Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I.

There’s a secret door in the wall of Katara’s room.

“ Secret tunnel, secret tunnel,” she sings under her breath, holding the little lantern she’d found beside her bed, complete with spark-rocks, ahead of her. The tunnel is small and narrow, nothing at all like the tunnels under the mountain, and there won’t be any glowing rocks to lead the way if she gets lost and blows out the light.

She won’t get lost, because she can already see the outline of the door at the other end of the tunnel, ringed in the soft gold of oil-lamp light.

It opens with the slightest press of her hand, and she laughs at that. She’s not sure why she’s laughing, and she stops as soon as the room beyond is revealed.

Zuko is standing in bending stance, his hair soft and loose around his face, wearing only loose, soft leggings, which are sitting low on his narrow hips. He relaxes as soon as he recognises her, shifting to stand upright and smiling.

The lightning scar on his chest is still livid, fitting into the lines of muscle as if Azula aimed it on purpose.

“You look a little lost,” he says, smile fading when he realises she’s only wearing her underthings and the filmy robe his servants left for her. It’s beautiful, pale yellow-gold silk edged with deep navy-blue, and she knows she should be mortified to be here, like this, at this time of the night, but she’s not. She hasn’t been embarrassed around Zuko in years, not since he saw her bloodbend and didn’t say a word about it.

“Why is there a secret tunnel between our rooms?”

He looks embarrassed, even though he’s shrugging and aiming for nonchalance. The whole right side of his face flares deep pink, all down his neck and over his shoulders, and she wonders if it goes around the back, too.

“This is my room,” he says, “the Fire Lord’s room - you’re in the Fire Lady’s room. And it’s a secret passage, not a secret tunnel.”

“Like that makes a difference,” she points out, crossing the room to sit on his bed. The sheets are white cotton, which surprises her - she’d expected red silk, and feels a little silly for it. “Why am I in the bedroom meant for your wife?”

“Because you’re the guest of honour,” he says, “and that’s the best room in the Fire Nation, after mine.”

“Aang is the guest of honour.”

“And he wanted to sleep anywhere but the palace,” Zuko points out evenly.

It occurs to Katara, sitting on Zuko’s bed while he stands over her, arms crossed self-consciously over his bare chest, that she is a little drunk, and it’s making her brave, but Zuko is very, very sober, and is blushing that beautiful pink because of it.

His eyes are trailing up the line of her shin, probably because she has her legs crossed and he’s never seen her bare-legged before. Probably.

“These aren’t guest quarters, though,” she says, lying back on the soft cotton sheets, wondering if they’re really warm under her or if it’s just the wine humming under her skin. “Are Toph and Sokka and Suki roomed up here, too?”

“Toph is,” Zuko says, “but I figured it would be better for all of us if Sokka and Suki were… A little further away.”

Marriage suits them, but Sokka and Suki haven’t quite figured out how to keep things quiet enough to keep from scandalising their neighbours. She can see the logic in Zuko’s decision on that front, she supposes.

“Is there a secret tunnel from Toph’s room to yours?”

“As if she needs one.”

That’s fair, too.

He sits on the edge of the bed beside her, but stays upright. His back is long and smooth and pale, dusted with constellations of peachy freckles, and Katara wants to touch it. She’s wanted to touch Zuko for ages, but hasn’t dared, not in any of her visits here or their shared visits to Gaoling or wherever else.

She’s brave tonight, though, so she sits up, and presses her hand flat to his back, over his heart. His skin is warm, fever-warm but without the sweatiness or claminess she’d expect, and she assumes it must be a firebender thing. She likes it. Likes the way his skin feels under her palm.

“You’ve put on some serious muscle since the last time I touched you,” she says, sitting forward a little and sliding her hand around, under his arm, to press against that pink-white scar. It’s a little cooler than the skin around it, and jumps when she splays her fingers to cover it all. “Is that a firebender thing?”

Katara’s bulked up since then too, hips and thighs and breasts and arms, strong enough to shoulder the weight of their tribe with Sokka, strong enough to bend for the whole South Pole.

“It’s more of an it’s been five years since then thing,” Zuko says, his voice taut and distant. “Katara-”

She’s being brave. She kisses the sharp jut of his shoulder very softly, and then rests her cheek against the thick muscle of his upper arm.

“Katara,” he says, low and sharp. “Please don’t.”

He- surely she hasn’t misread him so badly? He’s never been shy about watching her, not the past couple of years, and he always holds on that little bit too long when they hug goodbye. She’s gotten used to being watched, because she’s the last bender in the South Pole, because she’s her father’s daughter, because she’s attractive - she knows it, it would be false modesty to say otherwise - and because the Avatar wanted her, maybe still wants her.

She thought Zuko wanted her, but maybe she’s wrong.

“Not unless you really want me,” he says, and when she lifts her head he’s watching her, all that lovely flush washed away in pale fear. “Katara-”

She doesn’t have to lean up very far to kiss him, catching him right on the edge of his scar. He goes very still, so still that she manages to catch him right on the edge of his mouth the next time.

He turns properly then, covers the hand over the lightning scar with his own, and slides his other hand carefully into her hair.

“Are you sure?”

She kisses him. It’s easier than finding words.

His hands tighten, drawing her closer, and she’s startled when he sighs against her mouth and kisses her back, slow and careful, as if he’s afraid of scaring her.

“What were you singing, when you came in?” he murmurs, mouth moving against hers as if this is a totally normal conversation, as if she can’t feel the skip of his heart and the race of his blood along his veins.

It’s a full moon, after all.

“A song I heard years ago,” she says, nudging her nose against his just because she can. “From a band of travelling musicians, on our way to Omashu. It’s about the tunnels under the mountain, to the Cave of Two Lovers. I thought it was funny, because I found a secret tunnel, and the song goes-”

“I think I’ve heard Sokka singing it, now you mention it,” he says, voice warm with laughter. “Can I kiss you again?”

She lets him, even tipping up her chin to make it easier for him, and slides her hand up his chest, over the jut of his collarbone, up the line of his neck. His skin is even warmer there, where he’s blushing, and he shivers under her fingertips.

He’s too far away, though, so she moves. She swings her leg over his thighs and settles squarely in his lap, and then she brings her hands up to frame his lovely, stunned face.

His eyes drop closed when she brushes her thumb over and back over the lowest reaches of his scar, his breath shuddering against the palm of her hand.

“You don’t have to touch it,” he says, fingers digging into the meat of her hips. “I know it’s not- that it’s-”

“Part of you?” she asks. “I’m not going to avoid it, Zuko. I never have.”

“It’s ugly,” he says, so quietly she barely hears it. “Katara-”

She kisses him, right on his closed, scarred eye, and he moans, high and keening, and wraps his arms fully around her, pulling her in close. He seems so delicate under her touch, as if he’ll tremble apart in her hands if she isn’t careful. There’s a power in this, a power as brilliant and terrible as bloodbending, and she’ll have to be just as careful about this as she is about that.

“What if,” she says, skimming the tip of her nose over the smooth divide between scar and skin, “we don’t talk anymore.”

He makes another of those desperate noises, and she smiles.

“What if,” she says, waiting until he opens his eyes to look at her. “We promise not to talk at all until morning.”

She’s just a little drunk, and it’s making her very brave. His mouth opens under hers, and she doesn’t need to be brave anymore, not with his hands moving under her filmy robe to touch bare skin, and it feels as if she can’t breathe anymore.

II.

Zuko kisses her awake the next morning, fingertips tracing out over her cheekbone and sweeping down over her jaw to settle, feather-light, against the column of her throat.

“You should go back to your room,” he whispers, “before Toph catches us.”

“She’d tell Sokka,” Katara agrees, smiling when he rolls to settle over her, fitting into the cradle of her hips as if he belongs there. He’s pulled back on those soft, loose trousers, but it won’t take much to be rid of them, if she wants. “And then Sokka would tell my dad. ”

Zuko pulls away from kissing a bruise under her ear, face twisted in open terror, and she laughs, bright and overjoyed. It feels as if she’s been waiting for this for years, and maybe she has. Maybe they both have.

“I think I broke some of your hair beads,” he says, bashful now, pushing her hair back from her face with careful hands. “I can have new ones made for you, if you’d like.”

“I bought a bag of two hundred for a silver piece in Omashu last midwinter,” she assures him. “I have plenty of spares, Zuko, you don’t need to give me new ones.”

That blush flares like a signal across his cheek, and she reaches up to smooth her knuckles over his crystal-sharp cheekbone.

“I’d like to,” he says, gone beyond bashful to embarrassed now. “Give you things, I mean. Not just beads for your hair.”

And isn’t that the problem - if he gives her anything, anything at all, people will begin to speculate and gossip, and there’ll be a new round of attempts on Zuko’s life, because the Fire Nation purists will lose their minds over the prospect of a Water Tribe Fire Lady.

There might even be a new round of attempts on Katara’s life. She hasn’t had to deal with those in years, not since she left Aang.

“You know you can’t,” she says, as gently as she can, and he closes his eyes. At least he isn’t angry, she supposes, but this is almost worse - she’s never seen him surrender before, not like this.

“Doing what I’m not supposed to do is kind of my thing,” he points out, nudging under her chin, then kissing her. “Think about it. I’ve talked to Uncle about it, and-”

“You’ve talked to General Iroh about giving me gifts?”

The weight of that is… More than she can comprehend, really. If Zuko is talking to Iroh about her, he must be serious about this.

She thought he was just lonely, last night, or that he was swept up in the festivities, or swept up in her, the way she so often feels swept up in him.

“Uncle thinks it could work,” he says, looking her right in the eye without flinching. “He thinks that if we frame it as politics, they’ll think it’s just luck if we find happiness.”

“Are you asking me to marry you?!”

“No!” he yelps, firing back, and then he yelps again, scrambling to find her robe and her underthings, passing them to her before she can even get herself covered up with the discarded blankets. It feels so different to be naked before him, in the pale dawning sunlight. It felt completely normal last night, in flickering golden-red lamplight cut through with silver-bright moonshine, but this is not that. “No, I just- I wasn’t trying to- I didn’t mean it like that! I meant, I wanted to know if you’d let me court you-”

“Then why do you need political approval?!”

“Because everything I do needs to be approved,” he says, miserable, and she regrets shouting now. She knows how closely he’s watched, because of his history and because of his father in equal measure, but if he’s talking about officially courting her, well, she doesn’t know everything about Fire Nation social protocol but she knows what that means.

That means either betrothal or disgrace, and Zuko would never disgrace her.

“I’m going back to my room,” she says, finally halfway decent under the covers, “and I’m going to have a bath, and eat breakfast, and afterwards, we can talk about this.”

III.

Sokka and Suki are already in the dining hall when she arrives, and Toph is right behind her.

“You seem tired this morning, Sugar Queen,” Toph says, thumping her in the arm and saying no more about it. Sokka and Suki are too caught up in one another to notice anything, and she made sure there were no visible marks while she was in the bath, so maybe everyone will just think she slept badly, or that she’s hungover.

She’s not even tired, really. She hadn’t wanted to heal away the dull ache in her thighs, had wanted to keep a little piece of the night before as a sort of reward, for having gotten through it without asking Zuko to keep her. She kind of regrets it now, settling to the floor by the table, touching her mother’s necklace and wondering if Zuko will mix up his Water Tribes and give her a replacement if they go through with this, and make it to the end-

“Morning, Katara!” Aang bubbles, dropping down into the empty space to her left. “Did you sleep well?”

“I slept fine, Aang,” she says. “How about you?”

He’s gotten tall, and has to fold his long, skinny legs under himself like a crane. He’s started growing a beard, too, neat and short and close to his jaw, but she thinks he’ll probably only keep it that way until he can manage the long moustache he told her Monk Gyatzo has, in his memories.

He still looks at her just like he did while they were still seeing one another, which is exhausting. She made herself very clear when she walked away, that bright, cool day two and a half years ago, but Aang hadn’t seemed to understand that she meant she was done with being more than his friend permanently.

It was nice, at first. He was so attentive, and fun - that had meant so much, after the time they’d spent together during the war. She’d gotten so used to being sensible and responsible that it had been weird, not to forage and cook every meal, not to mend Sokka’s shirts and Aang’s tunic, not to remind Toph to clean up after her dinner. And then, when Sokka followed Suki to Kyoshi Island and later followed Dad to the South Pole, when Toph made up with her mom and returned to Gaoling, and it was just Katara and Aang… It had been nice, at first.

But it hadn’t been right. Maybe they’d just been too young, and Aang had attached way too much importance to her role in his awakening, in his becoming the Avatar. Maybe they were never compatible, really, and Katara had fallen into being Aang’s girlfriend because it seemed the right thing to do, and she always did the right thing.

Except when she pretended to be the Painted Lady.

Or hunted down the Southern Raiders.

Or threatened Zuko’s life, when he first arrived at the temple.

She wonders what Zuko would think, if he knew she'd posed as the Painted Lady - not that he'd be able to criticise, after his adventures as the Blue Spirit.

Maybe she doesn’t always do the right thing, but she mostly does. And at the time, it had seemed right to kiss Aang. It had seemed right to stay with him when the others moved on, even when it became obvious that he was more interested in being fawned over by the Acolytes than in actually being with her.

That’s unfair, though. He was only thirteen, younger even than she was when the iceberg broke, and he never had to be an adult, not really. Just a soldier.

“I slept really well,” Aang says, stretching his arms high over his head. “Appa’s tail is as comfortable as ever - he really misses you, you know.”

She’s sure.

“I’ll swing by and say hi to him before I leave,” she says, helping herself to some of the persimmons and the moonpeaches sitting beside whatever meaty thing it is Sokka’s eating. “Where are you headed after this?”

“Oh, you know,” Aang says, far too casual, “I was thinking of checking in at the South Pole - it’s been a long time, you know?”

She’s spared having to find a polite answer for that - Aang coming to the South Pole will be awkward, because he’ll act closer to her than is proper, now that she’s an adult - by Zuko’s appearance.

He has a fully-bloomed bruise right on the pale notch of throat exposed by the parted collar of his shirt, and she prays to Tui and La and especially to Yue that no one else notices. Tui and La are beyond such things, but Yue might be a little sympathetic, she hopes.

“Hey, everyone,” he says, sitting down at her right hand as if nothing has changed. She might think he was unaffected, if not for the way he brushes the back of his hand against her knee, so softly that she almost missed it, but definitely on purpose. She’d bet that he’s blushing, on his other cheek. “Anyone need a remedy?”

Katara supposes she should be hungover, since she’s always hungover after drinking rice wine, but she’s not. Maybe all that time in Zuko’s bed burned the alcohol out of her system.

“I have all the remedy I need right here,” Sokka says, patting the dish with all the meat and grinning. Suki’s already rolling her eyes, and Katara feels so happy, to be here, with her family-

“ Where is the magic tea?” Toph demands, lifting her head from the table and scowling as only she can.

“Come sit here by me,” Zuko says, patting the floor. “I’ll make sure the tea is hot.”

Toph bumps her hip against Katara’s shoulder on her way past, which is equivalent to a hug, really, and that happiness grows just a little, warm in her belly.

Zuko passes her a cup of white jasmine tea, warmed just as she likes it, and she somehow manages not to blush. She thinks.

IV.

“Is this a courting gift?” she teases back over her shoulder, watching in the mirror as Zuko fixes her hair with a beautiful silver clasp, delicate and strong and set with deep blue sapphires that winked in the light when he held it up to show her. “Should I expect there to be a care package waiting for me, when we get home?”

“As if you won’t be writing to ask for more jasmine tea,” he teases in return, slotting the final pin into place and stepping back, satisfied with his work. “Beautiful.”

She blushes, because he means her, not just the hair clasp.

It seems amazing that this hasn’t happened sooner, somehow, because when she looks back at the four or five times they’ve been together over the past year and a half, well, she’s flirted with him, sometimes pretty brazenly, and he flirted back.

He puts his hands carefully on her shoulders, shy of touching her even now, and she covers them with her own - to reassure him, sure, but also just to touch him some more.

“Would it be inappropriate of me to send you things?” he asks, genuinely concerned. “I mean, would your father disapprove?”

“He might,” she admits, “but I’m given a lot more freedom than is normal, given… Everything.”

Being the last waterbender in the tribe has its perks, even if it is sometimes lonely. She really wants some of the newest crop of babies to be benders. Really really wants it .

Chapter Text

I.

“Can waterbenders even get seasick?”

Katara doesn’t bother turning her head to look - Sokka doesn’t mean any harm, and he’s holding her hair back anyway, so she can’t fall out with him about it. Suki passes her a waterskin, and she rinses her mouth out before finally standing up.

“This one can, apparently,” Suki says, but Katara knows that look . Toph has a look like that, too, which says I can see through your crap, but it wouldn’t do to call you on it now. Katara will never stop being grateful that Sokka hasn’t learned to interpret that look.

Luckily, Suki hasn’t learned to interpret what it might mean if a waterbender is getting seasick. Katara’s grateful that Gran Gran is in the North Pole, because Gran Gran would know even without the seasickness.

Katara knew before the seasickness. She knew two weeks ago, when her blood didn’t come with the full moon. She knew two weeks ago, when she couldn’t keep her dinner down.

She should’ve done something about it. Like tell Zuko. Like tell Toph . Toph would know what to do. Toph always knows what to do, in weird, awkward, potentially terrible situations.

Maybe she should tell Suki. Maybe she should tell Suki. At least Suki isn’t likely to sail back to the Fire Nation by sheer force of fraternal fury so she can tear Zuko’s head off.

Her fingers are shaking so hard that she can barely tuck her hair back into place. She manages, though, and keeps her hands steady as she works the clasp Zuko gave her back into place, and she feels a little better once that’s done.

Maybe she should tell Suki. She has to tell someone, because she’ll be showing by the time they get home, and she would really like to have someone in her corner when Dad starts freaking out about that.

II.

She could do something about it. She doesn’t need Toph or Suki or Gran Gran or anyone else - she’s helped other girls with this same problem before, she knows what herbs to blend into sweet tea and she knows what gentle push to give the blood to make everything move.

But she doesn’t want to do something about it. She knows she probably should, because she’s the daughter of the chief, now that they’re getting reparations from the Fire Nation and they’ve really gotten into the rebuilding, she’s the next thing to a princess. She’s their only waterbender, and their most popular diplomat, and she has too many things to do to do this.

But this isn’t a duty, or an obligation. This is… It’s a baby. She hasn’t thought it before now, but it’s a baby, her and Zuko’s baby, a baby who might have Zuko’s bright eyes and his long nose and his shy smile. A baby she wants.

She sips the sweet white jasmine tea Zuko sent with her and frets. She wants this baby so much she might cry, but it’s going to be hard - especially since this ruins her and Zuko’s tentative plans.

Betrothal or disgrace, she’d thought about formal courtship. She had been so sure that Zuko wouldn’t disgrace her, and she was right - she’s disgracing herself, just so she doesn’t have to give up this first thing of her own since Aang woke from the iceburg.

III.

She’s showing by the time they get home, but only very slightly - her parka hides it well when they’re outside, but as soon as they get inside and she strips off her outerwear, Dad makes this horrific noise that makes her feel an inch tall.

“Don’t even think about it, Hakoda,” Suki says, because of course Katara told Suki. “This is going to be hard enough for her without you being a jerk.”

Sokka looks like he’s having an aneurysm, but he’s looked like that for the past week, since she told him, so she ignores that. Dad just looks so tired, and old, and sad.

“Your brother was born before your mother and I married,” he says, surprising her - she knows Sokka was born before Mom and Dad married, but no one ever says it. “But this is a lot more complicated for you than it was for us, sweetheart.”

There’s a letter from Zuko, delivered by message-hawk, which arrived a week before her. In it, he asks her father’s permission to formally court her.

Dad told him yes. Katara wonders if he regrets that now.

IV.

Aang arrives on Appa, with Toph in tow.

That surprises Katara - Toph hates the South Pole, because she can’t feel anything accurately through the snow, and her arrival either means the world is ending again, or she’s had a fight with her mom.

Mercifully, she’s had a fight with her mom.

“Hey, Sugar Queen,” she sighs, toeing carefully into Katara’s little house and then, once she’s firmly inside, throwing herself down onto the long, low couch along the wall. “Missing loverboy?”

Katara blinks at that. She didn’t go out to greet Aang and Toph - she didn’t want to face Aang’s inevitable bad reaction to the baby in public - and she knows Sokka and Suki wouldn’t have told Toph about the baby without her there, so-

“The two of you were so not subtle,” Toph gloats. “My room was on the other side of yours, Katara, I could hear the bed moving when he stayed over.”

“Please,” Katara says, suddenly faint with embarrassment. “Kill me now. It would be a mercy.”

“Nah, don’t be like that,” Toph says, grinning. “I think it’s cute - you two always had that frisky kind of chemistry. It’ll do you good to get it out in the open.”

“It’s a little more in the open than we might like,” Suki says, poking her head round the door with a smile. “Katara?”

At least Aang isn’t here. Toph might not like how things are going, but she won’t let Aang lose his temper - Toph is, if nothing else, a softie under all the toughness, and she’s just as protective of Katara as Katara is of her - and she won’t lose her own temper, either. She might shout a little, but she won’t be angry.

Or at least - Katara hopes she won’t be angry.

“Gimme your hand,” she says, and she takes Toph’s pale, calloused little hand in her own and presses it to the firm, round swell of her belly. “Surprise.”

She’s just shy of five months along - the baby will start moving soon, she hopes, and she still hasn’t told Zuko in any of the personal letters they send along with the formal letters they’re expected to send twice a month as part of their courtship. She can’t seem to find the words, and hates that.

“Whoa,” Toph says, voice soft. “Katara, are you pregnant?”

“That’s why I said surprise,” Katara teases, very gently. “I’m due right around the winter solstice.”

“Aang’s gonna freak,” Toph warns her, pressing both hands to Katara’s stomach now. “He’s still convinced you two are going to end up makin’ babies together, while you’re down here making babies with someone else. Or, I mean, up there makin’ babies with someone else. You know what I mean.”

“I can guess how Aang’s going to react,” Katara says. “I’m more concerned with how you’re reacting.”

Toph’s grin returns, just a little gentler than usual. Her hands are cool and firm and very careful on Katara’s belly, and she’s just about shaking.

“I’m happy for you,” Toph says. “I’m just kinda scared for you, too.”

V.

Aang doesn’t figure it out for almost three weeks - by then, not even Katara’s parka can hide her bump anymore.

“What is that?” he demands, pointing at her stomach and looming just enough that even Sokka, who remains undecided on the whole becoming-an-uncle thing, shifts to stand between Aang and Katara. “Katara? What’s going on?”

She manages a smile only because Toph plants herself in the snow at her side, ready to tear Aang apart if he dares anything, and because of Dad’s hand coming to rest heavy and comforting on her shoulder.

“I’m pregnant,” she says. “How do you feel about becoming an uncle?”

Aang’s face goes very still, and for a terrible heartbeat she’s afraid he’ll enter the Avatar state - she isn’t going to risk the baby just to calm Aang down from a tantrum, but if she doesn’t, he could destroy the entire village, and-

Of course he won’t do that. He’s Aang. Even if things have been weird between them for ages, he wouldn’t do that out of jealousy. Right? Right.

He puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles for Appa, and they wheel off into the sky without another word.

“Well,” Sokka says, after a lingering silence that’s just edging into awkwardness, “that could have gone a lot worse!”

Chapter Text

I.

Zuko has Katara’s last letter tucked into the inner pocket of his heavy coat, over his nervously hammering heart - he knows her family, knows her friends, but he’s never known them as this. As a suitor . He’s never been courting her before, only ever been fighting at her side or offering his support in her diplomatic efforts, and he’s dreading how Sokka is going to behave about it.

Sokka is going to be insufferable. And possibly violent. Zuko’s not sure which is worse.

Shit, he feels like he’s going to be sick he’s so nervous. Between the weight of her letter - Katara has never been a woman of few words, that’s for sure - and the weight of the gift he has in his trouser pocket, well, yeah, he’s going to be sick.

“Nephew,” Iroh scolds when Zuko shreds the edge of another official report without even noticing. “You know these people, you know this girl. Do not be so silly as to fret. ”

“ Uncle,” he sighs - he doesn’t whine anymore, he grew out of that, no matter what Iroh says - “this is important.”

“Obviously,” Iroh says, waving a dismissive hand as if to hide the smug smile curling his mouth. “But that doesn’t mean you have to look like you’ve been served over-brewed tea.”

Over-brewed tea! As if this is the time to be thinking about tea! Well, it’s always the time to be thinking about tea with Uncle, that’s part of his questionable charm, but this is serious! This is, quite possibly, the rest of Zuko’s life!

Katara’s letter is heavy in his pocket, but the bracelet he made for her is even heavier in his belt pouch. He knows that the betrothal necklaces are more a North Pole thing, but he still wants to get her something - the hair beads and the clasps don’t count, those are just… Things he bought. This is different. This has meaning.

He showed it to Uncle, since he usually asks Toph or Sokka’s opinion on this sort of thing, but he couldn’t ask them about this. He can imagine Sokka’s face, and quickly puts it out of mind, and as for Toph…

Damn it. Maybe he should have asked Toph. She would’ve been the ideal person to help him pick the right stone, wouldn’t she? Damn it!

“Deep breaths, nephew,” Uncle says gently, pushing against Zuko’s chest with a firm palm until Zuko’s breathing eases. “What are you panicking about now?”

“I should’ve asked Toph about the bracelet,” he says - alright, maybe he is whining, but this is important! “I’m such an idiot, Katara will probably hate it-”

“Give me the bracelet,” Uncle says, and Zuko obliges without pausing to consider that maybe this is a bad idea. Uncle’s ideas are rarely bad, really, so Zuko’s stopped worrying about them. Mostly.

The bracelet is tucked into a neat little bag of red silk, tied with a white satin ribbon. The delicacy of the bag doesn’t fit with the bracelet at all, but it seemed right when he was deciding how to present it to her - maybe she can use the bag for her hair beads, if she accepts the gift, and everything it means.

Uncle loosens the ribbon and tips the bracelet into his hand. The fire opal shines gold in the thin sunlight for just a second, before settling purple-red and impossibly deep against the silver of the setting.

“I think it will suit her beautifully,” Uncle says, still gentle, as he only is when he’s very serious. He sets the thick leather cuff around his own broad wrist with a smile. “You have nothing to worry about, Zuko. She has been waiting for this for just as long as you have.”

II.

Zuko is uncomfortably aware of how heavy the memory of his last arrival must sit in this village, but he is relieved that the people of the South Pole do not seem to bear him any ill will.

He suspects that that must be Katara’s doing, and wonders why she isn’t there to greet him.

“We’ve got a lot of talking to do, Lord Zuko,” Katara’s father says - Sokka is standing at his shoulder, and Zuko isn’t sure he’ll be able to look in the mirror if he ever grows as much like his father as Sokka has grown to look like Hakoda. “Come, follow us.”

“Chief Hakoda,” Zuko agrees, bowing just a little, and follows. Sokka hasn’t even smiled yet, which means something is very, very wrong. Sokka is being serious, Chief Hakoda is being stern, and Katara is absent - but what could be wrong? Katara would have written to him to cancel the visit if she thought it was dangerous for him to come here, and-

Has Katara been injured? There’ve been rumours about them, at home, but he never thought anyone would try to hurt her first. He’s an idiot. He’s so stupid-

Uncle’s hand is firm and heavy against his back, and he slows his breathing. He has to remain calm, has to make a good impression here, at this most important of meetings. He can’t let the anxiety clawing up his spine like a cat (like Azula-) choke him or make him panic.

Katara is sitting by the fire in Chief Hakoda’s hall. There’s no one else there but Suki and Toph - she never told him she was visiting, she could have travelled with him!

He looks back to Katara after stamping hard in Toph’s direction as a hello, and the anxiety digs its claws deep into his brain and sends him reeling.

“Hi,” she says, one hand raised in greeting while the other rests on the round swell of her belly. Of her pregnant belly. “Welcome to the South Pole.”

III.

They manage to steal a moment, just a heartbeat, and Zuko finds himself so overwhelmed by the gentle tumble of their baby under his hands, through her skin, that he starts crying.

“Please don’t,” she says, laughter in her warm voice, cradling his face in her strong hands. “You’ll make me cry, too.”

He kisses her for that - he knows he probably shouldn’t, but doesn’t care - and then sets his sights back on her belly, under thick blue wool, under his hands, and smiles so hard his face aches.

“I love you,” he says, and means it more than he’s ever meant anything, means it like a vow. He’s loved her for years now, he’s fairly sure, but it’s never felt as real and as possible as it does right now, while her father and his uncle are shouting at one another in the next room because Zuko knocked her up before they were even formally courting, never mind married.

He doesn’t care. He’ll throw over his own honour and lie until he’s blue in the face to cover this up if it means they get to have this. One another, and their baby.

Sokka leans out the door, one eyebrow raised in that particular long-suffering way that Zuko recognises as “older brother at the end of his tether.” He never had a very long tether, and Azula loved pushing him.

“Dad’s coming,” he says to Katara. “I’d put loverboy down if you don’t want him to get stabbed, like, a lot.”

IV.

Toph punches him so hard in the shoulder that his entire arm goes numb, but she’s smiling - that means it’s only a warning, not meant to cause actual harm.

“Not how I thought it would happen,” she says, hitting him again - side of her hand to the kidney, ow - and grinning. “But I’m happy for you both anyway.”

He gets an arm around her shoulders before she can slap him away, and she leans into his side in the closest she ever gives to a real hug - except to Katara, now he thinks about it, and sometimes Sokka. Must be a Water Tribe thing.

“Uncle is going to talk Katara’s father,” he says. “They’ll figure it out.”

“Dad will get so confused that he’ll do whatever the General says,” Sokka says, appearing behind them out of nowhere. He’s gotten really good at that, and Toph has gotten far, far too good at not ratting Sokka out. “It’ll be fine.”

Zuko hesitates, wondering how to approach this. He can’t imagine how he would have reacted if he’d had to welcome a man who’d dishonoured Azula this way into his home, and he’s just grateful that Sokka hasn’t broken his jaw yet.

So of course, like an idiot-

“Buddy, listen-”

“Oh, no,” Sokka says, surging forward to wag a finger in Zuko’s face. “You don’t get to buddy me, buddy, oh no! Not after this!”

He relents, just a little, and steps back.

“I don’t like how this is happening,” Sokka says. “I don’t like that you’ve disrespected her like this, I don’t like that this is going to look bad for you both, no matter how the General spins it in the Fire Nation and Dad explains it away here.”

“But,” Toph prompts, which earns a reluctant smile.

“But,” Sokka agrees, “I don’t think I’ve seen her smile like this since we lost Mom. So I guess I’m not that mad.”

V.

Aang arrives under cover of darkness, while Sokka and Zuko are huddled around a ferociously hot little fire half a mile out from the village, passing a bottle of sweet wine back and forth between them - Zuko had intended on sharing it with Katara, to celebrate their betrothal if she accepted, but she can’t drink and Uncle is still bickering with Chief Hakoda, so here he is, giggling with Sokka over increasingly ridiculous names for the baby.

Zuko would like… If it’s a girl, he’d like Ursa. Or Kya, if Katara would like that. He’d like Roku for a boy, if that wasn’t presumptive in a way he’ll never be able to be, not with his family history, or Lu Ten, for Uncle’s sake, if that wouldn’t break Uncle’s heart.

He thinks it’s going to be a girl. So does Katara.

So he’s not really ready for Aang’s arrival, and he’s just drunk enough that he doesn’t stop to think that maybe Aang won’t be as happy for them as Toph and Sokka and Suki are.

Aang still loves Katara. Zuko knows that. Aang still thinks of Katara as his girl. Zuko knows that, too, even if the idea of Katara belonging to anyone but herself is laughable.

“Why?” Aang asks, the shadow and spark of the fire casting age onto Aang’s too-young face. “Why her? You had your own girlfriend, a good Fire Nation girl who would’ve caused you no trouble with your people. So why her?”

Zuko blinks up at him, too much joy bubbling in his chest to even fear Aang’s power, Aang’s fury.

“I love her,” Zuko says. “Mai and I outgrew one another. Katara and I have grown into one another.”

Sokka catches the whiplash-quick strike of Aang’s staff in the crook of his boomerang,

“Don’t you dare,” he says sharply, which throws shame among the shadows of Aang’s face. “I get that you’re jealous, Aang, but Katara chose this. She chose him. It was her decision, and she made it.”

Zuko gave her the bracelet this morning, after showing it to both Sokka and Toph. Toph said it was lovely quality, Sokka was pleased by the purple-blue shine of the red stone when he tilted it to the light, and Katara said yes. That was all that really mattered, for Zuko.

Aang steps closer, and the shadows fall from his face to leave him very young, and very hurt.

“But why didn’t she choose me?” he asks, and Zuko has no answer.

Chapter Text

I.

“If anyone asks,” Uncle says, “you married when Katara last visited us, and have been formally betrothed since last we all were in Gaoling.”

“Great,” Toph says. “Can we have a party?”

Katara holds on tight to Zuko’s hands and smiles at him, and he doesn’t even mind that the whole country is likely to object when he brings her home and crowns her as Fire Lady.

“I’ll vouch for you,” Aang says, from his huddle in the corner of the room. Zuko is stunned, but touched - he knows it’s entirely for Katara’s sake that Aang’s doing this, but that doesn’t make it any less important. “No one will question the word of the Avatar on something like this.”

Katara smiles at Aang, too, but she turns back to Zuko so quickly he can’t even miss her.

“Well, since we’re all agreed,” Chief Hakoda says, sounding exhausted, “I suppose we’d better actually marry the two of you.”

II.

Zuko barely remembers his wedding.

He does remember curling around Katara in the quiet of her little house afterwards, though, fitting himself to the soft strength of her and pulling her in close. The fire opal on her wrist catches the light of the smouldering fire, and her hair smells of cold and ice, and he’s never been happier.

“It doesn’t feel real yet,” she says, fingers drumming on his wrist. “Does it feel real to you?”

“Not really,” he admits. “But I’m happy anyway.”

“Me too,” she agrees, nestling back against him. “ Really happy.”

Baby Kya kicks under Zuko’s hand, and he smiles against Katara’s hair.

III.

They have to wait until after the baby is born to return to the Fire Nation.

Or, well, Katara has to wait, since it takes so long to get home by ship and Aang and Appa have disappeared off to do Avatar things, so there’s no way to ask him to drop Katara off. Zuko can’t really afford to be away for much longer, especially with the storm that’s waiting for him back home. He doesn’t want to go, not with Katara so close to giving birth - two months! Two very short months! - but he doesn’t really have a choice. Even Uncle can’t find a way for him to wriggle out of it.

He kisses her on the dock, cradling her face in his hands and not even caring that Sokka is making all kinds of disgusted noises just off to one side. Toph is coming with him, and Suki - they’ll be getting off at an Earth Kingdom port, and then it’ll just be Zuko and Uncle the rest of the way home.

Katara and the baby will follow as soon as they can after, as soon as it’s safe. Katara and Kya. He misses them already, and he hasn’t stopped kissing her yet.

“Alright,” she says, pushing him away and smiling. “Go, weather the scandal, I’ll catch up when the hard work is done.”

He kisses her again, just to taste her smile, and then he goes.

IV.

Toph catches him by the wrist right as she’s about to step on the gangplank.

“I know people are going to be mad at you for this whole mess,” she says, “but don’t you dare turn into a jerk again, jerkbender.”

“I wouldn’t,” he says, a little offended, and then she smiles. Man, he’s an idiot. “Jerkbender. You’re a terrible person, Toph Bei Fong.”

“And I’m your best friend, Sparky,” she says, tugging him in and hugging him tight around the waist, which is proof that this year is the strangest and best of his life. “Make sure you keep the baby close - Katara’s not noble the way we’re noble, she won’t want to hand it over to a nurse.”

He hadn’t thought of that. Uncle had already given him a list, people he’d need to contact, roles he’d need to fill in their household - Katara would need attendants for her hair and wardrobe, a nurse for the baby, a wetnurse for the baby, a whole new compliment of guards would have to be sworn in, tutors found for Katara to give her cultural training and maybe even languages, since she’d need to speak the old tongue for formal occasions and ceremonies, and Zuko doesn’t know if she can.

But Katara isn’t Fire Nation. She isn’t noble, Toph is right. Katara would expect things to be done differently-

Or, he could just write to her and ask what she needs. What she wants. Things are going to be hard enough for her without him trying to force their household into a shape she won’t like. He’ll write to her and ask what she wants.

V.

Katara writes back, her letter waiting for him when he reaches the city.

That is all the sustains him through three weeks of horrific council meeting.

VI.

Katara writes him a short letter that arrives two months and three weeks after he left the South Pole.

Sokka writes him a long letter that arrives two months and three weeks after he left the South Pole.

Chief Hakoda, showing a tenderness that surprises Zuko so entirely that he has to sit down, sends him a drawing. Katara, with her hair all unbound, cradling a bundle of blankets to her breast.

Uncle finds him while he’s sitting with the three letters by the turtleduck pond, and puts one heavy hand on his shoulder.

“You think it’s bad now,” he says. “Wait until you hold her for yourself.”

Kya, Princess of the Fire Nation. Zuko can’t wait to meet her.

VII.

“I hear you’ve had good news,” Mai says, settling elegantly onto the very edge of his desk while Ty Lee cartwheels through the door. “Didn’t know you had it in you, Zuzu.”

“She means congratulations,” Ty Lee calls, settling at last to perch beside Mai. “When did you get the news? When did you get married? Why did we not get invited?”

“It was a knife-point wedding, Ty Lee,” Mai sighs, leaning back on one hand and smiling just enough to take the sting out of her jibes. “A long time coming, maybe, but still kind of last minute.”

Ty Lee chatters on about how cute babies are, how much fun she’s going to have decorating a nursery, and Zuko lets her. She’s probably already started, with Uncle’s blessing.

“She’s lovely,” Mai says, tapping the second drawing Chief Hakoda had sent, this one of Kya, all plump and soft and round, sucking on Katara’s finger. “They both are.”

Zuko’s face heats, but Mai keeps smiling. She doesn’t smile too often, even now, which means this is sincere. She approves. She’s happy for him.

Ty Lee says something about pink walls, and Zuko decides he ought to pay attention to her, too. Sometimes, when they visit, Azula’s absence stops aching.

VIII.

There is another council meeting when Zuko announces that Katara and Kya (and Sokka and Suki and Toph and possibly Chief Hakoda) are due to arrive within the week. He’s known for the better part of a month, of course, but they didn’t need to know that.

Mai and Ty Lee and Uncle have most of the arrangements for Katara’s coronation completed, anyway. The fact that half the council aren’t speaking to him won’t matter for another few days.

IX.

Katara fits his hands around Kya right there on the dock, settling the heavy, sleepy weight of their daughter against his chest.

Kya yawns, her pink little mouth wide in her round face - more like Katara than like him, although that could be baby fat, or she could be more like Uncle - and her eyes flash open for just a second, bright blue against the soft, warm brown of her skin.

He looks up to meet Katara’s eyes, that same blue, and finds he can’t even speak. He can just about run his thumb over the dusting of straight black hair capping Kya’s head.

“I know,” Katara promises him, touching his face. “You’ll get your voice back when she starts screaming, don’t worry.”

X.

“Secret tunnel, secret tunnel,” he hears Katara singing, and she emerges from the passage between their rooms with Kya on her hip and his fire opal on her wrist. “Hey, look! It’s your daddy!”

Zuko rolls his eyes, but he still darts forward to take Kya - who’s hanging out of Katara’s arms, stretching toward him as far as she can - and shift her high against his chest so she can’t tug on Katara’s hair. She loves Katara’s hair almost as much as he does.

“How come you’re not in bed, little one?” he coos, nuzzling his nose against Kya’s just to hear her laugh. “Hmm? Didn’t we put you to bed an hour ago?”

“She’s teething, Zuko,” Katara reminds him, already curled up under his sheets with her eyes closed. “And it’s your turn tonight.”

He rolls his eyes, and hesitates only long enough to bend over the bed and kiss the corner of Katara’s mouth before heading for the door.

“Secret tunnel, secret tunnel,” he sings, and Kya tucks her head against his neck. “Even if it is a secret passage. ”