A/N: I am a silly goose. I posted this almost four days ago on AO3 and completely forgot to post it here.

The first time Katara wakes up from a nightmare after that fateful night, neither of them know quite what to do. Before, when she would wake up crying, Azula would at first just leave her alone. After a few weeks, she would sometimes offer a few reassuring words, or her best attempt at reassuring words. Once or twice, she'd reach out, the slightest touch on Katara's shoulder, and withdraw her hand once Katara fully woke up.

But that doesn't really work anymore, does it?

When Katara starts writhing in bed, covered in sweat, crying out, it takes only a few seconds for Azula to wake up. For a moment, she waits for Katara to wake up on her own as she sometimes does, but when she doesn't, she cautiously reaches out a hand.

Don't be ridiculous, Azula, she scolds herself. You've been sharing this bed with her for almost six months. You've kissed her. She's yourâ you can wake her up. She doesn't bite.

"Katara!"

When her name doesn't achieve the intended effect, she gently shakes Katara's shoulder.

"Katara!"

After a few minutes of nudging, whispering Katara's name, of helplessly stroking Katara's shoulder, Katara's eyes eventually open. For another minute-or-so, she can only mumble incoherent words, cries for help, 'no, no', and other such things, until she eventually wakes up fully.

"Azula?"

"You had a nightmare", Azula explains, and immediately feels stupid for it. Obviously Katara had a nightmare.

Katara manages to surprise her, though, when instead of wordlessly going back to sleep, like she usually does, or used to do since they started sleeping in the same bed â" she rolls over to place herself in Azula's arms.

What?

At this point, they've fallen asleep like this a couple times, and woken up like it more often. Katara has held Azula more than once, in circumstances Azula shudders to remember. But this is the first time, the first since the night they had accidentally fallen asleep together at least, that Katara seeks out Azula's comfort like this.

Cautiously, Azula wraps her other arm around Katara. Is rewarded with a noise of content and slowly begins to stroke her hair, like Katara has done with hers on occasion.

"I was back home", Katara whispers. "With the others. The black snow started falling, and there were soldiers everywhere, andâ andâ"

She starts sobbing again.

"I watched them burn. Every last one. I couldn't move, I couldn't look awayâ"

"I'm sorry", Azula whispers. "I'm sorry."

She holds Katara while she cries. Strokes her hair, whispers sweet nothings as well as she can. At one point, Katara turns around and burrows her face into Azula's nightgown, clings to her like she's drowning.

What she doesn't tell Azula is that in her nightmare, every single soldier had Azula's face.

When the tears subside at last, she lifts her head up from Azula's shoulder. She looks at Azula's face, searching for anything resembling her dream, any hatred, anger, cruelty. She doesn't find it, only uncertainty, awkwardly disguised concern. Azula is unsure what to do, so utterly unfamiliar with this sort of situation, but at least as far as Katara is concerned, there is no malice.

"Kiss me", Katara whispers.

The tears are stinging in her eyes again, overwhelmed with the contrast between her night terrors and the woman in bed beside her. Azula frowns.

"Are you sure?"

"Please", Katara pleads. "Just kiss me."

Make it okay.

Azula does.

As the days pass, this doesn't remain the only first for them. Azula, Katara finds, is not a hug person, or at least hasn't been one so far. The first few times she's hugged her after the night of the raid, Azula has frozen, fought down the battlefield impulse of throwing Katara over her shoulder like an enemy soldier who's trying to wrestle her to the ground. Even once she gets over that, she never quite knows what to do with herself, and when she embraces Katara back, it's stiff and awkward. But even though she cannot, rationally, see the point of a hug, she can't deny the way her body reacts to it, that rush of warmth, the almost imperceptible way (she thinks â" to Katara, it's obvious) she relaxes just the tiniest bit (for her standards, that's a lot) when Katara touches her.

Instead of eating at opposite ends of the huge table, Katara begins to sit at Azula's side. Occasionally, Azula comes home late to find Katara eating in the study or on the divan in the sitting room and simply joins her.

Once or twice, Azula comes home and starts venting about the war. On those evenings, Katara makes it a point to sleep in her own bed. Whatever their relationship may be, she needs Azula to remember who she is and what's standing between them. Who it is she's fighting. Maybe she needs to remind herself, too. There are some compromises she simply isn't prepared to make. Reconciling her feelings for Azula with Azula's role in the war is hard enough as it is; she won't play sounding board for the murder of her world.

Three weeks into their new situation, the day after one such evening, they go sparring again.

"You're in form today", Azula remarks between blasts.

"I'll show you how much", Katara retorts.

In truth, she's still angry. The evening before, Azula had come home spitting angry remarks about a lost battle, about the Earth Kingdom army, uncivilised, brutish, bla bla, and if Katara channels some of that anger into the match, who can blame her? She's astounded at herself how much she can separate Azula, the person from Azula, the Fire Lord and commander-in-chief, but that anger needs to go somewhere.

A wave crashes over Azula and slams her against a pillar before her flames vaporise it and Katara has to duck. A series of quick icicles are effortlessly dodged by Azula, and her retaliatory flames drown in Katara's water. Back and forth, fire and water. Katara makes her work for every little advantage, and in return, Azula exploits every opening to turn the tide back on Katara. The sweat flows almost as much as the water, and Katara is sure she'll be sore tomorrow.

After an hour of stalemate, Azula stumbles while dodging a water blast. Katara takes advantage to tackle her, and suddenly, they're wrestling, rolling around on the floor of the dojo. Azula throws Katara off herself, Katara catches her foot and brings her down again. Eventually, although they are evenly matched for bending, Azula's greater physical strength wins and she ends up kneeling on top of Katara and pinning her hands to the floor.

"Do you surrender?", she mockingly asks.

"Never", Katara teases back.

Between the way Azula has Katara pinned down underneath her and the way Katara edges her on and tries to provoke her into lowering her guard, something in Azula short-circuits, and she bends down and kisses Katara.

The moment she does, Katara stops struggling against Azula's grip. She lets out a surprised gasp that turns into a moan, and when Azula pulls back, Katara follows with her head to try and recapture her lips. Azula is all too happy to oblige. The smell and sight of sweat, the adrenaline pumping through her veins, coming out of an invigorating and exhausting matchâ it goes right to her head. After a few minutes of passionately making out, she lets go of Katara's hands, and while one of hers finds its way to Katara's cheek, Katara's arms wrap around Azula, pull her as close as possible to Katara's own body. They separate briefly for air, panting, before crashing their lips back together, mouths open, tonguesâ"

"Ahh!"

Neither of them hears the servant entering the dojo until the man screams in surprise. Faster than a blink, Azula has freed herself from Katara's arms and jumped to her feet. Katara freezes in shock.

"Your Majesty! Oh! The impropriety! To see such perversions, think ofâ""

Azula snaps.

"Silence."

The air crackles and a burning smell fills the dojo as lightning forms around her fists. She straightens herself up to her full length, tense like a polar-leopard ready to strike. With every step she takes, the servant takes one back, until his back hits the wall. Azula raises her arms, trails of flames from her fists following in her wake, until it looks like there are wings of fire growing from her arms and back. She plants one fist in the wall on each side of the man's head, and her next words come out like a deadly growl.

"What you believe you've seen, you have not. What you were about to say, you will not. Whatever you were thinking, you will forget."

The man can only nod in terror, but she isn't done yet.

"What's your name?"

"H-Hana, Highness."

She looks him up and down, putting enough fury in her eyes to almost burn through him. Next to his head, her fists spark and smoulder, burn an imprint into the wall.

"You're on General Chenzi's staff, aren't you? I remember your face. Your family comes from the Thousand Rivers province, right? Deruta Village, I think."

"Y-yes?"

"Then listen here, Hana."

The words come out as a whisper.

"If you breathe a single word of what you believe you have seen here, I will pay a visit to your home. I will tear your parents limb from limb. I will burn down their house. I will turn the entire village into ash, and I will be taking you with me. I will make sure they know why they have to die. Do you have a wife? A child? A lover? Friends? If you talk, no, if I hear anything about today, no matter from whom, from you or anyone else, I will make sure you will watch as everyone, everyone you know, every person you've ever talked to on the street, every merchant you've ever bought from, is burnt to ash right in front of you. And when nobody's left but youâ"

The entire time, the lightning has been dancing around her fingers and the smell of ozone is almost unbearable. Without warning, Azula spins around, aims her fingers, and an entire row of training dummies in the back is annihilated, reduced to dust finer than ash or shreds, as the pent-up energy discharges at once.

Azula brings her mouth to his ear and breathes the next words just barely loud enough to be heard.

"Do I make myself clear?"

During her tirade, the man has begun to cry, and now, with a petrified grimace of fear, he nods frantically. She puts her finger over his mouth before he can embarrass himself with words.

"Very good, Hana. Now, why are you here?"

With shaking hands, he hands her a scroll.

"Generalâ Sh-Shaziâ messageâ sent for youâ M-majestyâ"

She dismisses him with a wave of her hand, and he runs from the dojo as if his life depends on it. Azula breaks the seal on the scroll and is just about to read it when reality catches up with her.

Katara.

She lays where Azula left her, but it's the sound of her frantically gasping for air, wheezing and almost choking on her own spit, that first catches Azula's attention. At once, she is at her side, kneels down next to her, but Katara's tear-covered face only distorts into an expression of pure terror as she scrambles to get away from Azula.

"âKatara? Kataraâ"

Katara frantically shakes her head.

"What is it now?"

It takes her several minutes to decipher Katara's incoherent cries, interspersed with "please" and "don't" and fearful looks. Once or twice, Katara stares right through her, recoils in fear, screams and begs for help, like Azula isn't even there, like she's somewhere far away, long ago. She cries. Covers her face. Struggles for breath, flinches when Azula reaches out for her. But eventually, Azula thinks she's figured out the gist.

I scared her.

Lost for words, overwhelmed with this unexpected development, she at first habitually falls back into her usual voice: cold, detached, commanding. When that doesn't help any more than it did the last time, she sits down, holds out her empty hands.

"It's ok."
"I'm here."
"Don't worry."

After a while, Katara's breathing gradually slows to normal levels and she looks at Azula like she's noticed her for the first time again. She doesn't protest when Azula slowly reaches out for her, and the gasping for air gives way to full-body-wracking sobs as Azula pulls her into her arms. Cradles her, strokes her hair.

"It's okay. You're safe. Nobody will ever hurt you again, I promise."
(Helping)

"Anyone who tries will have to deal with me."
(Not helping)

Once the tears subside, Katara disentangles herself from Azula. For a second, she wants to just get up, walk away, anywhere, just away, and Azula can tell. Wonders if this is the moment she will truly lose Katara. Stands up to follow Katara, but Katara doesn't run, as much as she wants to. Instead, she turns back around to face Azula, and the expression on her face makes Azula want to take a step back herself.

"Nobody will ever hurt me? How can you say that?"

"The pastâ"", Azula begins, but Katara shakes her head.

"I'm not talking about the past. Just now, you threatened a man with murder â" worse, you threatened him withâ", helplessly, she searches for words, "with destroying his life, threatened the life of spirits know how many peopleâ just like that?"

Azula tenses. "I did what was necessary."

"No", Katara shakes her head. "It's in your blood. The cruelty, the violence. You were bred to hurt, Azula. You're a weapon. How can you tell me I'm safe? What if your feelings change, if you get bored of me? Are you going to turn on me and toss me aside like your friends?"

She sighs and looks at the floor.

"I was so stupid to get into this. I convinced myself to forget what you are."

The words hurt, more deeply than Azula expects, more deeply than she is prepared to show. Something inside her shatters, and for a second, a sharp remark, a fuck you, then or worse, is on the tip of her tongue and her fingers are itching to ignite.

Katara can tell.

Azula knows she can.

She takes a deep breath. Swallows all the insults, all the threats, that are so close to spilling out. Closes her eyes, breathes in and out. Opens them again. She doesn't usually make promises. People make promises to her. Katara's words ring in her head, conjure up memories of her so-called friends. But Katara's fears aren't entirely unjustified.

"Nobody will hurt you", she repeats. "Myself included. I promise."

"How can you say that?"

"Because I love you! Even if I don't know why!"

The words are out before she can stop them, and she immediately wants to take them back. She doesn't even know why she feels what she feels, they haven't spoken once about whatever they are to each other since Azula's spectacular self-destruction in front of Katara. It's the wrong word at the wrong time, and she wishes she could burn the taste of it from her tongue.

Katara doesn't say it back, and Azula secretly thanks the spirits for it. But when she takes a step forward and reaches out, Katara allows herself to be pulled into Azula's arms. Returns the hug and claws into Azula's back like she wants to tear her apart and hold on for life at the same time.

She's shown me her true face and I'm still going to let her have me? I looked away, I ignored what I believe in for comfort, but after this? The cruelty was always there, she's just hidden it. I remember that now.

But ultimately, after years of isolation, even Katara can't survive without some comfort. Someone to love.

"Let's go", Katara eventually mumbles into Azula's shoulder, when she runs out of tears and doesn't want to think about it any more. It's easier to look away. "It's cold."

Azula pretends not to know what Katara is running from.