Chapter Text
There are five days when no one knows what has happened.
The whole country holds its breath. The court, already scattered by Azula’s madness, empties even further. Nobles pull back to their estates and hunker down, waiting to see what the outcome of the Phoenix King’s assault will be, and whether he will sweep back and kill the new Fire Lord. News will have to travel back, and even the fastest hawk will take at least five days.
A sky bison could travel faster, but the only one still alive is currently residing in one of the secondary palace gardens. So that’s right out.
The new Fire Lord, meanwhile, is still being healed from the aftermath of the Agni Kai. Katara pulls him together enough that he is able to make a public appearance every day to the people, to show that he is both Fire Lord and currently alive, and then another series of short meetings with the few ministers who are willing to put a big bet on him.
But those come at a cost – hours where Katara sweats over him, stitching together the damage frantically, trying to make sure that there will be no long-term issues. Every hour made her job harder as his own body starts trying to form scar tissue at the smallest level.
The palace staff is at a minimum. Most of them are still trying to fix the damage from the massive Agni Kai, and from Azula’s rages during the time that she had waited for her coronation. She was sitting in prison now – the Fire Nation was well prepared to contain dangerous benders, and while a better solution would have to eventually be found for a murderous and mentally unstable fifteen-year-old, for now prison was the only choice.
Katara never leaves Zuko’s side. During the day she assists him, a representative of the armies across the sea. When they were in his rooms, she heals him until she drops, then they both sleep until she wakes, swallows down a quick meal, and starts healing him again. They don’t bother with separate beds, and sometimes she is still chewing on a roll of bread while she heals him, unwilling to lose the time it would take to eat her whole meal before she begins pulling water toward her hands, and the familiar blue glow fills the room.
Mostly she uses bowls of fresh water, but sometimes they go to the small pond in the family wing, one of the most private areas in the whole palace. There he sits waist-deep in the water, listening to the turtleducks quacking in annoyance while she pulls more water, fresher water, and keeps healing.
They don’t know if the others have won. They don’t know if the others are even still alive.
They don’t know if Ozai will be returning with troops, and if they are just feeling the time tick away before their very public and painful executions.
Under the circumstances, what happens makes a lot of sense.
The first time it happens is actually in the turtleduck pond. Katara is straddling him to get a better healing angle on his chest, legs on either side of his thighs, and his hands are on her hips to help her keep balance. Her hand slides down the skin of his chest, in a way that it has probably already a dozen times recently, but this time, instead of looking away and doing their best to normalize what is happening, they look at each other.
And the position they are in, the fact that their faces are merely inches apart, and the very real possibility that they could be dead very, very soon, really sinks in. His skin is pale enough that there’s no hiding the blush that spreads across his unscarred cheek, and they’re close enough that he realizes that her breathing has gotten faster. Neither of them will ever be sure who leans in first, but it’s a fairly minor point, because from the instant that one pair of lips meets the other they are kissing like it is their last night in the world, because maybe it actually is.
What’s the point in holding back if everything has already been lost and they don’t even know it yet – that’s what they are both thinking, in the moments that could even really be characterized as full thoughts. Which is why his hands tangle in her hair, and her hands stop healing and start running down his chest in a way that is distinctly non-medicinal. It’s a joint project to remove her sarashi wraps, yards of water-logged fabric floating through the water as they are thrown aside, but she is definitely the one who opens his pants and reaches inside, and it is a very lucky thing for both of them that this wing of the palace is empty other than them, because Zuko is not even a little quiet when her hand touches him for the first time. Clearly the days of healing, assisted by a sudden uptick in both adrenaline and endorphins, have had good effect, because there is no hesitation when he returns the favor and presses seeking fingers between her legs, and her reaction is profound enough that she forgets herself and bites his shoulder. That this is a good thing is clear enough when she begins helping him guide himself into her, and there are some false starts, adjustments, and one very small whimper of pain, but then he is fully inside of her, their hips pressed against each other, and they both begin moving, instinct, desperation, and trust filling in the gaps left by inexperience.
She has just turned fifteen, and he isn’t quite seventeen, and they have just toppled an entire government. Both of them saw their childhoods destroyed by the war. Passion offers an escape from fear that they each grasp with eager hands.
When they finish, Katara muffling sounds against Zuko’s neck, Zuko not muffling one damn thing as he finishes with her name on his tongue, they cling together.
They might die. It doesn’t seem worth it to be embarrassed.
The healing must be working quite well, because they help each other out of the pond and, in the process, end up having a second round on the grass. This time Zuko is on top, and he uses the opportunity to look for the spot that he discovered minutes ago by accident. This time, his fingers touch it with purpose, and it’s a success that leads to Katara wrapping her legs around his hips and whispering a number of things in his ear, which is when they discover something new about what he likes, as well. The turtleducks, never subject to such effrontery before, quack angrily, and are totally ignored.
Eventually Zuko and Katara collect their clothing, head back to his room, and eat dinner.
It’s a large bed, and all the things that they had discovered in the pool, and on the grass, are put to excellent use, as they transition seamlessly from dinner to round three. Then they fall asleep, still tangled around each other.
They don’t talk about Aang’s obvious crush on Katara, and what he clearly wants from her.
They don’t talk about Mai, and the breakup that Zuko is really uncertain was even a breakup.
They talk about what to do about the palace. They talk about how to start ordering a complete disarmament of a nation without sparking full revolts. They talk about which ministers seem overtly against Zuko, which seem loyal to him, and which ones seem like just full opportunists who maybe could be bribed.
They talk about their friends, about their beliefs that everything has worked and everyone is fine. Later, in the dark after night has fallen again, they cling together and talk about their fears, about the worst case scenarios. They make an escape plan, which involves Appa, then make a backup escape plan, which involves a stashed war balloon. They talk about what to pack in the various go-bags that they hide around the palace. They talk about where they would go – where would possibly be a place to hide.
They touch each other greedily, desperate to experience everything. Very quickly they stop being able to keep count of exactly how many times, and where, because the answers are as much as they possibly could and wherever they possibly could. They share the scraps that they know or have heard, and then they discover and experiment. If they are going to face an execution, both are determined that they will have done everything that they could possibly think of. He learns the way she tastes between her legs, and which spots will make her shake and moan. She learns all the places he loves her to touch, and that he has no restraint at all if she slips her mouth over him.
They learn that sex is an excellent way to address stress-related insomnia.
They both want to forget, and also to help the other one forget. For Katara, with caretaking tendencies that run deep, and Zuko, who has been raised by his father to view affection as so transactional that he has the pathological need to earn every nice thing that someone does for him, the combination of those two traits lead to sex becoming a certain kind of virtuous cycle. It also becomes a game, with a goal for Zuko to see how many times he can make Katara shatter apart, for Katara to drive Zuko to a climax even when he’s trying to make himself last.
Every moment is one spent living on the razor’s edge, so they hold onto each other as tightly as possible.
On the fifth day, almost at sunset, Sokka’s messenger hawk finally arrives, and they learn that they are going to live.
Which is when the consequences they have dodged for days begin to catch up with them.
**
It doesn’t stop right away. The palace staff and the nobles filter back, so they have to be more careful. They don’t sleep in the same room anymore. In public they keep a perfectly normal, friendly distance.
If the rooms that Katara is assigned in the family wing happen to have a secret connection passage to the rooms that Zuko is sleeping in, well, that’s not really something for anyone to worry about. Lots of rooms have those passages in the viper’s warren of the palace. And of course it’s totally normal for them to have closeted healing sessions – even the doctors praise Katara’s healing, declaring that it’s just what the new Fire Lord needs.
Now that the war is won and Ozai is stripped of all his power, everyone is falling over themselves to ingratiate themselves to the new Fire Lord, even if it occasionally means praising the waterbender.
In the hot, fevered bubble after the Agni Kai, in the strange and emptied palace, being Water Tribe hadn’t seemed to matter. Everything else was turned on its head, what did it matter that a girl from a barbarian people barely scraping a living on the ice was giving orders and was the Fire Lord’s closest confidant?
Once everyone realizes they are going to live, it immediately begins mattering.
Zuko needs to build a government. He needs his people to follow him. Katara steps back, no longer attending meetings with the ministers. They meet mostly at formal audiences, at meals. After another week, her room is moved to guest quarters outside the family wing, distant enough to satisfy the propriety of even the most stuffy Fire Sage.
They both know the hidden passages to the turtleduck pond, and they meet there at night. His mother’s old rooms are in that wing, covered in dust after years of disuse. For the two of them the signs of abandonment are welcome – they have sex in her old sitting room, on the dust-clogged carpet that makes both of them sneeze.
When they receive advance notice of Mai’s release from prison, Katara makes herself scarce when the other girl arrives. But the impact is immediate – Mai’s vast extended family has huge political influence and wealth. Not for nothing was she the childhood companion of the princess, always put in the path of the crown prince.
It is made extremely clear to Zuko that Mai’s family is more than willing to use every tool at their disposal to help solidify his position and authority – provided, of course, that he and Mai are able to smooth over their recent disagreement.
In the hours after Mai arrives, the court falls over itself to ingratiate themselves to their future Fire Lady. The few individuals and ministers who were still willing to talk to the waterbender feel the change in the winds and adjust themselves accordingly. At the formal dinner that evening, Mai is seating to Zuko’s left, while Katara’s seating placement is moved from that now-occupied chair down twenty places, next to the palace calligrapher, who is careful not to be seen speaking with her.
“Is this what you want?” Katara asks Zuko that night. He had pulled his old black clothes out of his travel bag, crept across the roof, and snuck in through her window. They end up having sex in her closet, just to be certain that they were safe from prying eyes.
“It’s not about what I want. You see how it is here. You see how it has to be.” They’re lying on the floor, on a pile made up of his discarded clothing and what she was wearing to bed. He doesn’t want to have this conversation with her – he wants to pull her back down with him and not think of anything except the feeling of her body around him and the sounds that she has to muffle with her hands.
But it’s clear that this time they aren’t going to get to ignore this conversation.
“Say it, then. Just say it.” Her blue eyes are fierce, daring him.
He looks at her. His stomach feels hollow, but he says the words. “We knew this wasn’t real, Katara.” She looks away, and his voice is desperate, “We both—“
“No.” She sits up and yanks her robe around her shoulders, and when it turns out that half of it is still under Zuko she yanks it hard enough that there’s a loud ripping sound, but she’s pulling it over herself as if, for the first time this whole time, she doesn’t want him to see her skin. “Don’t lie.”
“I’m NOT—“
She grabs his chin. “We did the impossible. We won a war. We survived. We could do this too.”
He’s already shaking his head before she even finishes. “The Fire Court would never—“
“Maybe not at first. Maybe it would take a long time. Maybe we’d have to wait and be patient.” She’s trying to make him face her, but he’s pulling away. “I would wait for you, Zuko. Because this isn’t nothing, it’s not something we can just shake off. It’s everything that ever led you and me to each other, and—”
A wave of anger in his chest, like a bubble of magma. It’s not fair that she’s doing this – that she’s making him argue this. “Now you’re as bad as the stupid Ember Island Players, Katara.”
Her voice is stubborn and flat. “They weren’t wrong.”
Zuko sputters. “They were so wrong. We’d never even—”
“Not about the particulars. But about the feelings. I wanted you back in the caves in Ba Sing Se.”
Zuko’s jaw drops, and he can’t say a single word.
“That’s why I was angry at you for so long,” Katara continues. She’s looking right at him, and this is who she has always been – so brave. So willing to believe in others, and put her neck on the line for that belief. She led a prison ship revolt like this once. “Because it wasn’t just about trusting you. And then when you joined us – no matter how mad I stayed, or how mean I was to you, it didn’t stop. It got worse the more I knew you. And when you took me to find Yon Rha, and you never turned away – no matter what I did, or how dark things got – you were there for the person I am, Zuko. Not some perfect image in your head. But me. That’s what was in that play.” She reaches for his hand and when he doesn’t resist, she squeezes it. “It’s not Aang for me, Zuko. It’s you. We each have so much to do, I know that. You need to build everything here. I need to go home and help my tribe. But we could wait. In a few years, when we’re older, when things settle down, it would be different.”
It’s a long, drawn-out moment in the stale air of the closet. Zuko feels himself on that chasm of decision. Like in the caves of Ba Sing Se. Like the day of Black Sun. Like the moment he threw himself in front of a lightning bolt. But he feels his heart stutter. He doesn’t have her belief, not all the way down to his bones. He doesn’t have her faith that a person can change the world just through dogged certainty.
“I can’t.” He sees the tears start to roll down her face, but he doesn’t stop. The words are pouring out. “I knew when we came here that I had to become the Fire Lord, Katara, and that has to be everything now—”
Katara stands up, pulling the robe even closer, turning from him, and his voice is getting louder, angrier. She’s been here with him in the palace. She has seen what this place is. How can she even suggest that this would even work? How dare she force him into this, force him to be the bad guy, to be the one to stop this thing that right now is the best thing he has in his whole life.
“I’m going to need a wife, Katara, a Fire Nation wife.” He’s angry, and he says it bluntly. “You want me to say yes to this, Katara? To force this country to follow my desires?” He reaches for her hand, but she tugs it away. He grabs her arm instead, harder than he should, but he can’t help himself. Every word is hurting him as well, but it doesn’t make it any less true. “Tell me what happens if my child is a waterbender, Katara. Or not even a bender at all! I need a wife who will give me an heir who can hold this whole country together, or everything we fought for is going to collapse in a civil war as every distant cousin I have starts getting out their knives—”
“You need Mai.” Her voice is empty, and she’s looking at the wall, not at him.
He feels a muscle twitch in his jaw. “I need her family. And Mai knows what she’s signing up for.”
She looks back at him now, and her eyes are like ice. “Tell me you want Mai. Tell me you want her and not me.”
“I want Mai.” His voice is almost mechanical, and he feels the weight of every word. But he doesn’t flinch and he doesn’t stop. “I want Mai and not you.”
“Okay.” She ties her robe. Her hands are shaking, but certain. “Then this never happened. We don’t talk about it again. We don’t tell anyone. This never happened.”
He drops his head, closes his eyes. It’s hard, but he can feel that finality in her voice. “Right.”
He hears her open the door and walk out. Her steps stop for a second, hesitate.
“You should go, Zuko.”
He does, and if he’s crying while he crawls along the roof, hiding from his own damn guards, well, that’s just between him and the moon anyway.
The next day she seems completely normal. Zuko is sure that he’s the only one who notices how careful she is to avoid touching him. Of course, they’re in the middle of a palace. It’s easy not to touch someone. Maybe he’s just noticing for the first time how many ways she had found to touch him throughout the day. How much all those small, seemingly innocent touches had gotten him hungry and desperate for when they were alone.
She starts the process of leaving. He’s been fine for a while anyway. He really didn’t need all those extra healing sessions. Most of the time they weren’t even healing anyway.
When she gets on Appa to head home, Mai is standing next to him, along with most of the court. Katara’s a war hero, after all. He made sure that she had the kind of sendoff that’s usually reserved for royalty.
She doesn’t hug him goodbye. They give each other bows, and it makes sense. This is a formal occasion. He made it one. He made sure that there was nothing personal about this moment.
He tells her that she should come back soon – everyone should. They should plan a big visit. She nods, but he realizes from the look in her eyes that this isn’t going to happen.
When he gets back to the palace, there’s a small envelope on his desk. He slices it open immediately, pathetically desperate to see what’s inside.
There’s no note. Just her hair beads, strung along a blue ribbon.