[FIC] The Thin Line (1/2)
Title: The Thin Line
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Pairing: unresolved Zutara; Maiko, Katara/OMC. Mentions of Sukka and Taang.
Wordcount: 2386
Warnings: Um... UST? Suggestions of adultery.
Summary: Post series, two shot. Zuko and Katara haven't seen each other in seven years, and there are some feelings that still need to be resolved.
AN: Despite the summary, this was written before season three ended (but possibly after it started; I don't remember). So there's plenty of AU to this.
The dark of the cell wasn’t what bothered Katara. There were no windows, so she hadn’t seen natural light of any kind in nearly a week. No, it was the not knowing that made her restless.
She’d been captured, and she didn’t know what had happened to Aang, Toph, and Sokka.
No, Katara reminds herself. That was seven years ago, and going to the Fire Nation now should not bring up such less-than-pleasant memories. A small hand tugs at her skirt, and she turns away from the ship’s railing. She looks down into a pair of wide blue eyes, and Katara smiles. She lifts her son with practiced ease. “Look, Kinen,” she whispers to the two-year-old, pointing at the distant land mass just visible through the morning mist. “That’s the Fire Nation.”
“From the stories?” Kinen asks. He knows them all, because he hears them every night.
Katara nods. “From the stories,” she confirms.
Her husband sneaks up behind them and wraps his arms around Katara’s waist, leaning his head on her left shoulder while Kinen does the same thing on the right. “Have you been telling him about the glory days again?” Sunen teases.
Katara laughs. “They were hardly glorious.” He releases her, and she passes their son to him. Sunen lifts Kinen high into the air quickly, as though he is going to throw him, earning a happy squeal from the toddler. Katara giggles, and her husband catches her eye. He sees her joy, and he sees something else. It troubles him, and he puts their son down. “Little one, why don’t you go wake up Uncle Sokka for us?”
Kinen grins and dashes off. Katara leans against the railing once more, facing the ever-closer Fire Nation. Sunen also leans against the railing, but backwards, so it is easier to watch his wife’s face. “You’re afraid of going back, aren’t you?”
“I shouldn’t be. It will be nice to see Aang and Toph again; they haven’t visited in at least a year.” It has actually been almost three years, since before Kinen was born, but Sunen doesn’t comment on that. Katara continues. “But I haven’t been here since… since Zuko’s coronation. Aang says it’s changed, that the people are much friendlier. I believe him. There’s just something nagging at me, saying ‘No, don’t go there, don’t do it’. And I don’t know why.”
Sunen’s expression darkens. “It wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with the Fire Lord, would it?”
Katara stares at him. “How could you think that?”
“You know how.”
Katara looks away. That too ended seven years ago, along with the war. She’d met Sunen when she was eighteen and visiting the Northern Water Tribe. He was four years older than her and a non-bender. They were married when she was nineteen, and their son was born a year later. Katara feels guilty, because her husband seems to know all about the things she’d felt when she was fifteen and still believed that opposites attracted.
“Maybe you’re right,” she says slowly. “Maybe it does have something to do with him.”
--------
“You’re to be executed tomorrow.”
“So be it,” Katara whispered. Even then, even knowing the rest of her life was now counted in hours instead of years, she wouldn’t give in.
“I thought that your life actually meant something to you.”
“It does, but there are other things that are more important. Like honor,” Katara said pointedly.
Zuko glared at her. “And just what would you know about honor?”
“More than you, if your actions are any indication. Is it really your honor that you’ve gained, Zuko, or just the favor of your family? Favor that could be snatched away at Azula’s merest whim, and you know it’s only a matter of time before that happens.”
The words stung, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. Instead he turned away and left the prison and the waterbender behind.
Zuko shifts in his sleep, letting out a soft groan and a name that he only says when he’s asleep.
“You’re dismissed,” Zuko told the guards. They didn’t move. Zuko frowned. “I said you’re dismissed,” he repeated.
“Forgive us, your highness, but our orders are to stay with the prisoner at all times.”
“You can return as soon as I’ve finished speaking with her.”
“We’re sorry, your highness, but we were also ordered not to leave anyone alone with the prisoner.”
Realization came slowly, and the idea made Zuko sick. “Who gave you these orders?”
“Princess Azula, your highness.”
“When?”
The guard hesitated, confirming Zuko’s suspicions. He still wanted to hear it. “WHEN?” he bellowed.
The guard shrank back. “After your previous visit, your highness. The princess also said that we were to report every word of any future conversations you and the prisoner had.”
Zuko turned away. So Katara had been right all along.
The golden eyes open, and Zuko blinks as he realizes that the memory was a dream. He is no longer seventeen, and his father is no longer Fire Lord. Azula is no longer alive to manipulate him. He sighs and drifts back to sleep.
The woman beside him, however, remains awake.
--------
“Presenting His Majesty Fire Lord Zuko and his consort, Princess Mai.”
Katara’s eyes widen. She isn’t sure what hurts the most: that Zuko never told her he was getting (got, she corrects herself instantly) married, that Mai is very obviously pregnant, or that she is not the one standing by his side right now. Sunen puts his hand on her waist possessively.
“Are you going back to the palace?”
“I have to. Azula will find it even more suspicious if the Blue Spirit has appeared and I’m missing. Will you be all right alone?”
“I think so. I’m more worried about what’s going to happen to you.”
“Don’t be. Anything I get will be no more than I deserve.”
She smiled, though sadly. “If you survive, will you look for us? It won’t exactly be safe, but…”
“I’ll try.”
They both looked at the ground, wondering what else there was to say.
“Zuko,” Katara began.
“Katara,” Zuko said at the same time.
They both smiled. It was easier, now, somehow. Zuko put his hand on the back of Katara’s head and pulled her forward until their lips met. The kiss was brief, but not meaningless.
“Was that your first kiss?” Zuko asked when they parted. He shouldn’t have been so nosy, but he wanted to know.
Katara shook her head. “No. Yours?”
“No.”
When he sees the man with one hand touching Katara’s waist and the other holding on to a blue-eyed toddler, Zuko has to remind himself that he cannot be jealous. He has no right to be. Mai’s hand brushes his, and he takes it. She squeezes his hand, as though to reassure him. It isn’t enough, but it will have to do.
--------
Katara stares out at the turtleduck pond. She doesn’t know why she’s still here. True, Aang and Toph’s arrival was delayed by storms, so she can use the excuse of waiting for them. The rest of her family went back to the South Pole yesterday. She tries not to remember the confusion in her son’s eyes, and the hurt in her husband’s, when she explained to them that she couldn’t leave yet. Sunen asked her why, and she couldn’t answer him because she didn’t know. She still doesn’t, but still she stays.
She says nothing as Iroh sits next to her on the stone bench. She likes the old general, but she has nothing to say.
Iroh sighs. “Did anyone tell you, Lady Katara, that there is a law requiring the Fire Lord to marry only a maiden belonging to the Fire Nation nobility?”
Katara sniffs. That explains everything and nothing at once, and she tells the general so.
“Perhaps,” he says with another sigh. “I simply thought you might like to know.” He rises, with a small amount of difficulty and creaking bones. He walks away slowly. Katara continues to watch the turtleducks.
Another person sits in the place Iroh has vacated, like him in the lack of ease, but hers is for different reason.
Katara glances sideways at the newcomer, not really turning her head. “How far along are you?”
“The doctors say it could be any day now,” Mai replies.
Katara redirects her gaze, this time to the ground. “Have you thought of any names?” She’s only being polite, and both of them know it.
“Zuko has. He wants to name the child, so I’m letting him.”
“Don’t you care?” The words slip out, her tone icier than she means for it to be.
Mai closes her eyes. “Of course I care. I wish I didn’t.”
Katara turns in surprise. Mai doesn’t look at the waterbender, but keeps speaking. “I heard the old man tell you about the marriage law. What he didn’t tell you is that Zuko tried to change it. He spent weeks carving something in his room, something he hid whenever someone caught him at it, while the council deliberated on the matter. When they refused to change the law, he spent another two weeks sulking.”
She tilts her head toward the sky and opens her pale, pale gold eyes again. “Our marriage was arranged by the council, but Zuko asked me in person. I accepted the offer, knowing that I would always be second. It doesn’t matter how many sons I give him, how loyal I am to him, how long we are married. It will never be my name he whispers in his sleep.”
Katara shivers, because she wonders if she too whispers a name at night that is not her spouse’s. Is that how Sunen knows?
“Did you know that his favorite color is blue?” Mai asks. “He never wears it; it wouldn’t be appropriate. But I know.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a dark red ribbon, from which hangs a carved blue stone. “He doesn’t know I took this. He kept it in a box in our room. He touches the box everyday, but he never opens it. Finally I opened it when he wasn’t there, and I understood. He made this nearly five years ago, and he made it for you.”
Katara stares at the necklace and unconsciously reaches for it. Mai hands it over without hesitation.
“You should have it,” the Fire Lord’s wife says.
“Thank you,” Katara murmurs, but she doesn’t know why. The necklace isn’t a gift.
Mai leaves, and Katara is once again alone in front of the turtleduck pond.
As Mai did the moment she held the necklace, Katara now understands.
--------
“Please say you hate me,” Zuko says softly as Katara steps into his office. He’s been hiding here for the past week, and even the announcement of his daughter’s birth has not been able to pull him out.
Katara shakes her head. She refuses to pity him. “I don’t hate you.”
“I hate me.”
“Mai’s waiting to find out what you’re naming your daughter,” she says. The ice has returned to her voice, and she keeps reminding herself that he deserves it. “She’s beautiful, by the way. The baby. She looks like you.”
She may as well be flinging daggers at his heart. “She should be yours.”
“Don’t say that, Zuko. Come on, Mai’s waiting. The entire nation is waiting.”
He stood up and reached for her. Katara blushed as the Fire Lord held her close. It had been so long since they’d been together like this, but… did she even want it anymore? “Zuko, please…” Please what? Don’t? Don’t stop? What did she want?
“I'm thinking of naming my daughter after your mother.”
Katara pulled away. “How cruel and selfish can you be?” she cried. This was the answer, then. This was the truth. “Mai loves you! She knows she’s second in your heart and yet she loves you with all of hers! And every time you do something like this, you hurt her even more!” She brandishes the necklace he’d made, the one she’s carried with her for the past three days.
Zuko stares at the piece of jewelry dangling from Katara’s hand. “Where did you get that?” he breathes.
“Mai gave it to me,” she spits. “You can have it back, if you want.” She’s daring him to take it, daring him to change the love she’s had for him into true hate. Daring him to push her across that thin, thin line between the two.
He turns away. “No, you keep it. It was supposed to be yours anyway.”
--------
Mai blinks at the sight of her husband holding their newborn daughter, trying to determine if it’s real or she’s fallen asleep and this is just another fantasy. “Zuko?”
He smiles at her. “She’s beautiful. So are you.”
Mai doesn’t return the smile. Not yet. “What’s her name?” she asks, hating for a moment that the condition of her heart depends so desperately on his answer.
“Her name,” Zuko says softly, “is Ursa. For my mother.”
Now Mai smiles. It’s easier to do so now than it has ever been. “Ursa,” she repeats. “I like it.”
“That’s unusual.”
“Well, I can’t hate everything.”
They kiss, and Katara, watching from the doorway, turns to leave. She is going to pack, because she’s leaving in the morning. She only hopes that Sunen will forgive her.
--------
Sixteen-year-old Ursa stares in amazement at the waterbending master. Normally the bending exhibitions at the summer solstice festival bore her (as so much does), but this time she simply can’t look away from the young man with sparkling blue eyes.
Something in the back of her mind tells her that love at first sight is real, and this is how it feels.
When he’s finishes, Ursa pushes her way through the applauding audience so that she can reach the platform before he leaves. He turns to go just as she gets there, and she shouts for him to wait.
He stops and turns around. The girl who called to him is beautiful, he thinks instantly. That she’s obviously from the Fire Nation doesn’t register, and thanks to his mother’s many teachings it wouldn’t have mattered if it did.
“What’s your name?” the girl asks breathlessly.
The boy smiles. “I’m Kinen.”
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Pairing: unresolved Zutara; Maiko, Katara/OMC. Mentions of Sukka and Taang.
Wordcount: 2386
Warnings: Um... UST? Suggestions of adultery.
Summary: Post series, two shot. Zuko and Katara haven't seen each other in seven years, and there are some feelings that still need to be resolved.
AN: Despite the summary, this was written before season three ended (but possibly after it started; I don't remember). So there's plenty of AU to this.
The dark of the cell wasn’t what bothered Katara. There were no windows, so she hadn’t seen natural light of any kind in nearly a week. No, it was the not knowing that made her restless.
She’d been captured, and she didn’t know what had happened to Aang, Toph, and Sokka.
No, Katara reminds herself. That was seven years ago, and going to the Fire Nation now should not bring up such less-than-pleasant memories. A small hand tugs at her skirt, and she turns away from the ship’s railing. She looks down into a pair of wide blue eyes, and Katara smiles. She lifts her son with practiced ease. “Look, Kinen,” she whispers to the two-year-old, pointing at the distant land mass just visible through the morning mist. “That’s the Fire Nation.”
“From the stories?” Kinen asks. He knows them all, because he hears them every night.
Katara nods. “From the stories,” she confirms.
Her husband sneaks up behind them and wraps his arms around Katara’s waist, leaning his head on her left shoulder while Kinen does the same thing on the right. “Have you been telling him about the glory days again?” Sunen teases.
Katara laughs. “They were hardly glorious.” He releases her, and she passes their son to him. Sunen lifts Kinen high into the air quickly, as though he is going to throw him, earning a happy squeal from the toddler. Katara giggles, and her husband catches her eye. He sees her joy, and he sees something else. It troubles him, and he puts their son down. “Little one, why don’t you go wake up Uncle Sokka for us?”
Kinen grins and dashes off. Katara leans against the railing once more, facing the ever-closer Fire Nation. Sunen also leans against the railing, but backwards, so it is easier to watch his wife’s face. “You’re afraid of going back, aren’t you?”
“I shouldn’t be. It will be nice to see Aang and Toph again; they haven’t visited in at least a year.” It has actually been almost three years, since before Kinen was born, but Sunen doesn’t comment on that. Katara continues. “But I haven’t been here since… since Zuko’s coronation. Aang says it’s changed, that the people are much friendlier. I believe him. There’s just something nagging at me, saying ‘No, don’t go there, don’t do it’. And I don’t know why.”
Sunen’s expression darkens. “It wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with the Fire Lord, would it?”
Katara stares at him. “How could you think that?”
“You know how.”
Katara looks away. That too ended seven years ago, along with the war. She’d met Sunen when she was eighteen and visiting the Northern Water Tribe. He was four years older than her and a non-bender. They were married when she was nineteen, and their son was born a year later. Katara feels guilty, because her husband seems to know all about the things she’d felt when she was fifteen and still believed that opposites attracted.
“Maybe you’re right,” she says slowly. “Maybe it does have something to do with him.”
--------
“You’re to be executed tomorrow.”
“So be it,” Katara whispered. Even then, even knowing the rest of her life was now counted in hours instead of years, she wouldn’t give in.
“I thought that your life actually meant something to you.”
“It does, but there are other things that are more important. Like honor,” Katara said pointedly.
Zuko glared at her. “And just what would you know about honor?”
“More than you, if your actions are any indication. Is it really your honor that you’ve gained, Zuko, or just the favor of your family? Favor that could be snatched away at Azula’s merest whim, and you know it’s only a matter of time before that happens.”
The words stung, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. Instead he turned away and left the prison and the waterbender behind.
Zuko shifts in his sleep, letting out a soft groan and a name that he only says when he’s asleep.
“You’re dismissed,” Zuko told the guards. They didn’t move. Zuko frowned. “I said you’re dismissed,” he repeated.
“Forgive us, your highness, but our orders are to stay with the prisoner at all times.”
“You can return as soon as I’ve finished speaking with her.”
“We’re sorry, your highness, but we were also ordered not to leave anyone alone with the prisoner.”
Realization came slowly, and the idea made Zuko sick. “Who gave you these orders?”
“Princess Azula, your highness.”
“When?”
The guard hesitated, confirming Zuko’s suspicions. He still wanted to hear it. “WHEN?” he bellowed.
The guard shrank back. “After your previous visit, your highness. The princess also said that we were to report every word of any future conversations you and the prisoner had.”
Zuko turned away. So Katara had been right all along.
The golden eyes open, and Zuko blinks as he realizes that the memory was a dream. He is no longer seventeen, and his father is no longer Fire Lord. Azula is no longer alive to manipulate him. He sighs and drifts back to sleep.
The woman beside him, however, remains awake.
--------
“Presenting His Majesty Fire Lord Zuko and his consort, Princess Mai.”
Katara’s eyes widen. She isn’t sure what hurts the most: that Zuko never told her he was getting (got, she corrects herself instantly) married, that Mai is very obviously pregnant, or that she is not the one standing by his side right now. Sunen puts his hand on her waist possessively.
“Are you going back to the palace?”
“I have to. Azula will find it even more suspicious if the Blue Spirit has appeared and I’m missing. Will you be all right alone?”
“I think so. I’m more worried about what’s going to happen to you.”
“Don’t be. Anything I get will be no more than I deserve.”
She smiled, though sadly. “If you survive, will you look for us? It won’t exactly be safe, but…”
“I’ll try.”
They both looked at the ground, wondering what else there was to say.
“Zuko,” Katara began.
“Katara,” Zuko said at the same time.
They both smiled. It was easier, now, somehow. Zuko put his hand on the back of Katara’s head and pulled her forward until their lips met. The kiss was brief, but not meaningless.
“Was that your first kiss?” Zuko asked when they parted. He shouldn’t have been so nosy, but he wanted to know.
Katara shook her head. “No. Yours?”
“No.”
When he sees the man with one hand touching Katara’s waist and the other holding on to a blue-eyed toddler, Zuko has to remind himself that he cannot be jealous. He has no right to be. Mai’s hand brushes his, and he takes it. She squeezes his hand, as though to reassure him. It isn’t enough, but it will have to do.
--------
Katara stares out at the turtleduck pond. She doesn’t know why she’s still here. True, Aang and Toph’s arrival was delayed by storms, so she can use the excuse of waiting for them. The rest of her family went back to the South Pole yesterday. She tries not to remember the confusion in her son’s eyes, and the hurt in her husband’s, when she explained to them that she couldn’t leave yet. Sunen asked her why, and she couldn’t answer him because she didn’t know. She still doesn’t, but still she stays.
She says nothing as Iroh sits next to her on the stone bench. She likes the old general, but she has nothing to say.
Iroh sighs. “Did anyone tell you, Lady Katara, that there is a law requiring the Fire Lord to marry only a maiden belonging to the Fire Nation nobility?”
Katara sniffs. That explains everything and nothing at once, and she tells the general so.
“Perhaps,” he says with another sigh. “I simply thought you might like to know.” He rises, with a small amount of difficulty and creaking bones. He walks away slowly. Katara continues to watch the turtleducks.
Another person sits in the place Iroh has vacated, like him in the lack of ease, but hers is for different reason.
Katara glances sideways at the newcomer, not really turning her head. “How far along are you?”
“The doctors say it could be any day now,” Mai replies.
Katara redirects her gaze, this time to the ground. “Have you thought of any names?” She’s only being polite, and both of them know it.
“Zuko has. He wants to name the child, so I’m letting him.”
“Don’t you care?” The words slip out, her tone icier than she means for it to be.
Mai closes her eyes. “Of course I care. I wish I didn’t.”
Katara turns in surprise. Mai doesn’t look at the waterbender, but keeps speaking. “I heard the old man tell you about the marriage law. What he didn’t tell you is that Zuko tried to change it. He spent weeks carving something in his room, something he hid whenever someone caught him at it, while the council deliberated on the matter. When they refused to change the law, he spent another two weeks sulking.”
She tilts her head toward the sky and opens her pale, pale gold eyes again. “Our marriage was arranged by the council, but Zuko asked me in person. I accepted the offer, knowing that I would always be second. It doesn’t matter how many sons I give him, how loyal I am to him, how long we are married. It will never be my name he whispers in his sleep.”
Katara shivers, because she wonders if she too whispers a name at night that is not her spouse’s. Is that how Sunen knows?
“Did you know that his favorite color is blue?” Mai asks. “He never wears it; it wouldn’t be appropriate. But I know.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a dark red ribbon, from which hangs a carved blue stone. “He doesn’t know I took this. He kept it in a box in our room. He touches the box everyday, but he never opens it. Finally I opened it when he wasn’t there, and I understood. He made this nearly five years ago, and he made it for you.”
Katara stares at the necklace and unconsciously reaches for it. Mai hands it over without hesitation.
“You should have it,” the Fire Lord’s wife says.
“Thank you,” Katara murmurs, but she doesn’t know why. The necklace isn’t a gift.
Mai leaves, and Katara is once again alone in front of the turtleduck pond.
As Mai did the moment she held the necklace, Katara now understands.
--------
“Please say you hate me,” Zuko says softly as Katara steps into his office. He’s been hiding here for the past week, and even the announcement of his daughter’s birth has not been able to pull him out.
Katara shakes her head. She refuses to pity him. “I don’t hate you.”
“I hate me.”
“Mai’s waiting to find out what you’re naming your daughter,” she says. The ice has returned to her voice, and she keeps reminding herself that he deserves it. “She’s beautiful, by the way. The baby. She looks like you.”
She may as well be flinging daggers at his heart. “She should be yours.”
“Don’t say that, Zuko. Come on, Mai’s waiting. The entire nation is waiting.”
He stood up and reached for her. Katara blushed as the Fire Lord held her close. It had been so long since they’d been together like this, but… did she even want it anymore? “Zuko, please…” Please what? Don’t? Don’t stop? What did she want?
“I'm thinking of naming my daughter after your mother.”
Katara pulled away. “How cruel and selfish can you be?” she cried. This was the answer, then. This was the truth. “Mai loves you! She knows she’s second in your heart and yet she loves you with all of hers! And every time you do something like this, you hurt her even more!” She brandishes the necklace he’d made, the one she’s carried with her for the past three days.
Zuko stares at the piece of jewelry dangling from Katara’s hand. “Where did you get that?” he breathes.
“Mai gave it to me,” she spits. “You can have it back, if you want.” She’s daring him to take it, daring him to change the love she’s had for him into true hate. Daring him to push her across that thin, thin line between the two.
He turns away. “No, you keep it. It was supposed to be yours anyway.”
--------
Mai blinks at the sight of her husband holding their newborn daughter, trying to determine if it’s real or she’s fallen asleep and this is just another fantasy. “Zuko?”
He smiles at her. “She’s beautiful. So are you.”
Mai doesn’t return the smile. Not yet. “What’s her name?” she asks, hating for a moment that the condition of her heart depends so desperately on his answer.
“Her name,” Zuko says softly, “is Ursa. For my mother.”
Now Mai smiles. It’s easier to do so now than it has ever been. “Ursa,” she repeats. “I like it.”
“That’s unusual.”
“Well, I can’t hate everything.”
They kiss, and Katara, watching from the doorway, turns to leave. She is going to pack, because she’s leaving in the morning. She only hopes that Sunen will forgive her.
--------
Sixteen-year-old Ursa stares in amazement at the waterbending master. Normally the bending exhibitions at the summer solstice festival bore her (as so much does), but this time she simply can’t look away from the young man with sparkling blue eyes.
Something in the back of her mind tells her that love at first sight is real, and this is how it feels.
When he’s finishes, Ursa pushes her way through the applauding audience so that she can reach the platform before he leaves. He turns to go just as she gets there, and she shouts for him to wait.
He stops and turns around. The girl who called to him is beautiful, he thinks instantly. That she’s obviously from the Fire Nation doesn’t register, and thanks to his mother’s many teachings it wouldn’t have mattered if it did.
“What’s your name?” the girl asks breathlessly.
The boy smiles. “I’m Kinen.”