting Sokka with a fish, and she was so mad at me, she made me apologize to him and be nice to him for an entire week..."

Zuko listened, frowning and confused by what seemed like a full change in subject - but also enjoying a soft warmth as he felt himself invited into a place he had not been allowed in for a very long time. She was giving him something of herself. Her history. Her home and family. She was letting him get warm at the periphery of her life, after making him revisit the frigid pain of his own.

"She might not have been so strict about it if she'd known I had been up all night making him a sheath for his boomerang as a surprise and he'd just gotten back from trading the last of my preserved sea prunes for an old one someone's husband had left behind. The point is, it was mean and arguably wrong to hit my brother in the face with a fish, especially for something he didn't even know he'd done, but I had reasons to feel the way I felt."

Katara peered at him thoughtfully, elbows on the table as she cradled her teacup between her hands.

"You were cruel and dismissive, and that wasn't okay. But I can see how you'd be extra unpleasant when you were going basically house-to-house confronting people who had witnessed you in a really devastating moment from your childhood."

"I wasn't a- Rrgh!" Zuko bared his teeth, then shook his head in disbelief. "What, so you're gonna just let me off the hook because you feel sorry for me now? I never should have told you anything!"

"Did I say you were off the hook?" Katara demanded, bitingly annoyed. She clacked down her teacup, spilling a little with the force of the movement. "No. I said I can understand why you were lashing out. I can empathize. I can believe that you're at least capable of empathizing with what I went through."

She snapped up one hand and shook her finger at him as she went on. Zuko leaned back a measure, caught between outrage and a different kind of building storm.

"But you don't ever get to treat me that way again. The only reason you got away with it when you did was because it would look pretty bad if I made that oath and then knocked your stupid snarling face in every day. I'm no longer under any obligation to make you look good. If I do it, I'm doing it for the benefit of my people, because they deserve to be aligned with someone respectable. But if you give me half a reason, I will push back and I will embarrass you, no matter who's watching."

Zuko took in that reproachful finger and her scornful mouth and her threats and it occurred to him quite suddenly that he could lean around the table and grab the edge of her sitting cushion and she would probably stay on top of it as he dragged it closer. She would probably keep scowling up at him even from inches away, even as he peered down into her upturned face and tasted her threats on the air between them.

Zuko wondered fleetingly if she'd keep making those threats, keep promising to push back and hold him accountable, if she realized how it stoked his desire for her.

Better not to risk her finding out; spite had sometimes seemed to be her driving force, and there was no reason to tempt her back to it. He quickly glared up at the ceiling and got himself back under control, fought to remember the point here.

"Good," he snarled. "But it's my intention to not repeat my mistakes, so I mean to see to it that you never feel the need to resort to that anyway." Confident his face was again a safe, irritable scowl, he turned it back to her. "I don't want your charity-forgiveness. I don't need it. If you're gonna forgive me for any of the things I've done, I want it to be because I've done right by you now, not because your delicate Water Tribe sensibilities are all overwhelmed with empathy and you think I need a win."

The look she met him with was scathing, as if she found the very suggestion distasteful. "Trust me. My delicate Water Tribe sensibilities - also known as basic human emotions to everybody except, I guess, the Fire Nation - give me the ability to simultaneously feel compassion and hold a grudge. I'm not forgiving you for being cruel until I believe you won't do it again. Which might never happen. I don't know. I can't predict what you'll do. I'm still not totally convinced that you can."

Zuko blinked in surprise and then uncomfortable understanding. It was true enough that he had been inconsistent, that he had felt himself torn in the middle of that battling duality.

This was different, though. He no longer felt the intense conflict and turmoil he had felt before deciding to free his men. He no longer felt the dull ache in his stomach as he so frequently had since the fight on the beach. He felt... at peace. Terrified and constantly fending off some measure of panic, but... weirdly okay with that.

"For what it's worth," he said, settling his hands around his cup and peering back at her, "I may not know everything that's coming, or everything I'm going to do, but I can predict with total confidence that I'm not going to be like I was before."

Katara squinted at him. "Total confidence? That seems optimistic."

"I know. You have good reasons to be skeptical. All I'm saying is, I don't want to go back. Being cruel to you didn't feel good, it didn't feel right - because it wasn't right. It was wrong, so it felt wrong. I'm confident I won't backslide because I'm no longer confused about what that feeling means."

She didn't look convinced. If anything, she looked more dubious and troubled than she had before.

Beneath the surface, Katara was thinking, trying to understand what it meant that Zuko's sense of right and wrong was so warped. She was thinking how it made a certain terrible kind of sense, the way he told the story of his Agni Kai - which had not been an Agni Kai at all to her understanding because that was supposed to be a duel and... and what Zuko described had not been a duel. In any case, Zuko had framed it as a humiliation because of his weakness and cowardice, but it was entirely evident to Katara that it had been a humiliation because his father had done a terrible thing to him in front of all those people. Essentially, his father had punished him for being good, and for standing up for what was right.

And Zuko had learned to mistrust his own sense of what was right and what was wrong.

Despite what she'd told Zuko about her Water Tribe sensibilities, it was difficult to think all this and not get caught up in the riptide of horror and compassion. It was hard to both mentally sort through this and remain present in the conversation. And remain appropriately caustic.

But to Zuko, her only outward emotion was that persistent disbelief. It was so frustrating to try so hard, to exert so much feeling into explaining his current right actions, only for his messed-up past to be the only thing that actually seemed to reach her. It rankled, chafed horribly on his pride and his sense of himself as someone who had struggled to overcome suffering that that suffering itself would be the thing to catch her attention. He was so much more! He was so much stronger than he had been then! So much more worthy! Why couldn't she see that?

Clearly, it had been a mistake to tell her. But it was too late now to take it back.

So Zuko only huffed out a breath and took a big swallow of very hot tea and scowled down at the fruit and buns. He didn't want to eat, but it would be better than talking to her. With careless snatches of his chopsticks, he gathered some random food on his plate and shoved something between his teeth so he could chew it furiously.

"Alright," Katara sighed after a long, quiet moment, "I can accept that you're confident about this change, but that doesn't mean I share that confidence. Maybe eventually..." She shrugged and looked away from him toward the food she had yet to touch.

"I understand," Zuko said instead of urging her to eat something. "It takes as long as it takes." Not looking at her, he reached out and took another bun for his plate, hoping she might be lured by example.

She was not. She sipped her tea and then turned the cup on the table between thumb and forefinger.

"You know, in retrospect, it was actually pretty brave to go around facing down all those nobles that way," she finally said with a faint bright note. "And you actually seemed to do well in those talks, too..."

"Don't patronize me," Zuko said witheringly, annoyed both by her refusal to eat anything and her return to this topic.

She arched an eyebrow at him, curled her lip. "I just mean you recited an awful lot of statistics and big words for a guy who, in my experience, seemed to struggle with simple concepts like 'is that last airbender the Avatar?' and 'should I fight the waterbender on the dock where all the water is?'"

Zuko lowered his chopsticks with the latest piece of sparkfruit uneaten and turned his head to fully fix her with his offended, irate stare. "You thought I was stupid?"

Katara shrugged a little. "I mean, I didn't think you were smart..."

She wasn't teasing him. She wasn't even trying to be mean. He could tell by the faint surprise rounding her eyes and tugging down on her mouth. She had actually, genuinely thought that he was at least kind of stupid. And evidence that he was not entirely stupid had, to some degree, impressed her.

Perversely, he found one corner of his mouth tugging upward. He huffed and ate the fruit to force the smile away.

"I had to do drills to memorize all those statistics," he found himself saying. "A lot of it was talking points provided by the Fire Lord's ministers. Which I obviously don't have access to anymore."

"Talking points?"

"Things I was supposed to say as I argued the Fire Lord's case."

Her eyes were getting wider. Something in her expression was tightening, hardening. "He sent you to do that."

Zuko met her stare for a moment longer, then shrugged slightly. Because, obviously. "Yeah. He wanted me to quell dissidence. It's the duty of the Crown Prince to support the Fire Lord's agenda."

Her chin stuck out below her clamped mouth. Lines pulled taut around her flared nostrils as she drew a deep breath. She looked, for just a moment, like she was going to leap up and do something violent. Zuko tensed unthinkingly.

Then she sniffed and her expression eased. "And I had to be there to threaten them," she added blandly, pressing one hand to her chest.

"That was his plan."

"Well," Katara huffed. "He's gonna get some real dissidence now. Enough to choke on." She raised her teacup and muttered over it. "...smug evil slusher."

Zuko was not prepared for the rush of emotion that came barreling through him as he watched her angrily sip her tea and curse his father. Because he wasn't entirely clear on where this fury had come from, but he knew it wasn't about serving the tea anymore. There was a viciousness to the way she stabbed some fruit off one of the plates, and her mouth remained tight as she took a bite and chewed. She had been angry over the tea-pouring. Hurt. This was something else.

It was outrage. Vengeful loathing. And it was directed not at Zuko, but at the Fire Lord. It was shocking in its intensity; it shocked Zuko very much that she could hate him - or feel whatever complicated, definitely-anger-based emotion she felt for him most of the time now - and still find it in her to feel this intensely about his father over... whatever exactly...

It was probably just some Water Tribe thing. They were so disgustingly saccharine about their families. Of course his father would seem... especially bad... from a Water Tribe perspective...

But Zuko wasn't Water Tribe. He wasn't subject to their culture. And neither was his father.

Zuko's posture didn't change - he still sat as straight as if he was entertaining one of the court - but he relaxed minutely as Katara devoured more fruit and then a couple of the buns. He didn't stare at her or anything, kept his eyes firmly on his own food as he ate, but he was very aware of her every move.

It was pleasant, sharing this silence with her. Just being still near her, catching her quiet sounds and faint scent. The rain had picked back up again and it pattered on the roof, but here, they were dry and listened peacefully to its tuneless music. His tea table was once again a tranquil bubble where the horrible, painful parts of Zuko's life could wait and be faced later, just a little later.

Another little rap came from the door and Zuko looked up to find Iyuma leaning inside, her eyes tracking from the desk over to where they now sat. Her eyebrows formed two odd little arches, but her grin was the same.

"Sorry to interrupt while you're eating - Bogara's organizing people for the lesson and she wanted me to check whether you only wanted a few students at a time or just anybody who wants to come..?"

Katara, with a mouthful of fruit, shrugged and hurriedly swallowed. "Wow, um, anybody is fine. It's a big courtyard."

"Great, I'll tell her."

But, instead of leaving, Iyuma leaned farther into the room, peering at the spread on the table.

"Are those bean buns or sweet buns?"

Zuko sighed loudly and watched her through narrowed eyes, but she seemed unaffected. Katara also ignored him.

"Bean. Do you want one?"

"Nah - I had some of those already. I keep holding out hope for the sweet ones, but-"

"Just ask Machi," Zuko finally huffed. "She can have the cook make them for you. It's not a big deal."

Iyuma looked at him then, and it was an arch, measuring kind of look that he had never seen on her face before. Like she was weighing something out in her head before she said it.

"Do you just make that poor woman do everything for you?"

Zuko blinked, taken aback by her tart tone and her hands, suddenly braced on her hips. Iyuma had always been on the outspoken side but this was... new. Like a stranger had decided to suddenly burst out of the healer he had been somewhat acquainted with.

"She's a majordomo," he defended, frowning harder to cover his confusion. "She manages my household. It's her job."

"And you don't even marry her first? That's a terrible job."

Zuko's face washed in appalled heat, and he drew breath to yell something but was immediately distracted by a loud, choking chortle. Katara coughed tea back into her cup and hunched, dribbling disgustingly over her plate. She was laughing so hard she seemed unable to breathe. Zuko was momentarily transfixed by the look on her face, her unbridled, almost pained delight.

"Okay, thanks, byyye," Iyuma called as she beat a hasty retreat.

Zuko, reminded of his outrage, glared after her and then at Katara - who caught his eye and started laughing all over again, covering her mouth with a napkin bunched in both hands.

"I'm not marrying my majordomo," he said hotly to her since she was the only potential target in range.

"A-ha-ha-are you sure? Because I think you and Ma-ha-chi would make a cu-hoo-hoo-te c-couple!" She dissolved into giggles. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes were sparkling with tears.

Zuko glowered at her. It was so aggravating, how pretty she was like this. He hadn't seen her laugh like this in so long... fighting a losing battle against her amusement... He couldn't pinpoint the memory now, but it seemed like it had been at his expense that time, too.

Which, he supposed, being laughed at by Katara wasn't... the worst feeling.

In fact, his anger was slowly being subsumed into a more complex, larger feeling that was harder to identify. It welled up in him like the tide in the night, unseen and overwhelming, expansive; in the face of that, his anger seemed so small and silly. Just a little nipping fish beside a whale.

She finally seemed to get ahold of herself and took a sip of tea. Zuko forced himself to stop staring at her.

"What's wrong with her? Why is she acting so weird?"

Katara watched him over her teacup. "I'm just throwing out a guess here, but I think she took your apology to heart."

"And now she's going to just disrespect me all the time? Great! Because that makes perfect sense!"

"She wasn't disrespecting you," she said, somewhere between withering and amused. "She was treating you like a boy in the tribe. You were being rude and dismissive, so she teased you to take the wind out of your sails. If anything, she was showing you respect by trying to include you..."

She trailed off as if she was thinking about this, but Zuko didn't notice. In a way, it felt kind of nice, being included. But also terrible. Poignantly touching too close to a raw nerve. It reminded him of the rebel base, of Sokka before he figured out who Zuko was...

But informality with the common folk was not something that a Fire Prince could just allow... probably.

"I'm not some Water Tribe boy. She can't just barge into my meetings and harass me."

"You left the door open. How is it barging in?"

"She's interrupting. We're having an important discussion."

"We weren't even talking this time. We were eating breakfast in silence."

"But it was a meaningful silence."

Katara fixed him with a wry frown, but her eyes were glinting like she was already making fun of him. Zuko flushed and picked up his tea to have something to do with his hands - only to discover the cup was empty. He raised the pot to refill it.

"And just what did that meaningful silence mean to you, Zuko?"

She didn't sound amused exactly, but it wasn't quite the low threatening tone she'd used earlier, either. Zuko paused with the teapot in hand and flicked up his eyes to take in her mildly curious, suspicious expression.

"It meant," he enunciated, "that you can stand to sit and share a meal with me of your own volition. Which seems to suggest you don't entirely hate me anymore." He blinked, looked away to focus on pouring his tea. "At least not all the time."

For a second, the splash of tea was the only sound. Then Katara sighed and moved her own teacup so that it would be within his reach. Zuko glanced up at her bland mask and then refilled her cup as well.

Katara watched his hands, her eyes narrowing as she mercilessly judged the quality of his pour for the second time. The angle of his wrist was wrong. The tea did not strike the correct place in the bottom of the cup and the sound was slightly off. A poor pour indeed. The thoughts - their very presence in her mind - filled her with a simmering resentment. But more than that was the incredible irritation that so much of her time and energy and attention had gone into perfecting the prince's tea experiences-

-and he obviously just didn't care. At all. Those details were beneath his royal notice.

Also irritating was the fact that it was ultimately a small matter. Just one of Zuko's many annoying qualities. This one was at least not nearly so destructive as his habit of concealing information that would have made a difference in how she felt about her situation over the past few weeks.

Katara examined his scarred face and her own expression settled into a faint but steady, stewing glower.

It hadn't been an Agni Kai at all. Zuko had been... she had to pause to think about it, to remember, Sokka's age minus a five year banishment, so... thirteen. A kid. And he hadn't wanted to fight. And his father had burned his kid's face, scarred him forever in front of all those terrible people, driven him from his home on an impossible quest...

...all over disrespect...

Or so Zuko seemed to believe. But Katara was remembering what she had seen and heard and especially felt when Zuko's father spoke to him. It was not a feeling she was accustomed to, so it was not easy to put words to it, but she was starting to work her fingers around that slippery seaprune and understand its true nature.

She had known at once that the Fire Lord would kill Zuko over his rebellion, but she hadn't realized the direct effort he had invested into stamping out Zuko's sense of right and wrong. And while Zuko seemed to recognize that his father would try to subjugate Katara given the chance, he seemed less aware of his father's ruthless attempts to subjugate him.

Even after Zuko had somehow achieved the impossible and returned home, the Fire Lord had sent him marching around Caldera in what Katara very suddenly recognized as an intentional demand for self-effacement and submission. Because why else should it have fallen to Zuko to look all those people in the eye and defend the man who had created their low opinion of him?

It wasn't just some duty or act of service like he tried to say, not even if that was what he actually believed. Katara knew duties and acts of service. She had done all sorts of humble but necessary tasks for her tribe and her family, and that wasn't a big deal.

This was.

All that time, Zuko had seemed so proud and rigid, so uncompromising. And he was just eating his pride every day at his father's command. He was inflicting all that misery and embarrassment and frustration on himself like he somehow deserved to scratch and fight for every scrap of respect from those people. From his father.

It wasn't entirely clear to Katara whether he had realized yet that this was not right or okay. He was so endlessly angry - and that bottomless supply made a kind of sense now - on some level, he had to realize he had been horribly wronged, and not just once but over and over.

He could puff up about it all he wanted. It was impossible not to feel a little pity for him.

But way more than that, Katara was freshly furious. With the Fire Lord - but also with Zuko himself. They were two very distinct types of fury; the first was a cold and unflinching hatred, while the second was harder to identify but rattled through all her fragments like striking a half-mended bell.

Presently, Zuko sat straight-backed and dignified as he poured her tea - with an utter lack of skill - and his eyes were lowered, fixed on his task. The furrow in his brow had softened in this, his calming ritual. He looked almost unfamiliar without the wary sharpness in his eyes. Or perhaps it was his loose hair, which obscured part of his scar and made him look almost... normal. Even the scar itself, which had for so long matched the anger on the other side of his face, seemed softened by the almost-peaceful look that had presently replaced it.

And, just visible below the fine fabric of his pants where it gathered over his knee, were his toes, pale and small and still bare from the haste of this morning.

He just looked like an overly formal boy pouring tea.

Katara's heart tore at the sight of him. So many strands were weaving together to create him, the new Zuko, and he was putting even the damaged ones to work. Pain had made him capable of cruelty - but it had made him strong, too. And now he was using that strength to keep himself in check, to correct what someone else had made wrong. For just a few seconds, she allowed herself to admire him. What he was forging himself into.

This was her ally. They were going to back each other up in the fights ahead. He was going to help her help her people. He was complicated and confused and emotionally unstable sometimes - but he was getting stronger every day. And he was still somehow the boy she had chosen, who she had led down into that valley and down into the hold and whose arms in the dark had for a while seemed like the safest, most comforting place in the entire world.

For just a moment, she saw how he was struggling and let herself want to help him.

Zuko gently thunked the teapot back down with the spout pointing in a nonsensical direction. Katara let out another long sigh and pushed the warm feelings away with her breath.

She had to focus. If she didn't hate him anymore like he said - and, to her disgust and alarm, he was right - then she was vulnerable. Hating him had protected her, keeping her at a safe distance. Without it, she sensed she could easily lose sight of her purpose and her self. She could become wrapped up in Zuko's struggle and neglect her own.

The thought had her heart racing with sudden terror, like looking down and realizing there was an unexpected cliff before her. Her hand trembled faintly as she reached for her teacup, but she pressed her fingers to the hot porcelain and stilled it. She let the sting center her.

Katara didn't come here to flinch away from pain and fear. She wasn't here to help Zuko sort through his emotions or alleviate his conscience. Those were his problems to deal with. Katara was here to protect her people, and to secure her ally for their shared purpose. Part of working with Zuko was, unfortunately, being around him, so she needed to remind herself of a few things. She needed to hear him say some things; she needed to know where his mind was.

And... the resentment simmering in her ran so much deeper than tea pouring. There were things she needed to say to him.

"I mostly don't hate you now," she admitted, abandoning the cup and folding her arms over her chest. "But I can't decide whether I hated you most on the ship or after the full moon party."

She watched him pick up his cup and pause, staring at her instead of paying any attention to what had to be very hot porcelain in his hand. He didn't speak, just sat waiting, listening. The wariness was back in his eyes.

"The party was... awful. I got to see my culture turned into a joke by the people who have all but eradicated it, and then the Fire Lord himself mocked me for everyone's amusement."

Zuko nodded grimly. "That was messed up."

He seemed like he wanted to say more, but Katara rolled over him. "So demonstrating my bending - at your command - just made me feel like a party favor. And later, in the garden... I was gonna lose my mind if I stayed in that apartment any longer, remembering all those people staring at me and having such a great time..."

She paused, and he didn't speak, but she could see the knowledge in his careful expression now. He had felt those eyes follow him, too. Not the same... but not entirely different, either. She shied away from thinking too hard about that now, but the awareness steadied her as she went on.

"And there you were, waiting in the garden to top off a really special night by correcting my tone."

Katara scowled at him, but then rolled her eyes and shook her head, thinking of the healers. It would be best for them if she could come to some kind of acceptance over this and put the grudge to bed. And, after what Zuko had told her... It just seemed so minor in the grand scheme of things.

She felt herself horribly pinched between her actual, intense feelings and the certainty that those feelings were too much, that it could have been so much worse, that she wasn't being grateful for Tui's favorable currents. A massive pressure built within her. Suddenly, she was scowling to fight back tears.

"It's so stupid. I hated you so much for that, it hurt me so much, but it was just a few words-"

"Don't," Zuko broke in quietly. "It hurt you. It wasn't just words."

Katara's eyes snapped to him. He looked back at her steadily, his face serious and unflinching. It shouldn't have mattered what he thought - he was the one who had hurt her. But it did matter. He was responsible for her pain, but he wasn't taking the easy out; he wasn't going to let her downplay what he'd done or what she'd felt.

All at once, a dam she hadn't realized she was building inside herself burst. Her feelings weren't too much. They were justified.

Oh, it ached. It hurt so desperately, like the lancing flex of broken ribs - or the agony of setting a bone. But with the pain came a rush of clean freedom. Relief.

To her horror, a few tears escaped and darted down her cheeks. There was no hiding them, so Katara quickly brushed them off, glaring at the wall beyond Zuko so she didn't have to see the strained, almost stricken look on his face. She had managed not to cry in front of him for so long. How embarrassing that it was happening now.

In her distraction, she did not see how Zuko glared briefly at the ceiling, fighting back his own surge of emotion. The sight of her tears always effected him strongly, but the thing really cutting him to the quick now was the realization that he had never fully understood why she had said she hated him that night.

But she had just told him. She had told him and he immediately understood and now he could do something about it.

He quickly marshaled his control and peered back at her, laying one hand flat on the table and the other on the floor by his leg as he spoke.

"You were resisting in the only way you could, the only way you had left, and I tried to take that last weapon away, too. I hurt you - when you were trapped with me, going through something awful with no escape and no friends - and then I had the nerve to resent you for not trusting me to help. I'm so, so sorry - that was pathetic and cruel."

Katara worked her jaw to the side and glanced down at his hand on the table, then at his face. She looked... rattled. Zuko wasn't sure how to interpret that.

"Yeah," she said. "You were really pathetic and cruel, Zuko. I get that I wasn't coming off as the most devoted oath-keeper, but you were so mean about it."

Zuko nodded and rubbed the back of his neck. His father's voice echoed sickeningly through memory. "At that party, the Fire Lord remarked that you'd taken a tone with me and I did nothing. He knew you weren't under control and that I wasn't doing what it would take to keep you under control. I was... ashamed, and I took that out on you by being mean."

"That's not okay."

"I know. It's not gonna happen again."

Katara peered askance at him like she was trying to decide whether to believe this. As if she felt like she had to believe it and was struggling to force herself and failing.

"It's okay. You don't have to take my word for it right now." He unthinkingly straightened and lifted his chin a degree. He wasn't aware of the honest shine on his face, the determined angle of his brow. "It'll take time, but I'll show you."

She stared at him more directly, then looked away and shrugged. She slid her teacup along the table, pulling it closer to her. "What did he want you to do? Beat me up or something?"

Zuko scowled. His good ear was hot. "I don't know exactly, but probably something along those lines. Something that would make you afraid. I didn't really want to think too hard about what he thought that would take. I still don't. But I was ashamed then that I was too weak to do whatever it was. I mean! I know now that it wasn't weakness. It was my conscience. But what I actually did wasn't right, either, just... marginally less wrong. Still pathetic and cruel."

He was startled to hear her faint huff of laughter, to see her mouth twitch up on one side. "And that's why he's an award-winner, folks."

The 'Not As Terrible As You Could Have Been' award, for which the bar was so embarrassingly low.

Zuko could only stare at her for a moment as she leaned one forearm on the table and sipped her tea. She didn't seem amused exactly, but it was like a tension she had been holding inside had been spent.

Her posture really was terrible. Zuko didn't remember it being this bad before... and it was in this moment, as she poked fun at him and hunched against the table like an old sailor, that he realized what a relief it was to see. The shape of her had become so static over the past weeks - still and rigid and kneeling in a slave's humble bend. Now, she seemed determined to sit as comfortably as she could.

It very nearly made him want to slouch a bit, too. But he couldn't. Princes in meetings with allies didn't slouch.

"You said..." He didn't want to bring this up. But he knew it had to happen eventually. She had mentioned it and that suggested that she was ready to address it. "...you may have hated me more on the ship. Do you want to talk about it?"

Katara peered at him, and the not-quite-amusement was gone now from her eyes. Internally, she was debating whether it was worth starting this conversation. Her emotions had taken her by surprise already and the hour had to be nearly up by now...

But she watched Zuko tip up his chin, seeming to brace himself for what was coming. They both knew this had to happen. Now was the time.

"No, I definitely hated you more on the ship," she finally said, and even though her voice was quiet, it was hard. She tried to let her sadness sink below the surface so that the anger could ice over it, protect her, but they swam together like two darting fish, leaving her voice low and thick with feeling.

"When it was all so fresh and not-quite-real yet, the way horrible things feel right after they happen. That's when I hated you the most. Because the world before you turned on me was still so close; it hadn't quite all burned up yet." Her throat felt tight, but she swallowed and kept going, glared into his eyes and said it. "You went after Aang like I didn't even matter. Like everything between us was all just... nothing to you. Just a way to pass the time before you got to your destiny-"

He shook his head, a little desperation in his eyes now, a hint of his own anger. "That's not true. You know it wasn't nothing to me."

"Sure. Because when I woke up after the fight," Katara said with deadly slowness, "you wanted to pick right back up where we left off. Just a different ship, right? As if I wasn't shackled to a bed. As if you hadn't locked up all my friends and doomed the world, and as if your crazy sister hadn't killed a member of my family." She narrowed her eyes, then shook her head. "It was her, wasn't it?"

Zuko swallowed and nodded. "Yeah. Azula killed Tukna."

Katara accepted this without comment and went on, unrelenting. "And if you had just... had this little epiphany before then, none of that would have happened."

He looked ill. His cheek had gone pallid and his lips were parted as if to emit some pained sound. Then he shut his eyes and turned his face away as it twisted, pulled downward. It took him a moment to get a handle on whatever he was feeling, but Katara only watched him struggle. Her own emotional storm whirled around her, peeling roofs off houses, but she waited there in the eye.

"That's probably true," Zuko finally said. He looked back at her, calm but scowling. "But I didn't. I couldn't then. There were things I had to see to accept and believe, even though everyone around me was telling me..." He shook his head. The scowl was more a grimace now. "The people I felt like I could trust weren't the people I was supposed to be trusting. And the people I was supposed to be able to trust were... not trustworthy. My sense of reality was in conflict with my sense of what should be and what I wanted to be. So I wasn't thinking realistically about... a lot of things. Putting everything right has been..."

"A process?" Katara spat.

Zuko only clenched his jaw and nodded. "I've been confused for a long time. It's a lot to think about."

Katara rolled her eyes and blew out a disgusted, furious sigh. She could not have guessed from the grim look on his face, but Zuko was thinking unaccountably of Sokka, who had leaned over the trunk in the hold to pat his shoulder, all smiley and self-satisfied.

Consider this my first act as your brother, buddy. I'm only saving you from yourself.

The wash of pain and betrayal was immediate, but not as powerful as it had once been. It was tempered now with guilt and regret for the punishments he had later inflicted on Sokka when he was at his mercy. So it was not so hard now to think of brothers who locked each other in boxes. It was not so far-fetched and confusing to imagine that Sokka really had meant to save him.

It was just heartbreaking that he had failed.

"My sense of right and wrong was so tangled up," Zuko continued. His grimace was fainter, more pained than angry now, and Katara still watched him with hard eyes. "It felt wrong to fight you, but it also seemed wrong to turn against my family and my people. I thought choosing you would mean I was weak and undisciplined, letting my heart outweigh what my head was telling me was the right thing to do. I wanted you and... and what I thought was my destiny both so much, Katara... so I was indecisive. I didn't even fully make up my mind until I was standing between you and Azula."

Her eyes narrowed like she thought he was lying, but Zuko just went on, too caught up in remembering that moment.

"You almost had her," he said with a little wonder. "In those tentacles. But then she called me and... suddenly, she was my little sister again, and she was in trouble-"

"You made up your mind when you left the ship," Katara corrected him sharply, her eyes shining and furious.

For a second, Zuko thought she meant when he had set the rigging on fire and leapt onto the beach. But then she went on.

"When you left my necklace behind, and me and... us! Maybe you committed on the beach, but you decided to leave before dawn. Without a word to me! Without even saying goodbye!"

Zuko hesitated, a nasty battle raging in him. On the one side, he wanted Katara to know the truth. He wanted her to know he hadn't abandoned her like she was thinking, that he wouldn't do that. He wanted her to have an objective, clear view of what had happened. That was right and fair...

...But could he honestly say that he wouldn't have chased after Toph when the moment came? Knowing what he knew now, he certainly wouldn't have done that, but back then... he probably would have. He probably would have chased her and fought her, even though she was just a smart-mouthed kid. He sure hadn't hesitated to wrestle down the Avatar on that beach later. He could still remember how those skinny arms had felt clamped under his hands. Before Hakoda had tackled him.

The thought of admitting that he had spent those hours before dawn tied up in a trunk where Sokka and Hakoda had put him filled Zuko with unspeakable shame. He assumed it was because he had been so blind-sided. He had forgotten somehow that those Water Tribe men were his enemies and had carelessly let them at his back. He had been naive and foolish. And that was deeply embarrassing.

He did not pause to consider that what he was feeling was a raw, untouchable shame very similar to what he felt when he thought of his father's lesson in respect. Only this time, there had been no Fire Court watching. This time, the shame could be contained, limited in its scope and power to diminish him. It was a capsule of humiliation that existed only between him and the men who had been on deck that night. Him and Sokka. Him and Hakoda.

Katara didn't... have to know...

And what did it matter anyway? He had still made his own choice. What Hakoda and Sokka did hadn't changed anything in the end. Telling Katara about it now... it felt like playing on her sympathies. It felt like making her feel sorry for him to convince her that what he'd done wasn't so bad. He'd already told her about the Agni Kai, and she had clearly been effected by the knowledge. That wasn't an honorable way to earn forgiveness, especially not for this most personal betrayal.

No, she didn't need to know about the trunk.

But he could correct the record a little, in one small way.

"I didn't leave your necklace," Zuko said steadily, looking into her angry eyes and trying to show her the depth of the truth he was telling her. "Your dad took it back."

Her eyes widened, then narrowed in suspicion, and she seemed to be considering this, running it alongside the information she already knew. That made Zuko nervous - because if she asked any follow-up questions, he wasn't going to be able to lie about it. He rushed on before she could voice the question he saw forming in her eyes.

"But that doesn't really make much of a difference, because I made my choice on the beach, and I chose Azula. I should have chosen you. I see that now. It would have been the right thing to do. For the world and for us-"

It flashed cruelly through his mind; soaring above the clouds with Iroh and Sokka and Toph and the kid Avatar but most especially Katara with the wind in her hair and delight in her eyes... and when they landed and slipped away from the others, he would have been allowed sometimes to kiss her starlit skin.

"That's not what I did, though," Zuko went on, dragging himself back down to this moment, where she watched him with echoes of betrayal laying lines in her face. His heart felt a stab with every beat. "I'd take it back if I could, but I can't. I'm... I am sorrier than I have words for, Katara. I made a terrible mistake. And then I couldn't seem to stop making mistakes until... I figured stuff out. I'm trying to make up for it now, but I realize-"

"There's no fixing this," Katara bit out. Her eyes were tight and angry and her mouth was a fighting slant. "There are no pretty apologies or logical maneuvers or grand actions you can take that will make up for what you did. For what you made me feel. I'm willing to work with you now because I have to for the good of my people and the world. But if I had a real choice, I wouldn't subject myself to facing you every day, waiting for your next world-shattering mistake."

Zuko sat transfixed, staring at her in a moment of stunned pain. Then he managed to nod as his expression slipped from shock to bitter acceptance. "I understand. I know the chances of you forgiving me are pretty low. But I still want to try."

"Did you ever consider," she asked, her voice low and cutting, "that just giving it up might be a relief to both of us?"

"Yes, actually," he returned with tight irritation. "I seem to remember sending you away a couple times. But you kept coming back, and-"

-it was always such a relief to see you coming.

Zuko bit his tongue and glared at her. "As long as we're working together, I'm not gonna stop trying to earn your trust and forgiveness. So you can run away any time you want, but as long as you don't, you'd better just get used to it."

Her mouth tightened like she meant to snarl something back, but there was another little rap at the door. They both jerked toward the sound.

"Heeey, sorry," Iyuma said from the doorway. Her breezy tone faded as she took in their angry faces. "Uh... Bogara heard we're moving and wants to know what everyone can do to help?"

Katara swallowed back whatever she had been on the brink of saying, but Zuko had had enough. The pain and frustration in him came bubbling up.

"Who is this person?" he nearly shouted. "Why can't she just ask Machi her stupid questions?"

Iyuma stood stunned in the doorway, uncertainty in her eyes now. Zuko had time to feel a pang of guilt.

"Don't you shout at Iyuma," Katara snapped. He redirected his ire at her.

"Fine! Tell your subject to quit interrupting our meeting!"

"It's obviously not her idea. Bogara's been sending her. Don't punish the messenger like a jerk."

"Who is Bogara?"

"She's-" Katara hesitated, seeming unsure of how to answer. She glanced at Iyuma. "-a healer..."

"She's kind of our self-appointed leader," Iyuma offered. Zuko fixed her with a glare but he didn't raise his voice this time.

"Princess Katara is your leader."

"Well obviously," Iyuma said with a tight little shrug. "But she's busy being a hero and attending weird meetings. Somebody has to take care of the day-to-day stuff. Bogara used to be on the Council of Healers so she's used to organizing people."

"Oh, that's so nice," Katara said.

"Good," Zuko huffed. "Then she can work with Machi to keep things running smoothly while we're gone."

"Gone? Who's gonna be gone?" Iyuma asked, wide-eyed.

"Zuko and I are going on a..." Katara shot him a narrow look. "...business trip."

"In Harbor City," Zuko lied stiffly. "More meetings. Regarding... the solstice festival. Don't worry about it. We'll be back the day after tomorrow."

Iyuma assessed him for a long moment. Her eyes flicked sideways to Katara - and when Zuko followed the glance, he saw her cheeks were rosy and hot. For reasons-

She anticipates being alone with you. Truly alone. She wanted the door shut on this meeting - her blood was hot from the fight, too. She may not like you, but she still likes to fight. She'd still like the other things your body can do, too-

-Zuko quickly realized he should not try to imagine. He switched his focus back to Iyuma and held his chin high, daring her to challenge him. She finally scoffed and folded her arms loosely over her chest.

"Now you two are going off alone together on an overnight trip? Bogara is gonna flip."

"She's not my Gran-gran," Katara objected loudly at the same time Zuko barked, "Nothing disreputable is going on!"

"Right," Iyuma said as she took in both of their panicky faces. Then she settled on Katara and one side of her mouth started creeping up wickedly. "She may not be your Gran-gran, but she's decided you need someone to stand for you, being as you have no family present and you're just a sweet little sixteen-year-old baby."

"She's a warrior," Zuko corrected hotly. "She deserves the same respect you'd give any of the men."

"Sad news - sixteen-year-old men are also known as boys. And the respect they get is liberally peppered with care-taking." Iyuma's eyes narrowed ever so slightly in thought. "How old are you, Prince Zuko?"

"I'm an adult," he sneered. "And as a prince of another nation, I will not be-"

"He's eighteen," Katara volunteered. Zuko shot her a betrayed look, which she just returned with faintly smug resignation. "If I go down, you're going down too."

"In battle! I'm not about to be babysat by a pack of Water Tribe women!"

"It seems to me," Iyuma said, shrugging and peering innocently at the wall above them, "that if a prince pledged to support and protect a group of displaced women, he might respect their culture and traditions enough to endure some minor inconveniences that would make his guests feel more comfortable and respected."

Zuko glared at her, then pinched the bridge of his nose for a long, silent moment. He knew he was being worked over - this was clearly some manner of girl trickery - but he couldn't rage his way out and he wasn't sure how proper it was to refuse to accommodate his guests in this situation. And he couldn't simply ignore an opportunity to stand by the promise he had just made...

Because he was not looking, he didn't see the sly smile Iyuma shot Katara, or the disbelieving grin Katara returned as she recognized tactics she had learned from her Gran-gran. Bait a trap with honey. Put things into perspective.

Your request is his chance to provide.

And now Katara was seeing it done by what suddenly appeared to be a master. Iyuma had clearly practiced with real boys who weren't her brother. Katara was immediately a little jealous.

Of her skills. Not... Not of her using them on Zuko. Obviously!

Not that that wasn't also kind of weird...

It wasn't immediately clear why Iyuma felt like Zuko needed to be drawn into a role in their little tribe. He was technically right. He was an adult by Water Tribe standards, and he wasn't even Water Tribe to start with. He could fulfill his pledge and remain at a distance from them.

But as Katara thought about it, she realized it was a smart move. The healers had been mistrustful of allying themselves to the Fire Prince from the start, and their fight this morning couldn't have done much to build confidence, even if his apology had been a point in his favor for many of them. If Zuko remained an aloof benefactor - which was a very Fire Prince approach that he clearly preferred - they would be essentially forced for the foreseeable future to live in the household of someone they feared and suspected.

However, if they could be convinced to see him as part of their community... as an almost-normal boy... maybe they could manage to find a little peace even with him under the same roof.

And if Katara felt a quiet compulsion to forcibly replace the prince she had detested with the boy she had loved, she did not think about that right now.

Presently, Zuko dropped his hand to his thigh and fixed Iyuma with a scowl that was completely undiminished in its intensity.

"What kind of minor inconveniences?"

Katara folded her arms over her chest and allowed herself the faintest smirk. It would be better for the healers this way.

...and if it made Zuko squirm... well, that was just a fun little bonus.