aka: it’s my fanfic and i’ll make myself cry with les mis!zutara if i want to
Day 4 @zkfanworkweek: Angst. Hello! For those of you who know me as quarantineddreamer on AO3 a heads up that this one-shot is very different from my usual style. I experimented with present tense and I’m still not sure how successful I was with it, so I hope it doesn’t totally disappoint the wonderful artist who inspired me to write this!
In any case this amazing piece by the talented @firelord-hotman is worth checking out even if my writing cannot do it justice! I saw it and immediately got all the Zutara feels –along with a certain song stuck in my head…
There’s an uprising in Ba Sing Se and she is dressed proudly in blue.
The color is noticeable even in the shadows of night. It is a challenge, a dare, thrown boldly to the troops that have gathered and are waiting, arms at the ready, for the students behind the barricade to disperse. Or else.
She is dressed proudly in blue and it fills Zuko with a dread so deep he can feel it in his heart like a drum, pulsing with each step he takes further into the tense silence.
He wishes she would dress as the others he passes have, in muted browns, greys, and greens, but of course, her bravery and passion are as much a part of her as the curls that move like water across her back as she turns to speak with another rebel –and he loves every part of her.
He has loved her since the day they met. The day she found him curled in the street, clutching his face, and without a second thought took him to a healer. She is more selfless than anyone he has ever met. More selfless than he will ever be. She is always thinking of others, always dreaming of a better world, and now here she is, ready to fight for that vision. Zuko thinks maybe, in another life –a life where the enemy’s face was not burned so intimately into his every nightmare- he could be more like her.
Zuko has always carefully avoided conflict. He was taught that when tension fills the air it is best to mind your own business and look the other way or severe punishment will be dealt. It is a lesson he learned when he was young. It is a lesson he has carried within him ever since the day he met Katara. He has tried to teach her this lesson of self-preservation, because his worst fear is seeing her hurt, but it is not in her vocabulary.
“Where does the barricade still need reinforcing?”
Katara glances at her friend Toph before examining the earth wall before her. “Aang!” she calls.
A boy in orange robes comes forward. Zuko has been envious of this boy ever since they met. He is like her, courageous, decisive and he has seen how she smiles at him. The same look of admiration crosses her face now as he confidently instructs Toph on the best place to bend next.
Coward, Zuko calls himself, as he avoids the light of the lanterns, but continues to follow them from a distance, observing.
Katara is walking alongside Aang, he has looped her arm through his. Together they are checking on the members of their revolution, soothing nerves with just the power of a few words. Eventually they settle around a small fire with several other rebels.
You need to tell them, he thinks, but he feels so out of place here. He has been helping Katara organize her movement for years, but always discreetly. Scrounging up useful information and stealing supplies from behind the safety of a mask. He never thought he would be here, undisguised, sneaking into what will soon be a battleground. It has been years since he last stood directly in his father’s path. Yet here he is and beyond the barricade are his father’s men. It is an undeniable and terrifying truth that turns his veins to ice.
He wonders what fresh torture his father might dream up for him if he is discovered. Banishment will not be enough. Perhaps obliteration will do.
“Sokka, Suki, seriously, get a room! I can hear you smacking lips from here,” Zuko’s thoughts are interrupted as Toph groans at Katara’s brother and the girl who sits beside him.
“Toph, there’s no rooms around here and we don’t know what tomorrow may bring. If you don’t mind I’m going to kiss my girlfriend.”
“She has a point,” Aang coughs.
“Oh please, I know you and my sister will be sneaking off before the night is done.” Sokka rolls his eyes, but he and Suki have separated and a playful grin is on his face.
Zuko’s stomach twists. Katara’s head is resting on Aang’s shoulder and a slight blush has appeared on the face Zuko knows so well. His nerve is failing with each passing second, but Katara is wearing blue and time is running out.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath to steady himself. In his mind he sees a day from years ago. One of his favorites. When they walked to the park together to feed the turtleducks. It had felt so easy with her, so carefree, like for the first time in his life everything might just be okay. He remembers the way her eyes crinkled when she laughed at his jokes. He recalls the warmth of her hand in his as he walked her home along rainy pavement shining like silver… but Katara was a storm, a tempest, beautiful and strong and he hadn’t been able to find the courage to tell her, afraid of what might happen if he confessed how he felt. Of the loss that might follow. The loneliness. What would he do without her?
Now the years of friendship are a sort of regret, because it was safe, yes, but it is another who is tucking a strand of her hair gently behind her ears, and he might never know what could have been, but she must know this…
“Katara…” Zuko steps forward.
Everyone jumps and reaches for weapons, but she is quick to assure them. “Zuko! What are you doing here?” Her eyes take in the red of the uniform he wears, but they do not narrow in suspicion as the others have. She trusts him.
“I have to tell you something.” He pauses only briefly, watching her face for a moment before the rest of the words tumble out, “I snuck into the palace–”
“You what?!” Katara is shocked. She knows what that place means to him, the marks he still bears from his years spent behind its walls. Though she is clearly still trying to figure out what has possessed him, she lowers her voice. “Why would you do that?”
For you, for you, everything I do is for you, he wants to say. “I know what you have planned and I knew my f–…. I knew the Fire Lord would retaliate.”
Aang is regarding him with a cautious curiosity. His arm settles protectively around Katara’s shoulders and it takes everything in Zuko not to visibly cringe. “You still haven’t answered her question. What are you doing here?”
Her eyes are locked onto him. They are the moon in the darkness that has been his life, illuminating everything, making him feel seen when it would be all too easy to disappear into the abyss. They are blinding and perfect and he does not want to see the disappointment in them when he shares the intelligence he has gathered. When he pleads with her to stand down. Still… you must do this.
“The Fire Lord does not intend to fight you fairly. He does not intend to fight you at all. He intends to kill anyone who remains behind this barricade. You need to get home. All of you…” He speaks only to her at first, but then turns his gaze to the others sitting beside her. When they do not react he tries again. “They do not intend to wait much longer. They will come before sunrise and they will not show mercy.”
“What are you saying?” Sokka asks.
“I am saying if you do not leave these streets will run red with your blood. I’m saying today is doomed, but you can still save tomorrow if you go now.”
It hurts that Katara looks away from him and turns immediately to Aang, for guidance, for comfort, for all the things Zuko wants to give her.
“We can’t go. This city needs change. The people need us to change it.” Katara faces him again, resolve in her eyes. It makes his spirit spark, speaking to something inside of him only she can bring out. It reminds him why she is a voice for the helpless, a leader of people, a warrior. He knows that she has taken his warning into consideration, but has stubbornly decided she will not betray her values. “I will never turn my back on people that need me.”
“Katara pl-” but Zuko does not finish his sentence. He has spotted a lone Fire Nation soldier perched at the top of the barricade and taking aim. Her target is clear. She is aiming for blue. She is aiming for Katara.
For the first time in Zuko’s life he feels he is doing what he was meant to. For the first time in his life fear does not rule him as he jumps between Katara and the lightning that comes shooting from the soldier’s hands. It tears through his body sharp and sudden. He is grateful she will not experience the agony he does in that moment.
Commotion erupts. Toph bends the barricade higher with the help of other earthbenders, Aang charges towards the soldier with the lightning, and Sokka and Suki scan the area for more soldiers, but it is only the one for now. Zuko’s message has reached them just in time.
Katara drops to the ground beside Zuko, but he does not quite understand why her hands, usually so sure and steady, are trembling. Why her voice wobbles as she speaks. “No, no, no… Zuko, no…”
He smiles at her. “It’s okay, Katara.” And it is. It always is when she is with him, because she makes him feel safe –like the home he never had.
“I’ll mend this wound, you’ll be fine, y-you’ll be.”
She reaches for the pouch of water that is always at her side, but Zuko takes her hand away and places it against his chest, against his wound, against his heart. The heart that he wishes she knew he had given her long ago. Her tears are falling freely, they land on his face like rain and roll down, but he does not join her in sorrow.
“Just stay with me,” he whispers. “That’s all I need.”
“I won’t desert you now,” Katara promises, voice breaking. “I’d never desert you.”
“No, of course not…” She presses her free hand to his cheek, the other hand bends water towards his chest. It begins to glow, but it provides no relief. “Zuko, you have to live. You’re going to live.”
He knows he is not. He wants to tell her with the time he has left how much she has meant to him, but he hesitates, unable to find the words. Wondering if all the courage and purpose he would ever feel in life were intended for that moment of sacrifice that has already passed. Besides, what good would it do now except to cause her more pain?
“Remember the day we went to feed the turtleducks?”
“Of course,” she murmurs. “You held my hand and walked me home, I thought… Well, I hoped that you were going to…” She stares at him for a moment and he watches emotions play out on her face that he never in his wildest dreams thought he would see there.
They have been there all this time he realizes, but he has not allowed himself to believe it, because he is still not sure he is good enough –that he, a banished prince, is deserving of a heroic spirit like her.
Katara bends down and presses her lips to his and he has just enough strength left to place a hand in her hair as she does so, marveling at this dream come true, the only dream, and the last.
It might not be worth as much now and it’s not how he wanted to say it, but he says it anyways, softly, reverently, a prayer. “I love you.”
“I love you, too…” She cradles his head in her hands, he can feel the tremors of grief running through her –it is the only thing he feels, the only thing that still hurts. “I’m so sorry…”
I’m sorry too, but all the years spent in hesitation, in fear are nothing now. All that matters is that he has finally said it –and by some miracle so has she. It’s the greatest day of his entire life. In his euphoria he does not notice the hitch in his breathing when he tries to inhale nor the stillness building where a strong heartbeat should be.
“Zuko, stay with me,” Katara insists with a sob.
He wants her to understand that she has made him so unbelievably happy. He wants her to feel this way too. It is all he has ever wanted. There’s very little air left in his lungs, but he fights to tell her anyways, to assure her that all is well.
“Don’t worry…it doesn’t hurt anymore…”
