If things between them were awkward before, now they are downright frigid. No, frigid isn't the right word. There is simply nothing between them. They don't talk at mealtimes anymore. Azula doubles her efforts to spend as much time away from Katara as possible. She rises before the sun and doesn't return until long after the sun has set and the moon has risen. When they see each other, neither knows how to act around the other.

A week after the incident, Azula leaves on an extended tour of the front to inspect her troops. Katara doesn't find out until Azula hasn't shown up at the table for several days.

Azula draws it out as much as possible. She doesn't need a reason. She goes over every port, every fortress, stages searches and interrogations of every battallion, every outpost. More than a few soldiers fall victim to her suspicions, more than a few spies are uncovered as a result of her paranoia. The generals and admiralty learn to fear her visits, their turn to be subjected to her burning stares when she questions their loyalties and competence.

When she's turned over every inch of military installations, rooted out every conspiracy she can smell, struck fear into the hearts of thousands of soldiers, she launches herself into battle. The soldiers of the Earthen–Water alliance learn to fear her sudden appearances on the battlefield. With every bruise, every cut, she feels more alive again. With every waterbender she strikes down, she tries to strike the memory of Katara from her mind. Every time she's forced to withdraw her troops, the fire inside her burns brighter.

The fall equinox comes and goes. In the capital city, Katara returns to her drawing, makes Azula's rooms her own once more in the absence of their owner.

After five weeks, Azula returns. Katara wakes up late at night when she hears the door open, hears Azula tell off a servant for suggesting she see the court physician. The door slams.

When she steps out of her room, she finds Azula at the window, looking up at the nearly full moon, covered in scratches and bruises. Blood has soaked her sleeve, dried into rust-brown spots, and something in Katara's chest aches at the sight. For weeks, she has pictured Azula, remembered that night. The contrast between her distressingly calm sleeping face and her bloodied appearance is staggering. Unsettling.

Once, I would have wanted to see you like this. Why does it scare me now?

"Sit down."

Azula flinches at Katara's voice. Absorbed in her own thoughts, she hasn't heard her at all. She spins around, tries to keep a straight face, tries to remain strong and unreadable. Ignores Katara's words, moves to retreat into her room.

Katara pulls out a chair and gestures at it. "Sit. Please."

Unperturbed by Azula's continued silence, she fetches a fresh cloth and a bowl of water. When she returns, Azula still rooted where she was, Katara wordlessly begins to undo her armour, unties strings and lifts the plates off of Azula's shoulders. Reluctantly, Azula sits down and lets Katara pull back her sleeves, shrugs off her robes herself.

Katara dips the cloth into the water. Wrings it out. Starts wiping dried blood, sweat, and dirt off Azula's skin. Lays bare her wounds and cleans them.

Then she summons water from the bowl and Azula tenses up.

The water is unexpectedly warm when it touches her skin. The faint glow is the only source of illumination in the room, together with the moonlight. Katara moves her hands over Azula's skin, feels the torn tendons, the burning underneath the skin, the blocked chi pathways. She mends skin and muscles, heals swelling, unblocks nerves and chi. Azula can feel herself relax against her will as the pain leaves her body and takes the tension with it.

"We lost Yed Zhao colony. Lee Gheng harbour, too."

The new front reaches almost all the way from the northern sea to Mo Ce; only a small stretch of coastline connects her domains in the west and the east.

Katara's heart skips a little. A Fire Nation defeat is a victory for her people. For peace and freedom. It means liberated towns and villages, people no longer crushed under the Fire Nation's boot. But to her consternation, she finds her relief mixed with worry. Concern for Azula, concern for her safety.

She moves to Azula's other shoulder. Continues her work. Clean. Heal. Mend and untangle. Wipe. Heal.

"It's bad. Much worse than is generally publicly known. At this pace, we'll have to retreat from the entire northwest within a year."

"I'll try to contain my disappointment", Katara snidely remarks, and Azula flinches. Tenses up.

She is the enemy. Of course. How could I forget?

It's so easy to let her guard down. Think of Katara as nothing but a healer. A room mate. Forget that Katara isn't the daughter of a nobleman, that this is the Fire Lord's palace, not the Royal Fire Nation Academy. That Katara isn't Mai or Ty Lee.

She has the decency to look the tiniest bit abashed. Katara tugs at the back of her tunic, waits for Azula to slide it down before she tends to the bruises there.

When Katara has finished, when Azula's body is pain-free again and Katara pours out the water while Azula pulls her clothes back up, Katara hears the tiniest "thank you" muttered. Azula stares at the floor, as if intently counting the scratches in the wooden boards.

"Nobody told me you were coming back, but there's still goat-boar stew left. I put it in ice."

Azula isn't hungry. Or she is, but she can't eat right now. Doesn't want to be awake right now.

Weakness.

She pushes herself up off the chair and heads for her room, has almost reached it, when she stops just short of the threshold, her hand extended, almost on the door. Fights with herself for a moment, frozen in place.

Weakness. Weakness! WEAKNESS!

Turning around is the hardest thing she's ever done. Every degree feels like climbing a mountain. Her eyes seem to calcify, grinding in their sockets as she seeks out Katara.

If eyes can pose a question, Azula's do. Katara catches her gaze from across the room and stops mid-step as well.

What do you want?

"Would you…?"

When Katara doesn't reply, just looks back at her, Azula averts her eyes and quietly mumbles:

"…join me?"

…

"Please?"

For the first time in her life, Azula is facing defeat. Everything she is, everything she is supposed to be, is crumbling. Without her father, she finds she is a capable warrior, but not a strategist. Her father has left her with a war that she isn't winning, a nation in uncertainty, a military in shambles, and an adversary who's recuperated faster than expected. The Avatar? Fate unknown, possibly alive. Her treacherous brother and uncle? The same. Her biggest feat, the conquest of Ba Sing Se? Gone, nothing. And Azula knows too well what could happen. Even the Fire Lord is not untouchable.

For the first time in her life, Azula fears something other than her father.

Something about Azula's shaken state makes Katara agree.

She hasn't set foot into Azula's room since that fateful night. The blood has been cleaned off the floor, the window repaired. Nothing recalls the intruders, not even a scratch on the wall where Katara's ice impacted. Katara feels as though she can smell it, the blood, the tears. Remembers the feeling of kneeling on the floorboards. Hears her own screams echo through the room, months later.

What am I doing?

After shedding their overgarments, they settle into Azula's bed. Shift around, trying to split the bed into two distinct spaces. Neither feels right, neither dares, to touch the other, to hold, to breathe the same air. But eventually, after Katara has fallen asleep and Azula remains sleepless, she feels Katara wrap an arm around her in her sleep.

When Katara wakes up, Azula is already gone.

It becomes a thing. When Azula returns the next evening, she just looks at Katara before going to bed, and Katara follows. The day after, the same. Every morning, Azula disentangles herself from Katara's arms or pulls her arms out from under Katara, and leaves with the sun.

Both of them start sleeping better.

They're eating dinner, two weeks into sharing a bed, when a messenger knocks on the door. Azula leaves the table to answer, and from where she's sitting, Katara can see them – the young man, bowed down respectfully, visibly terrified to be the bearer of bad news.

"What is it?"

"Admiral Chan sends me, Your Majesty. The Seventh Fleet has been lost."

Even from the table, Katara can see Azula tense, can pick up on the tells of her brewing anger.

"How?"

"A surprise attack, Your Majesty. They were lured into an ambush by a group of savages from the—"

Their eyes meet as the man notices Katara staring, and he hurriedly corrects himself to "by the water tribes".

"Admiral Chan has called an emergency session of the war council. They've requested your presence, Highness."

The door slams shut and Katara is left alone to finish her dinner.

When Azula returns, the moon is already high into the sky. The dining room is empty, and she heads straight for her bedroom.

It's empty.

So is Katara's bedroom.

This is it. She's gone.

Azula is halfway to the door to alert the guards when she hears a noise on the balcony, a nose blown on a sleeve. Of course.

"So this is where you are hiding."

When she steps outside, it's obvious Katara has been crying. She turns away when she hears Azula.

"Is it because of what that man called your people?"

Katara doesn't answer, doesn't look at Azula.

"I can have him killed, if you'd like. Or you can do it yourself."

He's upset Katara. He's insulted the Fire Lord's guest, in a way. It would only be right to leave the punishment to Katara. But Katara shakes her head.

"That's not it."

"Then what is?"

"Who are you?"

Azula frowns. "Pardon me?"

"You're the Fire Lord. I'm your prisoner."

"Way to state the obvious. Is there a point to this?"

Katara's face hardens.

"You're waging war on everything and everyone I love. You can coddle me as much as you want, that's how it is. So why am I so… so weak? Why do I allow myself to eat at your table, to sleep in your bed? Why haven't I tried harder to break out? I've had your life in my hands and I've let you go! I've saved your life! Why? Why am I like this?"

"That's what's got you so worked up? It's a little late for that isn't it?"

Katara explodes.

"Of course you wouldn't understand! You… you…"

Monster, Azula's mind helpfully supplies. It wouldn't be the first time.

"What did I expect from you!", Katara spits. "You've never felt a thing in your life! You're the cold-blooded killer, the perfect daughter, your father always wanted, the monster", there it is, "that Zuko could never be! Being Fire Lord wasn't enough, no, your father had to curse the world with you to carry out his terror!"

"Feelings are a weakness", Azula snarls. "It's a vulnerability I can't afford."

"Are those your words? Or Ozai's?"

Sparks fly around Azula's knuckles.

"My father is a great man!"

Is? Was?

"You don't even believe that yourself", Katara shoots back. "Look at you! What has he ever given you? A war you're losing? A country that's losing faith in you every day? An empty heart that's cost you your friends, because you don't know how to love or care?"

Oh no you don't.

They very nearly come to blows. Katara raises her fists at the same time Azula does, dew gathers around Katara's hands, Azula's fists catch fire, and then—

The instinctive fear on Katara's face at the sight of the flames snaps Azula out of it. The flames go out, the water splashes to the ground. The tension leaves Katara's shoulders and what remains is a broken girl.

"Why am I here, Azula?"

The words are almost a whisper.

"Because I want it." Caught unprepared, her voice returns to its usual, commanding tone.

"Why? What do you want from me?"

Azula doesn't know what to say to that. Katara's voice turns desperate, and her eyes pierce right through Azula's armour.

"What do you want, Azula? Who do you want to be? Your father? His last curse to the world? Or someone else?"

A light rain sets in and begins to soak both of their clothes. Azula still has no answer. Katara has nothing more to say. She's spent her ammunition, fired all she has.

"Let's go inside", Azula eventually says. The arrogance and aggression is gone. "It's getting cold."

Katara follows, and lays a hand on Azula's shoulder to draw the water out of her robes and hair, then her own as well. Azula turns towards her bedroom, but this time, Katara doesn't follow, stays where she is.

"Please?"

It comes out more timid than Azula intended to. It's weakness, a weakness she can't afford. She can picture her father, looking at her with contempt, can feel the flames of his disapproval. But the words have been said. She can't take them back.

Katara caves. She always does.

Why do I eat at your table and sleep in your bed?

She still doesn't have an answer. There is a word for people like her. Women who give themselves to enemy soldiers, who trade compliance for security. Warriors who fail in their duty to resist, who fraternise with the enemy. There are many words for her. Things she never thought she'd be, do, feel. She wishes she could say Azula has some sort of hold over her, but… no. It's all her. It's so much worse.

Who do you want to be? Your father? Or someone else?

The question remains unanswered, but it remains in Azula's mind. Who do I want to be? What do I want from Katara? She's spent all her life suppressing her emotions, steeling herself in mind and body, to fulfill her destiny and take her place at her father's side. She hasn't allowed herself any weakness, has become the perfect firebender, the perfect princess. Feelings are for the peasants, she's above such things. But now, for the first time, she tries to determine what she feels. What she wants.

They fall asleep together while the sun rises outside, facing away from each other, backs almost touching. Morning and noon pass. They wake up in the afternoon, arms wrapped around each other in their sleep.