Zuko
I should have killed him.
I should have killed the monster. Made the demon pay for his sins.
We are walking under a worsening storm, the ice-cold watery spears sting against my skin.
They are quick to become heavy drops, crashing angrily against the ground and performing a discordant symphony between each other, the world appears to reduce itself to diluted colors and a dark, petite silhouette moving significantly ahead of me.
Katara.
She hasn't turned to me since we stepped away from Yon Rha.
She's close to running, even now that we are far enough from the pathetic old man's whining; I watch with concern her dangerously long strides over the slippery ponds of mud.
Her back is unnaturally straight as she walks, her entire body nearly visibly vibrates with restrained power. She marches with her head high, stubbornly refusing the appearance of defeat, but consenting the wounding drops to beat her mercilessly. Her shadow quickly becomes more and more distant, advancing with erratic moves that make her swing in her steps.
I rush to her side when I hear her scream, slipping against a tree.
"Katara, are you okay?"
My hand reaches for her shoulder.
"Don't touch me!" Her voice is a pained howl at the mere contact – it ruptures the soundwave of the rain hitting the earth – and she turns to me with a gaze made of shattered ice. "Never touch me!"
Katara's sapphire-blue eyes are ill-defined, looking in all directions and none at once. They pass through without looking directly at me; static and cold, but uncontrolled and savage.
"We should have never come..." For a moment, her face and voice lower with fear. It quickly morphs into rage. "We should have never come! This is your fault! It's all your fault!"
Her shrill screams are painful to the ears, like the sound of claws over glass. Her entire expression is drawn in stirringly sharp lines of pain. And her eyes...
"Your fault! Everything is your fault!"
"Katara..."
The words die in my throat at the mention of her name. I can't talk. I can't move.
I stare at Katara and she stares back at me, I can hear the sound of both our heavy breaths over the rain. She looks like she is encircled by a dark spirit. A dirtily black fog of grief. I feel...
I feel...
A disgustingly familiar sense of absolute helplessness washes over me, bringing with it my most hated emotions and fears. The feeling of not being good enough, being weak, being abandoned, rejected and hated by someone you hold dear.
I want to make things right – I want fix this for her.
For once, I want to save someone. For once, I want to be strong enough.
"Katara..."
"No," she grits through clenched teeth. Suddenly our faces are just a breath apart. "Don't you dare say my name!"
This close, I can notice the unshed tears glistening her eyes. Blue irises bleeding crimson rivers.
"Katara, I..."
"Shut up!," she crashes her fist against my chest. And then again, and again, "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"
Katara's smacks mimic stabbing – like she's trying to force her pain into me. The tears she has been holding back finally leave her eyes and roll through her cheeks, mixing themselves with the rainwater. "I hate you!," she screams over the rain, "I hate you, hate you, hate you!"
I stand stock-still, taking Katara's hits without protesting.
Soon enough, her punches lose their forces, and they are followed by tear-jerking crying sounds. Her hands now cling to my shirt, nails digging in her palms past the fabric, as sorrowful sobs leave her lips.
"Zuko..."
Katara.
I tighten my arms around her, keeping all of her pieces together, keeping her above the depths of despair. Her slender arms snake from my chest to surround my waist, pushing the two of us so close together not even the raindrops can pass between our bodies. It's hard to breathe with her squeezing my ribs so tightly.
I don't care.
Katara feels so very tiny in my arms. Despite the thick fabric of her tunic, the noticeable curves of her back and waist feel pleasingly delicate; all of her body is like a crystal relic.
The thought is contradicting; Katara is not fragile like crystal.
She continues crying holding on to me. Somehow, we end up leaning against the tree next to us – or rather, I'm leaning against it. My back is pressed against the thick log and Katara is pressed against me. We are embracing each other.
We keep embracing as we slide down in perfect synchrony until we are sitting in the floor. My back is still against the wood and Katara is half-lounged against me with her face buried against my chest. Her cries are a bit muffled by my shirt and the sound of the rain but I can hear them wholly.
I don't say anything. (I don't know what I am supposed to say.) All that I do is hold Katara tighter, softly rubbing her back with my hands.
The tree branches shelter us from the rain, and I watch the drops endlessly falling in front of my eyes. Katara's cries go from loud to quiet and then loud again, sometimes her body shakes violently with a hard sob that I feel more than I hear. She's pressed so tightly against me it's like she was a piece of myself. A piece of my heart, my lungs, and all of my body.
I'm not sure how long we stay like this. It feels like hours but they might as well be minutes. Little by little, Katara stops crying. I should be surprised by how when she finally ends, she doesn't pull away from me. In fact, she rests the side of her head against the center of my chest as if it was a pillow.
I should be surprised by it, but I can't bring myself to it.
I'm so tired. Too tired to feel anything other than Katara.
She isn't crying or screaming anymore, neither is she talking; she's just breathing steadily at the same rhythm that I do.
I'm still not sure how to proceed. (Should I move? Speak?) I continue rubbing her back with my hands. It's oddly reassuring, to be touching her like this.
The storm continues for a while up until dusk. When the clouds dissipate, the sky is colored in a pretty pinkish-red tone that remembers me of fire lilies. "The storm is over," I observe.
Katara squirms even closer to me. "Yeah." Her arms tighten around my waist.
***
I don't remember falling asleep.
It feels like I just blinked and then opened my eyes groggily, my eyelids feel like they weigh a ton. What the Agni is on top of me?
Oh. Right.
Katara.
It looks like she's sleeping, too. Her arms are still wrapped around me and her cheek is resting against my heart. I wonder if she can hear my heartbeat in her sleep.
It doesn't take long for her to wake up as well. Sleepily slowly, she lifts her head and her arms release my torso – only for her to put her hands over my pecs for steadying herself.
"Hi," I say. Lamely. Because I still don't know what to say. Darn, I feel like the biggest idiot in the world.
"Hi." The word seems to struggle to get out of her raspy throat, her eyes are red and intensely swollen. She looks around and up at the purplish blue sky above us, "Did we fall asleep?"
"I guess we did," I straighten myself.
"For how long?"
"Can't tell," I raise my gaze to the sky. "It's still not late yet, we can still fly back in Appa."
"Yes. Guess we can."
Katara's voice is just as absent as her stare, the latter is fixed in the air flowing over the floor. Her gaze is still broken, shattered like sharp pieces of a smashed mirror. There are markedly dark circles under her eyes that I've never seen before. Gods, what did I do?
This trip was supposed to help Katara, not harm her even further.
I attempt to apologize for all of this (for the trip and my own stupidity), but I barely have time to open my mouth before Katara cuts me off. "We should get going. It's getting late. The others must be worried about us." Her hands remove from my chest rapidly, but gently.
It is then when it dawns me that my hands are still on her back, and her legs are straddling my lap.
Instinctively, I take my hands away from her as fast as possible, and she stands up.
The walk back to Appa is silent. Overwhelmingly so. It feels like I might as well be walking alone. Katara is walking ahead of me again with her entire posture frail and weary, it's like all of the restrained power that I witnessed before was drained out of her body, leaving it as a breakable shell.
We find Appa hidden in the trees that we used as a cover for him. Apparently he, too, senses something odd with Katara because he approaches her bewildered and presses his head against her. The small smile that Katara gives is poorly reassuring.
"It's okay, buddy."
How can she console Appa when she's the one that's falling apart escapes my understanding.
"Zuko, do you mind riding us back? I think I need some sleep."
"Sure – "
Katara nods and, again, before I get to say anything else, she climbs up to Appa by herself and curls up in his back.
Appa lowers his head for me to climb up, too. I do.
***
It's a long trip back and, effectively, Katara sleeps during most of it.
I don't know at what moment she wakes up, but after a few hours I feel her sitting right behind me – too close, perhaps – I can feel her breathe close to my neck and ear.
"I don't really want to go back to the camp," she whispers wearily.
I feel more than I hear her words, they prickle my skin.
"I know about a place where we can all hide from Azula and the Firelord," I offer, "I can leave you there now, and then I can back fly to bring the others."
Katara makes a soft, agreeing sound and then moves away from me again. I don't turn to look at her.
***
It does not take long to get to hideout that I told her about; it is in the Fire Nation, too, after all.
A few hours later we are flying over Ember Island, and I command Appa to land in my family's old beach house. It looks different in the light of the day, but still grim. Like a true haunted house from a spooky story.
Katara does not ask for my help to get down when we land. "This is my family's old beach house," I tell her, "My father hasn't come here since Azula and I were little. He would never come to look for us here."
Katara nods, so absently that I'm not sure if she actually heard me at all. We both get all of our luggage off of Appa together.
"Thanks," she says when we are done.
Thanks for what? For this awful trip, for riding us here, for helping with the luggage?
Of course I don't say any of that.
I don't say anything because Katara runs awayonce more before she hears me speak.