Chapter Text
It’s not even midday and Katara can already feel a migraine coming on.
Her study looks like a hurricane has torn through it. Papers are scattered across every available surface, where they’ve been slowly building up since she was dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn with the unwelcome news that the delegation from Ba Sing Se would be arriving a full week earlier than planned.
Usually, this wouldn’t have been a major concern. Nearly two years of being Fire Lady meant that Katara has planned and executed more successful events and negotiations than she can count, attended countless summits and liaised with numerous foreign dignitaries. Though they never explicitly organised it that way, somehow it had just felt right that domestic affairs fell within Zuko’s purview and international ones within Katara’s – a natural reflection of their strengths and skills.
At any other time, she would have had this completely in hand – would have factored in any surprises and accommodated for them well ahead of time. An early arrival, even by a week, wouldn’t have posed a significant issue for Katara.
At least, not before.
She hasn’t realized until this very moment just how distracted she’s been over the past month, how much she’s unwittingly let slide because of the changes in her relationship with Zuko. Now, looking at the mountain of work piling up before her, she almost regrets it.
(It’s hard to regret anything with the memory of his touch emblazoned on her skin.)
Still, as Lishan bustles in with yet another proposal for her to look over, and she rewrites the draft of her opening speech for the fifth time, Katara silently curses Zuko for being so unfairly talented at turning her brain to mush and then forcibly shoves all thought of him out of her head for the rest of the afternoon.
*
It takes less than three days before Zuko stages an intervention.
Katara doesn’t intend to work through the night – it was only that somehow, one page turned to two, and then three, and then she was watching the sunrise out the window. It wasn’t as though she was skipping sleep either; she slept in the afternoon and woke feeling perfectly rested, contrary to any concerns Lishan may or may not have had. Neither did she intend to fall asleep on her desk the next night, which had nothing to do with her lack of rest and everything to do with how unexpectedly comfortable cherry wood could be.
Katara takes her job seriously – she’s not about to turn up to meetings with Minister Ruien, Kuei’s favoured councillor, looking like an unprepared amateur. She can imagine how well that would go with a vulture like Ruien, just waiting to seize upon the slightest opportunity to press his advantage.
So even if words have stopped meaning anything an hour ago, and everything beneath her skin is itching, skittering with restless energy, and she feels like she would rather fall headfirst into a pit of viper-mongooses… it doesn’t matter. She has a responsibility, and she isn’t going to fall short after two years of proving herself over and over, just because she was stupid enough to get caught up in the whirlwind of a fantasy that will end as soon as she feels the first fluttering of life within her.
There it is.
No amount of work can take away from the small, persistent nagging voice in the back of her head. The one that always, always tells her not to get too comfortable, too familiar, too expectant. That forces her gaze away whenever Zuko looks at her too long, too softly. That reminds her – coldly, cruelly – of that first awful night of their wedding whenever she’s foolish enough to entertain the thought that maybe, just maybe, she’s not alone in her feelings.
Of course, she had to fall in love with the one person who didn’t – wouldn’t – love her back.
Katara groans and lets her head fall against the table. “Fuck me.”
“Not that I would mind obliging,” a slightly amused voice says from the doorway, “but I doubt that’s what you meant.”
She jerks up.
Zuko leans against the door, arms folded across his chest. He’s dressed surprisingly simply, dispensing with his formal attire for a simple pair of pants and a shirt that stretches across his toned biceps, pulling against his taut muscles. The sight acutely reminds her that it’s been a week since they’ve shared a bed, and that pent-up, relentless energy within her seems to thrum harder, stronger.
“What are you doing here?” she asks in surprise, getting to her feet and rounding the desk. He watches her approach, gaze flickering across her face with careful, attentive precision.
“Dragging my wife to bed,” he says, still in that light tone that doesn’t quite mask the concern in his eyes as he looks her over. “I haven’t seen her in a while.”
“Aw, did you miss me that much?” she teases with a playful tilt of her head, ignoring the way heat blooms inside her at the words dragging and wife and bed. La, she really needs to get a grip.
“Always.” The teasing slips away entirely, leaving only soft sincerity in its wake. His hands find hers, looping loosely around her wrists to tug her into him. “Come to bed, Katara. You need to sleep.”
She sighs. “Who snitched?”
“Lishan.” Zuko raises an eyebrow. “Did you seriously think she wouldn’t when you’re working yourself into the ground?”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from you,” Katara counters with an indignant scoff. “You would work yourself into the grave if no one stopped you.”
“And that someone,” he steps forward, closing the remaining distance between them, “is usually you. So how about taking your own advice for a change, hm?”
Alright, so she can’t argue with that.
Katara contemplates it for a moment, but the thought of leaving her work unfinished nags at her, makes it impossible to fathom getting a good night’s sleep. Regretfully, she pulls out of Zuko’s grip and steps back, shaking her head. “I have to finish this,” she says insistently, meeting his eyes stubbornly. “It won’t take me that much longer.”
Zuko scrutinizes her for a moment, and then straightens up. “Alright.”
She blinks, taken aback. “Really? You… aren’t going to argue?”
“What would be the point?” He shrugs, a little nonchalantly. “Besides, it makes more sense for me to help you than stop you.”
Before she can parse what that means, he pulls her abandoned chair closer to the desk and drops down on it.
She stares at him, flummoxed. “What are you doing?”
“Helping,” he says reasonably, as though she’s the one being strange here. “Come on. We’ll get it done faster with both of us.”
Katara steps up to the desk, casts a dubious glance at the mess of papers on it, and then looks back at her husband. “You know you just took the only chair?” she asks wryly. “Where exactly am I supposed to sit?”
The smile he gives her then is decidedly trouble, slow and arrogant and almost wolfish, as though he knows that he’s laying a trap she has no choice but to step into. “Right here, sweetheart.”
There’s the quick scrape of the chair being pushed back and the bracelet of his fingers around her wrist before she’s fully and solidly in his lap, his hands gripping her waist to keep her in place. She yelps in surprise as she lands against his chest, arms finding purchase around his neck to balance herself.
Immediately, she knows where this is going.
She should get up. Banish Zuko from her room and bury herself in paperwork till everything is neatly, perfectly in place. Be the dedicated, proper Fire Lady she’s supposed to be.
But it’s incredibly hard to think of any of that when the dizzying warmth of his presence is muddling her senses; his fingers brush, petal-soft, against her temple as he tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, his other hand like a brand against the skin of her waist where her dress leaves it bare. She takes a moment to silently thank the Fire Nation’s incessant heat and revealing clothes before she jabs a finger into Zuko’s chest.
“I know what you’re doing,” she accuses. “And it won’t work.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” His words are innocuous, though his smile is anything but. “What kind of husband would I be if I forced my wife to stand while she works?”
She levels him with the dryest look she can muster. “And the only available option was your lap.”
“Naturally,” he nods, with mock seriousness. “Only the best for my Fire Lady.”
Katara rolls her eyes. “If you distract me, I swear I will throw you out of this room.”
There’s a familiar, teasing glint in his eye as he holds his hands up in surrender. “I’ll be on my best behaviour,” Zuko says, with a solemnity she doesn’t trust for a second. “Promise.”
*
To her surprise, he keeps his promise. Mostly.
She’s spent more than enough nights holed up with Zuko discussing one policy or law or another to know that they work well together. Where she’s prone to frustration after too long poring over the same subject, he steadies her with a dogged calm that makes her understand how he was able to hunt Aang for three years. Where he gets caught up in his own head, she’s able to pull him back, spin a different perspective, offer new means of tackling old problems.
In that regard, what they’re doing tonight is not much different.
Zuko offers quiet commentary as they go through her latest proposed agenda for the upcoming talks, opinions on points to include or cut, and helps proofread her latest draft of her speech. It’s comfortable, routine work – almost monotonous enough to distract her from the intoxicating proximity of being wrapped in his arms.
Almost.
It would be impossible to ignore the soft exhale of his breath against her collarbone as he rests his chin on her shoulder, or how his chest forms a solid wall of muscle for her to rest against, or the way his right hand has dropped to rest on her knee, tracing vague circles on her skin. Her attention wavers dangerously, but in the greatest show of willpower she’s perhaps ever displayed, Katara perseveres. To his credit – and a little infuriatingly – Zuko seems to have no similar issues, even though she’s practically draped over him.
It’s not until she begins reading her opening address through for the sixth time that the first thread of his carefully finessed self-control snaps.
“Katara,” Zuko says firmly, his hand stilling on her knee, “you’ve practised that speech so many times you could recite it in your sleep. It’s perfect. You’re perfect. Now please stop.”
It’s phrased as a request, but she hears the order beneath. Almost instantaneously, that ceaseless, thrumming energy inside her awakens anew, as though every nerve in her body has been shocked through with lightning.
A wicked idea pops into her head.
Katara turns just enough to meet his eyes, widening her own as she says innocently, “I should do it just one more time to be sure, Zuko.”
She likes doing this – testing the waters, pushing his boundaries – just to see how far she can take it before the final tether to his perfect control vanishes into thin air. She can tell from the way his eyes turn deep gold that he recognizes what she’s up to, his hand flexing around her waist.
“My mistake,” he says lightly, and though his voice sounds calm enough, there’s a dark undertone to it that makes her glad she’s already sitting down. “Go ahead.”
She makes it to the end of the first paragraph before his fingers trail up her thigh.
Her breath hitches and she stutters between one word and the next. Zuko eases her slightly backward so that his arm is wrapped firmly around her waist, sounding entirely unconcerned as he asks, “Something wrong?”
Katara adjusts herself on his lap and clears her throat. “Not at all.”
The next couple of paragraphs pass without incident, though her skin seems to burn where Zuko touches it, stroking idly up the inside of her thigh. His lips graze her neck, planting soft kisses all the way from her shoulder to behind her ear, and the curve of his smile against her overheated skin grows almost maddening. Her voice turns increasingly breathless as he nuzzles at her, until she can’t resist the need to push back, to grind her hips down into him, revelling in the satisfaction of his growing hardness against her ass.
Zuko’s grip tightens. “Stay still.”
There is no doubt of the command now, but a strange, reckless boldness takes over her and she twists toward him instead, the speech all but forgotten as she taunts, “Or what?”
“That’s how you want to play, is it sweetheart?” The words are soft, dangerous, and she feels a dizzying thrill run through her veins as something feral flickers in his eyes. “You don’t want to do as you’re told?”
He takes hold of the edge of her dress, and then there’s the sharp sound of tearing fabric as he rips it open all the way to her waist. She has no time to react before he does the same to her wraps, tattered pieces of fabric drifting to the ground around them, and orders her to lift up. This time, she obeys without question, sinking down on his cock with eager willingness and gasping softly at how much fuller it feels like this, from this angle.
Katara is just about to raise her hips, prepared to move, when he holds her in place. “Did I say you could move?”
She pauses, confusion cutting through the fog of lust. Surely, he didn’t mean to…?
His other hand grasps her chin, turning her face towards him. “I asked you a question.”
“No,” she breathes, and Zuko’s hand slides into her hair as he captures her lips. The kiss is rough, punishing, a clash of tongue and teeth that has her writhing on his lap, soaking his cock with her arousal. “That’s what I thought,” he says against her mouth, and tugs her legs apart, hooking her knees over his to splay her wide open.
“Finish your speech.” His voice is a purr, low and darkly seductive. “If you move, if you slip up, you don’t come. Understand?”
Katara has never been more turned on in her life. “Yes.”
“Good,” he murmurs, lips brushing the point of her pulse. “Get to it.”
Oh, she thinks dizzily and nearly falls apart around him right then just at the thought of it. How does he expect her to focus when he’s buried inside her, let alone recite a speech?
But as he resumes those maddening, butterfly-light strokes on her upper thigh, his mouth bruising the skin of her neck, it becomes abundantly clear that that’s exactly what Zuko does expect. She searches her hazy mind for the memory of where she left off, forcing the next words past her lips with herculean effort.
Each sentence seems to take an eternity as Zuko teases her all the way to the edge, refusing to let her tip over. His fingers finally delve between her legs, but only make taunting circles around her clit, deliberately refusing to touch her where she needs him most. Her entire body feels as though it’s on fire, her nipples pulling into tight points beneath her dress, and she’s so embarrassingly slick that she knows Zuko must feel it.
When his fingers drop to where she’s stretched achingly, obscenely open around him, rubbing with deliberate pressure, her words choke off.
“That’s it,” Zuko says roughly, and she feels the hand around her waist loosen, drop to her belly. “You’re doing so well, sweetheart.” He presses on her lower stomach, right where she can feel him inside her, and she nearly sobs at how good it feels. “Taking me so deep. Sitting on my cock like the good Fire Lady you are.”
“Zuko – please – ”
Her voice trembles, and she doesn’t even know what she’s begging for, only that she’s going to go mad if he doesn’t do something to her soon –
“You want to be good for me, don’t you?” He nips at her shoulder, teeth sinking into her skin. “You want me to reward you? Then you will do what I say.”
He’s unravelling her, piece by piece, and she thinks then that she would gladly let it happen, would do anything at all he wanted so long as he keeps talking to her like this, keeps touching her. The next words spill out of her mouth in a jumbled mess, coherence all but lost as she races to the end of the infuriatingly long speech.
When the last word leaves her mouth, Zuko’s fingers finally – finally – swipe up and over her clit.
She nearly melts in his arms, shockwaves ricocheting through her system and white light flashing behind her eyelids. “Good girl,” he praises huskily, turning her liquid, and then, at last, tells her, “Move.”
Katara needs no further encouragement. She raises her hips, rocking back and forth on his cock as Zuko fucks into her from below, moving together in synchronized harmony. He never lets up on her clit, maintaining a slow, insistent rhythm that sends her hurtling towards her climax as his other hand fists in her hair to tip her head back, baring her throat.
“Every single time,” he rasps, driving into her even harder, “you feel fucking perfect. Maybe I should just keep you like this.” She drops her head back onto his shoulder, hardly able to breathe as he keeps going, pouring filth into her ear. “In my lap. On my cock.” His hand moves to the strap of her dress, yanking it roughly down, thumb flicking across the stiff bud of her nipple, and she nearly convulses. “Stuffed full of my come until it takes.”
“Oh fuck – ” she chokes out, voice turning to a whine. “Yes – please – just like that… fuck me, fill me, make it take – ”
His answering thrust on the downstroke is particularly brutal, his pace growing impossibly faster, harder.
“Oh, I’ll make it take,” Zuko snarls, his hold on her turning chokingly tight. “I’ll fuck you wherever you want, whenever you want – pump you full of come and keep you topped up until I put a baby in you – always going to give you what you need, my sweet girl, my Katara – ”
His fingers strum her clit just right and she shatters in his arms, twisting so she can cling to him as she rides the high. His thrusts turn sloppy, messy, and then she feels his cock pulse, emptying inside her, her walls fluttering around him as his orgasm prolongs hers.
When at last she stops twitching around him, she lifts her head to meet his eyes. “Hi.”
Zuko chuckles slightly, gently brushing her sweaty hair away from her face. “Hi.” He studies her face as he always does, searching for any sign of discomfort. “How do you feel?”
She slumps a little against him, stifling a yawn. She can’t remember feeling this relaxed, this comfortable, in days. “Sleepy, but… good,” she assures him. His arm loops around her, pulling her close to him as he plants a soft kiss on the top of her head. “Though I seem to remember someone promising to be on his best behaviour.”
“Technically,” he points out, “I was. You’re the one who started being a brat, so if anything, you distracted me.”
“Mmm,” she hums, curling up against his chest. “I don’t recall it happening that way. And you have to agree with me, because I’m your wife.”
“Is that how it works?” Zuko asks, sounding amused.
Katara nods vaguely, pillowing her head on his shoulder. “Zuko?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks for helping me with my work.”
His voice softens. “Anytime, sweetheart.”
“And for distracting me,” she continues, the words melding together as sleep beckons.
She can picture the smirk on his face even without looking at him. “My pleasure.”
*
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?”
“Shockingly,” Zuko says dryly, “the answer isn’t going to change from the last time you asked. Two minutes ago.”
Katara huffs in frustration, fighting the urge to fiddle with the sash wrapped tightly around her eyes. “We’ve been walking for ages.”
“Be patient,” he chides, though his tone makes it clear he’s thoroughly enjoying her frustration. “We’re almost there.”
“You said that last time too,” she grumbles, letting him lead her forward. It’s the end of the week, the time when they usually meet for dinner at the turtleduck pond – only today, Zuko had turned up at her door with a mysterious smile, insisting he had a surprise for her.
No further details were divulged, no matter how hard she tried to pry it out of him.
She can’t tell exactly where they are, only that it’s nowhere in the main palace, which she’s fairly well acquainted with after all this time. The palace grounds are littered with various residences – for staff, ministers, visiting dignitaries – and she can only assume they’re going to one of those, though she has no idea for what possible purpose.
Suddenly, the smooth marble beneath her feet gives way to dirt and grass, and Zuko stops. “We’re here.”
“Thank La,” she sighs, reaching up to undo the sash. “What on earth could – ”
Katara finally catches sight of what’s before them, and the words die in her throat.
A garden sprawls out before her, similar to the one in the main palace, though a little smaller. They’re standing at the foot of a short wooden bridge, which crosses over a bubbling brook that feeds into a wide pond filled with tall reeds and drifting lily pads. A scattering of turtleducks swims towards the other side where a slim cherry blossom tree stands, its lowest branches barely brushing the surface of the water. In the centre of the pond lies a miniature pagoda atop a small pavilion, accessible only by a series of flat, smooth rocks scattered in a deliberate pattern across the water.
“It’s beautiful,” Katara breathes in awe, turning to Zuko. “Where are we?”
“My old home,” he says carefully. “This is the residence reserved for members of the royal family who aren’t the crown prince and his heirs. It’s where I – we – lived, before Lu Ten died.”
We. This was his first home with his mother, she realizes in a flash, and understands implicitly the weight of what he’s sharing with her.
“Zuko,” she starts softly, “we don’t have to if you’re – if it’s too painful. I understand.”
He squeezes her hand and smiles at her, even if it doesn’t reach all the way to his eyes. “It’s alright. It’s been empty for long enough.”
She pulls ahead as they cross the bridge, breathing in the scent of hyacinth and sakura blossoms, feeling the lightest she has all week. It’s been a long one, filled with last minute preparations for the arrival of the delegation in two days, and even with Zuko to take the edge off, only now does she let the weight truly fall from her shoulders.
As they draw closer to the pagoda, she sees, to her surprise, that it’s been set up for a picnic. Soft blankets are spread out across the stone, upon which is scattered a veritable army of cushions, and a giant, woven basket piled to the brim with food.
She stops short, turning to Zuko in disbelief. “Did you do this?”
He rubs the back of his neck a little sheepishly, an endearingly boyish gesture that makes him look younger than twenty-four. “I know you had a hard week and I thought – well, that this might help you feel better. It’s stupid, but – ”
“No,” Katara says immediately, shaking her head. “It’s not stupid at all. I love it.”
I love you.
It takes tremendous effort to keep the words from slipping out, but the flood of affection in her chest cannot be stopped up quite so easily, demanding to be expressed. Instead, she steps closer and reaches up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, trying to pour everything she feels into the press of her lips against his scar.
Pink blooms across his cheekbones as she pulls back, but she’s already distracted, slipping past him to inspect the pagoda. It’s a thoroughly charming place – ivy vines twine around the pillars, and flowering bunches of bougainvillea and bonsai cluster around the edges, so that she’s entirely shaded from view if she sits down. When she examines the picnic basket, she finds that it’s chock full of her favourite foods – skewers of honeyed chicken with peanut sauce, steaming wantons in chilli oil, sticky toffee rice with ocean kumquats, ripe peaches and mango sago pudding.
She looks up to find Zuko watching her uncertainly, hesitation writ in the furrow of his eyebrows. It hurts something inside her to see it, the way he always expects rejection and scorn, even all these years later surrounded by so much love.
Katara grabs his hand and pulls him down to the floor with her, leaning forward to hug him. “Thank you, Zuko. You didn’t have to.”
“I know,” he says quietly into her hair, arms wrapping gently around her waist. “I wanted to.”
If she dwells on that for too long, she thinks she might cry, so instead she pulls back and flashes him a mischievous grin. “What would your council say if they knew their big bad Fire Lord was really a huge softie at heart?”
He snorts. “I think that’s the first time anyone’s ever called me that.”
“Well, how would they when you usually walk around looking like you want to kill someone?” she asks reasonably.
“Probably because I do want to kill someone,” Zuko deadpans. “Maybe if my ministers stopped being insufferable idiots for one day, I would walk around smiling.”
Katara tries to picture that, and dissolves into giggles. It takes only a second for Zuko to join her, and briefly she thinks it a shame that he’s so serious and reserved most of the time – he has a lovely smile, one that lights up his face like the sun. At the same time, a secret part of her revels in the thought that she’s one of the only people who gets to see him like this, who gets to bear witness to the man within the Fire Lord.
“They’d probably lock you up out of fear for your sanity,” she advises, and reaches for the picnic basket. “Now come on, let’s eat. I’m starving.”
*
The evening passes as it usually does, in comfortable chatter and laughter.
The one time she tries to bring up anything related to politics or government, Zuko leans over and covers her mouth with his hand, cutting her off. “No work talk,” he orders firmly. “I forbid it.”
Katara tilts her head, eyeing him suspiciously. “Who are you, and what have you done with Zuko?”
He rolls his eyes. “You make me sound like a workaholic.”
“If it quacks like a turtleduck and it walks like a turtleduck,” she quips, grinning at his indignant protest, and the conversation devolves into playful ribbing, providing her with the perfect opportunity to steal the last moon peach right out of his hand.
When the last bits of food have been cleared away, and the sun is beginning to slant across the floor of the pagoda in soft golden lines, she finds herself sprawled across the floor with her head in his lap, fiddling with a chain of flowers plucked from the nearby bushes. Outside, the palace roofs glow burnt bronze, the air filling with the croaking of badger-frogs and soft quacking of turtleducks as twilight begins to set in.
Zuko’s fingers run carefully through her hair, gently untangling any knots, and Katara wishes she could stretch this moment into a hundred, a thousand, an eternity – could keep feeling exactly the way she does now, safe and tranquil and utterly, radiantly happy.
There’s a soft tug on her scalp and she realises that Zuko is weaving the strands together, an expression of intense concentration on his face as he braids.
She reaches back to feel his handiwork.
“Not bad,” Katara remarks, impressed. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“Ty Lee,” he answers, half-fond, half-exasperated. “She and Azula used to terrorize me as children. Azula stopped eventually, but Ty Lee never did. She said I had a talent for it.”
Katara finds herself smiling at the thought of Zuko as a young boy, painstakingly working his way through Ty Lee’s long hair, his small face serious as he dedicated himself to his task.
“Hey, if this Fire Lord thing doesn’t work out, at least you know you can always be a hairstylist,” she says playfully.
Zuko snorts. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
A silence lapses then, but it’s peaceful. Easy. There is no need to talk just to fill the silence, nothing awkward or uncomfortable about simply existing together in the same space. It’s one of the things she loves most about being with Zuko.
Katara is on the verge of being lulled to sleep when he speaks again. “Katara, can I ask you something?”
Were she more alert, she might have picked up on the edge of unease in his voice. But in her current state, content and warm, she simply says drowsily, “What is it?”
There’s a short pause, like he’s weighing the weight of his words before he says them.
“Were… were you and Aang still together when you agreed to marry me?”
Any thoughts of sleep vanish in an instant.
In the years of their marriage, they’ve never once discussed her relationship with Aang. It wasn’t like talking about Mai, happier than ever with Ty Lee, and now good friends with Zuko. They both know well enough that Aang still harbours feelings for her – feelings she’s long since ceased believing she could return, much as she once tried.
“No.” She sits up slowly, turning to face Zuko. “I broke up with him months before that.”
Surprise flickers across Zuko’s face. “I thought – when he visited, he said nothing – ”
Of course, he didn’t.
She had been Aang’s forever girl from start to end – trapped on a pedestal she never asked for, with no idea of how suffocating a label like that could be, how much it would begin to paralyse her. Even now, she remembers the tears in his wide eyes, the hope she could never quite dash, no matter what she said, not until the day she announced her engagement.
“No,” she says, a little bitterly. “I don’t imagine he would. He’s always been good at ignoring the things he doesn’t want to face.”
Zuko studies her for a moment. “Did you love him?”
The question is intensely familiar. How many times did she ask herself the same thing, never quite willing to confess the answer she didn’t want to give?
She pulls her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “I do. I’ll always love him. But… not how he loves me. Not in the way he wanted – wants – me to.”
Zuko’s face betrays no judgement or accusation. He only listens, the way he did when she told him about her mother, when she condemned him to the weight of all her hatred, her fury, her grief. Willingly taking every awful thing she has to confess, if she wants to confess it.
“I just…” Katara sighs. “I suppose it was my fault, that I never really saw him. From the moment I knew he was the Avatar, he became my hope. And that… it’s too much to put on someone, I know now, too much to expect of them. He couldn’t live up to it. Just like I couldn’t live up to who he thought I was, who he wanted me to be.”
She looks down at her hands, idly tracing the line on her palm where Aunt Wu once read her fortune.
“Or who everyone else wanted me to be,” she continues, remembering those months and years after the war. “I was more than just an extension of Aang, but no one really seemed to get that. At home, I was the chief’s daughter and the future chief’s sister; in the North, I was Pakku’s granddaughter; everywhere else, I was the Avatar’s girlfriend. Like there was no space to just be me, Katara.”
“I was worried about you,” Zuko says softly. “After the war. Your letters… you didn’t seem happy.”
Of course he knew, she thinks without any surprise. He’s always known – always seen more of her, somehow, than anyone else ever cared to.
“I wasn’t,” she confirms. “Not until I left Aang. When I came here…”
She pauses, remembers those months she spent travelling in the Fire Nation after her breakup with Aang, learning to fall in love with this land she once hated so fiercely. “It was different, in those villages and towns. They didn’t know me. They didn’t care about the Avatar, so they had no reason to care about me as anyone other than… well, me. I know it sounds selfish, but – ”
“I don’t think it’s selfish.” The words are gentle, but his tone leaves no room for argument. “It’s not selfish to want to be known for who you are.”
“That’s how it felt,” she says. “And it was like – like I could breathe again. With your people.” She offers him a half-smile. “With you. I felt like I was finally free.”
“I was afraid – that you weren’t,” he says quietly, something deeply, heartbreakingly sad threaded through the words. “That you would resent me for forcing you into this – for taking you from your home, your family, the person you loved. For putting such a heavy burden on your shoulders.”
“How could you think that?” she asks, dismayed. “You had even less of a choice than I did, and besides, I could never resent you, Zuko. Never. You’re my friend.”
There’s something haunted about his expression that makes her rise to her knees and move across the blanket to settle herself on his lap, palms cupping his face.
“Don’t,” she whispers. “Don’t blame yourself any longer. I told you – I chose this. I would choose it all over again if I had to. This is what I always wanted – to help the people who need me, to make a difference. To change the world. This is where I belong, and I’m happy here.”
With you.
“I’m glad.” Zuko’s hands settle gently, lightly, on her waist, as though he’s not sure he’s supposed to touch her. “I want you to be happy, Katara. Always.”
Without thinking, Katara leans down and kisses him.
They’ve never kissed outside the bounds of marital responsibility, and she might have feared his rejection, if she had the time to think about it – but there’s none to be found. Zuko kisses her back immediately, pulling her closer. She’s used to the unbridled passion of his kisses, all fire and brimstone, but this is different; it’s softer, sweeter, almost…
Loving, her treacherous mind supplies. She might have believed it, if not for the fact that she knows she can’t afford to live a lie.
Katara breaks the kiss, but Zuko doesn’t give her much space to pull back. His eyes are like liquid amber in the late-evening light when he looks at her. “What was that for?”
She blushes a little, scrambling for an answer. “I wanted to… show my appreciation.”
A smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “Your appreciation.”
“Oh, shut up,” she grumbles, shoving at his shoulder and feeling irrationally annoyed that it hardly budges him. “You’re not exactly silver-tongued yourself, Lord Hello, Zuko Here.”
Tragically, this remark no longer has the effect it once did. Where the Zuko of sixteen might have turned red and subsided to silence, the Zuko before her now only raises an eyebrow, something wicked in his voice as he says, “And here I thought you liked my t – ”
“Don’t make me pull out a water whip,” Katara threatens, though its impact is drastically undercut by the way she can feel her cheeks burn.
His eyes dance with mirth. “We can try that too if you want, sweetheart.”
“You’re incorrigible,” she groans, now certain that she’s approaching tomato status, “and I’m leaving. Sit here and flirt with the turtleducks for all I care.”
She doesn’t make it more than two steps before he catches her, arms encircling her waist to pull her back against him. “I’m sorry,” Zuko says softly, nuzzling her neck. “Don’t be mad. I was just teasing you.”
The warmth of his body and the sweet sincerity in his voice is too much for her already fragile pretence at indignation; she sighs and allows herself to fall into him, lacing their hands together. “I’m not mad,” she says honestly. “I’m just not used to you being all…”
She trails off, not sure how to say it.
“Being all?” he prompts, lifting their joined hands over her head so he can spin her around to face him.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean,” Katara protests. “You keep saying all these… lines and doing all these things and looking at me like – ”
He tugs her closer. “Like?”
This close, he practically towers over her, and she must tilt her head back to meet his eyes. The gold of his irises is all but gone, only a thin ring around his blown-wide pupils.
“Like that,” she finishes, strangely breathless. “Zuko – ”
She takes a step back, but he follows her, closing the space between them.
“Do you have any idea,” he says, low and intense, “how much I’ve wanted you? How it felt like torture, looking at you every fucking day and not being able to touch you or kiss you? To have to fuck my hand every damn night because just the thought of you drove me to distraction?”
She can’t find a single word in response, her mind turning entirely blank as his hands cup her neck, blazing hot against her skin.
“I’ve had years to think about everything I would do to you.” His thumb traces her lips – drops lower, to skim along the line of her jaw, the sharp jut of her collarbones. “All the things I wanted to say and couldn’t.” Zuko’s eyes fix on her face hungrily, like a wildfire about to consume her whole. “And now that I have the chance, I’m not going to waste it.”
Katara isn’t sure, later, who moves first.
She knows only that suddenly his mouth is on hers and his body is pressing into her, and his fingers are in her hair, pulling apart the careful braids he wove in. He pulls her down to the blanketed floor and she goes without pause – legs locking into place around his hips, hands sliding around his shoulders – anchoring herself in the heat of his roving hands, tender and obsessive all at once.
It’s only when he’s leaning over her, his robes almost entirely discarded, that she remembers where they are.
“Wait, Zuko – ” She gently pushes at his chest and he draws back immediately, scanning her face with concern. “What’s wrong? Do you not want to – ”
“No, no, it’s just – ” She bites her lip, gesturing around them. “Here?”
Zuko blinks at her for a second before realisation dawns, and he laughs. “Is that what you’re worried about?” He bends down over her, brushing her lips lightly. “I sent the guards away. And none of the servants ever come here. There’s no one around.”
“Oh, so you planned this,” she teases, carding her fingers through his hair.
“Not quite,” he admits, fingers creeping beneath the hem of her dress, tracing a path up, along her thigh. “Let’s say I took advantage of an opportunity.”
“Spoken like a true diplomat,” she gets out, before all words leave her head entirely as Zuko kisses her breathless.
She’s soaked and writhing beneath him by the time he makes his way down her stomach, so ridiculously sensitive that even the slightest touch feels like too much. Her thighs draw together on instinct, arrested only by his hand holding her in place.
His fingers caress the sensitive skin just above her knee. “Spread your legs.”
She obeys.
“Wider.”
Her face heats as she follows the command, unable to look as he settles himself between her legs, breath hot against the skin of her upper thigh. “That’s my good girl.”
The first lick of his tongue nearly sets her on fire.
She can’t help the moan that tears from her throat, or the way her body spasms beneath him, squirming in exquisite agony as he takes her apart with his mouth. There’s nothing she can do but lie still and let him turn her into a shuddering, desperate mess – his hand pinning her firmly in place as he devours her, fingers pumping knuckle-deep in time to the rhythm of his tongue, his teeth grazing ever-so-slightly across her swollen clit –
Her orgasm crashes over her, swift and all-consuming, her back arching off the floor as she falls apart beneath his expert touch. Her thighs are still trembling from the force of her climax when he rises to his knees and drags her bodily towards him, giving her no time to recover as he slams into her to the hilt.
Katara can’t muffle the scream that tears out of her as he sets a brutal, furious rhythm, pressing her into the floor with the force of every thrust. His hand wraps around her thigh, pushing her leg up, and they both groan as he sinks deeper inside her.
“So fucking tight for me,” he snarls, punctuating each word with a thrust harsher and harder than the last. “Such a good wife – feels like you were made to milk my cock – fuck, Katara – ”
She tightens involuntarily around him at the filthy words and his voice chokes off into a ragged groan as he rasps out her name. His hands find hers, pinning her wrists together above her head with one hand as he fucks her ruthlessly, until she feels half-delirious from pleasure, from knowing she’s going to come again just like this, just from being held down and stretched open –
“I’m going to – ” she gasps out, arching up towards him, “Zuko, I’m – so close – ”
His mouth finds hers, kissing her furiously, his other hand splaying across her hipbone to keep her pliant beneath him. “You’re going to come around my cock again, aren’t you, my sweet girl – I got you, tell me what you need – ”
“Oh, please,” she whines, “please – need you to come deep in me, keep me full, breed me – ”
He slams into her with a groan as he careens over the edge, hips jerking repetitively as he comes, and she follows him over, sobbing his name. It’s so intense that she can’t look at him, squeezing her eyes shut while he continues to pulse and spill into her, her orgasm stretching on and on, wave after wave crashing into her.
When, finally, she returns to herself, she realises that she’s crying.
“Katara?”
Zuko’s voice, filled with worry, cuts through the fog. “What is it? Did I hurt you?”
She shakes her head immediately, opening her eyes to smile at him shakily. “I’m fine,” she reassures him. “Really good, actually. It was just – a lot, I think.”
His face softens in understanding. “Come here, sweetheart.”
He pulls out of her gently, and she rises just enough to pull on the nearest item of clothing – his shirt – before going willingly into his waiting embrace. His arms wrap tightly around her, cocooning her in warmth, as she rests her head against his chest. Zuko’s hand strokes gently down the length of her spine, moving in a soothing, repetitive pattern that makes her eyelids feel heavy.
Katara can feel the familiar, steady thud of his heartbeat, the same sound she once wept in joy to hear all those years ago, that she defied the spirits themselves to save. It ticks like a metronome, like a lullaby, like the relentless pulse of three words long hidden:
I love you. I love you. I love you.
If, as she drifts off to sleep, she thinks she hears it in Zuko’s voice, whispered like a secret into the night air – it soon dissolves into the fantasy of dreams.