Chapter Text

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5 Years Ago

⬰

The crystals shimmered, reds, greens, blues refracted in the light around them. A beautiful place to be trapped.

“Maybe you could be free of it.”

The words fell out of her mouth as the weight in her pocket burned, heavy. A sudden awareness of the hope she kept there, normally quiet, now sparked to life.

“What?”

“I have healing abilities.”

The water in this vial called to her more than her element ever had before. It shimmered with an indescribable something that brimmed between the two of them.

“It’s a scar. It can’t be healed.”

She pulled the vial from her pocket and held it between them. It was almost like she could hear it—even in stillness the water moved, as if it wanted her to do this.

“This is water from the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole. It has special properties so I’ve been saving it for something important.” She stepped closer to him—carefully. “I don’t know if it would work…”

He swallowed, the tendons in his neck moving with the motion, closed his eyes, and nodded ever so slightly. An answer to the question she hadn’t asked outright.

First, she touched below the scar, where the skin was smooth and pale in the green light of the cave. Then she ran her fingers along the edge, where the tissue drew tight and red.

“There’s a lot of pain here.”

She could feel it in her fingers, in the life that flowed through him. Tense, cutting, burning. She pressed four of her fingers below his eye and he inhaled sharply.

“If it’s okay… I can try,” she whispered.

She didn’t know why she was quiet, so afraid to disturb whatever lay between them. The world closed in, a place where time wouldn’t flow, limitless moments strung together by the water she held in her hand.

They’d fought at the oasis. It made sense that they were connected by this water, that this was its purpose.

“Go ahead,” he whispered back.

She unstopped the bottle with her thumb. The water answered her call so eagerly. It wanted this, it knew this was right.

She tried to coat her hand with it, but the water coalesced into a shimmering disk beneath her fingertips. Brilliant, pure, glimmering. She pressed it against his cheek, glowing bright before it disappeared into his skin.

A moment; another.

And the scar remained.

⬰

Aang died in Katara’s arms.

If she hadn’t wasted the spirit water on an old wound—if she hadn’t followed an impulse that she’d tried to name fate—she could have saved him. The Avatar, the world’s last hope, the boy in the iceberg. Her friend.

Azula had filled Aang’s body with lightning and emptied it of life. No question, Katara wasn’t the one responsible for the killing blow. Her hands weren’t red with Aang’s blood; they were empty.

Katara could have brought him back, but she’d poured that miracle into an unforgiving scar.

Lost forever, the way the world would be now.

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Present Day

⇹

Katara guided the water smoothly in a circle around her, eyes closed as she listened to it. When water cut through air, you could hear a slight rippling, but only when it was fast enough and quiet enough.

She focused her breath. Back and forth, ebb and flow, push and pull. That was water’s nature, always in motion, always flowing on to the next thing.

She needed the reminder. Five years ago today, her world stood still, and it hadn’t moved since.

“Katara?”

“Ah!”

She jumped, and her water fell to the ground with a loud splash.

“Sorry, sorry,” Sokka said, his hands up in a beseeching manner. “I just wanted to check in on you. It’s almost dinner.”

“You don’t need to baby me, Sokka. Today’s like any other day.”

“Sure. That’s why you’ve been down… here.” He gestured at their surroundings, a dimly lit cave with a minnow-riddled pond. “For the last four hours.”

“Are they back yet?” Katara asked.

“Just got in. Nobody’s hurt, mission was a success—as much as we can call it a mission.”

“Fire Nation factories are as important as their military bases,” Katara said, a bit sharper than he deserved. “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

“Ah, no, you’re going to come up with me now because ‘a few minutes’ is code for ‘a few hours’ and we both know it.”

She hadn’t meant to lie, but Sokka was probably right. Getting lost in this water—plain, natural, too simple to cause accidental harm—it was the only way she could escape the other water, especially today.

“Fine.” Katara let Sokka hook his arm through hers. “Let’s go. I should check on Zuko anyway. He’s got a bad habit of hiding injuries so he doesn’t inconvenience anyone.”

There was more to it than that, of course. But Zuko never brought it up, and she never asked, and neither of them spoke of the crystal cavern to others. Their secret lived only with them, following along like a ghost whenever they were alone.

The tunnels wound around and around, total nonsense to anyone who didn’t live here, which was the point. Toph and Sokka had designed it that way. Even she had to touch the raised wall markers when she was on her own. Only Sokka and Toph knew their way without them.

They climbed three staircases to reach the main hall. It was close to the surface, enough so that moonlight shone through the vents above.

Furs and whale fat lamps adorned the hall, providing a warm, comforting glow that reminded Katara of her childhood home. A hundred-odd people mingled and laughed around a huge table of food. Normally they ate mostly fish and preserved plants, but tonight a large wolfdeer was roasting on a spit.

This gathering was equal parts celebration and mourning. Five years ago today the Avatar died, but they were also reborn the same moment… and they might be in this room right now.

Two children darted past her, playing. One bent a little splash of water to tag his friend.

Are you the one?

Every time she saw a child that age, she wondered. But today of all days she wondered most of all.

There were ten children in the whole South Pole that they knew were born the night of Aang’s death. Only three of them appeared to be waterbenders, but it was still too early to tell.

Katara didn’t think any of them were truly the one. She hoped she was wrong, though. Sometimes her instincts left much to be desired, so who knew?

“Katjuk! Stop it!” Sakari shouted.

The little girl stomped her foot and froze condensation on the cave’s roof, white frost clinging to the stone. Katjuk stuck out his tongue and ran away.

He was playful like Aang. It’d be easy to convince herself it was him. Maybe she should try.

Katara spotted Zuko sitting across from Toph at the end of a bench.

When they reached the table, Sokka dropped into the seat beside Toph, threw an arm around her shoulders, and asked, “How was it?”

She made a crunching motion with both hands. “All that fancy machinery crumpled like tin soldiers.”

Sokka grinned. “That’s my girl.”

Katara sat down next to Zuko, careful to leave plenty of space between them. “What about you? How’d your part go?”

“Toph never needs much cover,” Zuko said. “She can fight and destroy equipment at the same time.”

“Don’t be all modest, Sparky! You kept my work interruption-free. Oh, and this one guy—” Toph took a big drink from her cup (which Katara suspected had Earth Kingdom spirits in it) then went on. “Huge guy. Like, enormous. Guess they’ve upped security lately. But the crazy thing is that he had this tattoo of an eye on his forehead, and he shot fire out of it that combusted on impact! Wild. Anyway, I only caught the end of that fight, but Zuko took him down with…” Toph did a drumroll on the wooden table with her hands. “Lightning! That’s three times in battle now. You’re getting the hang of it.”

Katara allowed herself a smile. Zuko had put in countless hours of training and meditation for years, determined to bend lightning no matter how long it took. He’d finally done it for the first time two months ago. A beautiful night, much better than this one. She’d never seen him smile quite like that before and she hoped she would again someday.

Katara raised her cup to him. “That’s amazing, Zuko. You should be proud.”

Before she could drink to Zuko, her father stood at the head of the room and called for quiet.

The war had aged him. Streaks of grey ran through his hair that hadn’t been there a few years ago, and a pink scar cut across his upper lip. A blade of some kind that had gotten too close for comfort. She hated that she hadn’t been there to fix it.

“Today is a difficult day. It marks the fifth year of Avatar Aang’s death. An Avatar too young for the burden he bore, who tried, to the very end, to be what our weary world needed.”

Toph mumbled something Katara couldn’t make out under her breath. Whatever it was, Sokka agreed.

“We commemorate this day with solemnity and remembrance of all those who have fallen under the Fire Nation’s tyranny. The razing of the Earth Kingdom’s lands, the fall of Ba Sing Se, and even our continued hidden existence is a burden that, when shouldered alone, can feel too much to bear.”

When Father glanced at her, Katara turned away. If only he knew how this was all her fault. He wouldn’t be so charitable to her then.

“But today is also a day of hope. Of celebration, even, and for the first time Prince Zuko has agreed to speak.”

The crowd murmured as Zuko stood up from the table. He joined her father, who put a hand on his shoulder firmly in greeting. Zuko faced the room at large, now silent in anticipation of his words.

“Thanks, Chief Hakoda,” Zuko said.

If he was nervous, Katara couldn’t tell. He sounded resolute, and he certainly looked the part of the warrior. His hair was still half up and messy, fresh off his incursion into enemy territory.

“This isn’t the first time Chief Hakoda has asked me to speak on this day. I’ve said no for a lot of reasons. Maybe, despite your acceptance it’s difficult to stand in front of you all as the son of Fire Lord Ozai—”

People booed, and one even shouted, “Never!”

Zuko smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. “I appreciate it, but all the same, it’s difficult for me. This year, though, I felt I had something to contribute. I offer all of you my testimony.” He cleared his throat before he continued. “When I was a boy, my father banished me for dishonoring him. I was told to capture the Avatar or never return to my home. I spent three years searching for what I thought was an old man who hadn’t been seen for a hundred years.”

Katara knew all of this and she was certain almost everyone in the room did, to some degree, but hearing it aloud made it sound all the more horrible.

“When Avatar Aang reappeared, he was a way for me to return home. That was all I wanted. So I followed him and his friends around the world in hopes of capturing him. On the day he was struck down by my sister, I—”

His voice broke off. The moment stretched on, the tension visceral throughout the hall.

Zuko looked over at Katara. His gold eyes flashed in the firelight. Her throat tightened and lungs burned, her body fallen through thin ice, fighting the reflexive inhale of water.

He wouldn’t tell their truth. He wouldn’t do that to her.

Zuko turned his attention back to the crowd, and Katara could breathe again.

“I felt the loss of him. He’d become more than a ticket home to me—he was the hope that I didn’t realize I’d been hoping for.”

Katara bit the inside of her lip to distract herself from her stinging eyes. Indulging in a small pain to forget a greater one.

“For a long time we wondered if the Avatar would ever come again. If the cycle was broken and we were truly alone.” Zuko’s hands clenched on the edge of the table. “But this year I finally realized why this is a hopeful day. For the first time, I truly believe that the Avatar was born again. That they may even be in this room.” He put his hand on his heart. “I feel it here. Just like I did when I was a boy, I knew the Avatar was alive and I know it now as a man. And I don’t care how long it takes—we are going to find them and protect them with everything we have until the day finally comes for us to defeat the Fire Nation!”

Cheers went up, a hundred voices echoing around the hall along with their clapping and stomping. Several people shouted Zuko’s name and Toph yelled, “Damn right, Sparky!”

Sokka leaned back, watching Toph as she whooped and shook her fist. His smile curled wrong at the corners, more sad than happy. He clapped along with everyone else, though not with much enthusiasm.

Katara met his eyes, blue as her own, and saw his skepticism crystal clear. He believed the Avatar Cycle had ended when Azula killed Aang. Sokka never said so, but Katara didn’t need him to. She knew her brother.

Zuko, though. He was certain now that the next Avatar had been born. Confidence radiated off of him, as determined as when he’d been a sixteen-year-old boy on a search.

Katara stood up, clapping for Zuko too. Others followed her example, a wave of men, women, and children on their feet, celebrating.

Maybe if she showed enough certainty of her own, she’d feel it someday.

⇹

Katara sat on the plush polar cat rug. She threaded her fingers through the fur while she read over a scroll, an old waterbending form she’d grown rusty on. It was taxing, both with flexibility and the volume of water required to bend all at once.

A knock rattled her wooden door. Strange, a visitor this late.

“Come in,” Katara called out.

Zuko stepped into her room. She started to stand up, but he gestured for her to stay seated.

“Sorry to bother you so late,” he said, his voice tight.

“I didn’t check you over like I planned. What is it?”

He sat down in front of her, flinched, and leaned back on his forearms.

“My ribs,” he winced. “I didn’t think it was that bad until I tried to sleep.”

“Oh, Zuko.” Sometimes I don’t know what to do with him. “Let me see.”

He untied the front of his dark blue shirt and shrugged out of it. “Are they broken or just bruised?”

Splotchy purple bruises colored his left side, spreading from beneath his arm down to his waist.

“At a glance, I’m guessing broken.”

Zuko cursed under his breath while she coated her hands in water and laid them on his ribcage. The pain was so bad that it all but smacked her in the face. She couldn’t feel it herself, but in an odd, tertiary way she could feel him hurting. It was always like this when she healed…

Except once, when a dead child lay in her arms. Aang had felt no pain by then, had felt nothing at all.

“Broken,” Katara confirmed. “Only one fully cracked, but there are hairline fractures in three more.”

“That explains why it hurts.”

She almost laughed. “Yes, it does.”

She got to work as gently as she could but Zuko still winced and shivered. Wordlessly, she bent her water back into the clay jug she kept in the living area, grabbed a blue and white woven blanket, and wrapped it around his shoulders.

“Thanks.”

“You shiver so much when I heal you.”

“It’s cold,” he said, his teeth chattering. This time she did laugh.

She’d healed other firebenders before—his uncle, gone now too; and the deserter, Jeong Jeong, who led roaming militias around the colonized shores of what was once the Earth Kingdom. Zuko ran hotter than either of them, though. Maybe it was because he was younger, or maybe he just burned brighter than others.

“That’s the most I can do tonight.” She bent the water back to the jug. “It needs time, I can finish it up tomorrow.”

“It’s worlds better than before.”

He reached up and stretched, the blanket falling off his shoulders as he laced his hands over his head and bent side to side. She watched him, careful to note if he winced or showed any other signs of pain. His skin seemed to glow in the firelight, almost golden like his eyes.

“Thank you, Katara.”

He bowed his head slightly and grabbed his blue tunic. He put it back on, his movements ever so slightly stiff, but only to her trained eye.

How had she missed his injury earlier? One look at him should have told her.

But she hadn’t wanted to look at him today, so even when she’d watched him she’d seen as little as possible.

Silence expanded between them, and in that quiet she could feel it. That presence, the weight of their secret. The gravity of her folly, her hope poured into a miracle she couldn’t perform.

His expression softened. “I’ll leave you be. Thank you again for healing me.”

He stood up and turned toward the door.

“Zuko, wait.”

She scrambled to her feet as he faced her again. He felt it too, she was sure of it, all the years of silence neither had broken.

“How do you know the Avatar is alive?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

“I just do. I feel it, like I said earlier.”

“But why now? After all this time.”

The firelight cast shadows on his face, his sharp cheekbones thrown into relief. The corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly. Not a smile, but the makings of one.

“I used to tell myself stories about the Avatar. Every night before I slept I’d describe what the Avatar did that day, and I’d write down what I’d done to prepare myself for our inevitable encounter. Usually it was firebending forms or running my skeleton crew into the ground.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Anyway, I’ve started imagining the Avatar again. Every day I think about what she’s doing—”

“She?”

“I think it’s a girl, don’t know why. So right now she’s probably snuggled up with her parents, asleep.”

Katara let herself picture it. The hope of the world tucked between her mother and father, wrapped in warm blankets, her belly full and dreams sweet.

“And this afternoon I helped destroy a Fire Nation oil rig. Blew the entire place up.” A wide, genuine smile dimpled his cheeks. “I don’t usually accomplish that much. Most of the time, all I do is think about her and brush up on firebending fundamentals to teach her. Either way, it’s a day closer.”

She smiled gently. “I think that’s nice.”

Zuko put his hands on her shoulders, a grounding, comforting weight. “I think you believe it too, even when it’s hard.”

The tears she’d fought back all day finally rolled down her cheeks, and Katara let them fall.

“I’m not so sure, Zuko. I believed my whole childhood, then I found him, held him in my arms as he slipped out of the iceberg, but now I just don’t know the same way.”

This was the first time she’d voiced it. Her doubt.

“Do something for her every day. Something that makes a better, safer world for her. Eventually, you’ll start to feel it. You’ll know when you see her, we both will.”

Katara nodded weakly. “You’re right. Besides, I’m just wallowing, and that’s no good for anybody.”

“You’re not wallowing, you’re feeling. It’s okay to doubt, but for you…” Zuko’s grasp on her shoulders tightened slightly, a moment of holding on too hard. “I think doubting hurts you more than most people. You’re built to hope.”

For so long her life had been pieced together by little sparks of it, whatever she could cling to to get to the next day. Hope for a waterbending master. Hope for her father’s return home. Hope for the Avatar.

She’d been starved for it since Azula’s lightning had struck true. Five long years of defeat and destruction on a scale she still couldn’t comprehend.

Maybe now, on this fifth anniversary of her hope’s death, it was finally time to begin anew.

Katara wrapped her arms around Zuko and rested her head on his shoulder.

She rarely hugged him and she’d forgotten what it felt like—the warmth from the fire inside him, the steadiness of his arms when he hugged her back. A great comfort, but always tinged with guilt.

She pulled back. “Thanks, Zuko.”

He let her go with a soft smile, then patted his ribcage. “Thanks for putting me back together.”

“It’s no problem, though I’d like it better if you’d stop getting injured.”

He scratched the back of his head, glancing away. “Wish I could promise that, but…”

“But you have a knack for getting in tough spots,” Katara finished. “At least you’re even better at getting out of them.”

Zuko was so handsome when he smiled. It was a wonder none of the women in the resistance had snapped him up yet. Katara knew for a fact that plenty wanted to; she was somewhat regularly asked for permission to pursue him.

Perhaps Zuko was like her in this way, a little too caught in the past to move forward with a luxury like love.

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