Ember Island locals know that time on the island doesn’t follow the rules of the rest of the world. It’s not slower, exactly, and it’s certainly not constant, a fickle thing that strikes the island’s inhabitants at odd moments. You’ll look up one day and realize time has stretched itself like some sort of impossible acrobat, or shrunk itself down, compressing years into seconds.
The first time Zuko realizes he’s succumbed to Ember Island time is the third time Katara falls asleep in his room.
It’s not intentional, obviously, or not those first three times anyway. But after that disaster that tried to pass itself off as a play, she’d knocked, timidly, at his door and asked to talk, which surprised him as much as it relieved him. At the time he assumed she’d done the same with everyone else - but the next morning she wasn’t speaking to the Avatar except in short clips, and like usual Zuko felt like he’d missed something.
The scent of her lingered in his rooms for days afterward.
The other two times, she’d found him in his room after dinner, and for reasons that evaded him, stayed until the moon was high in the sky as she faded into a slumber curled up on his bedroll.
The fourth time, Zuko stays, curled into her, content to let his arm fall asleep under the weight of her head.
What she wants from him he couldn’t begin to discern, but he’s observed Katara long enough to understand she does nothing by halves. When she was angry with him, her fury was an unrelenting storm, and now her forgiveness crashes over him like a wave. She’s not content to just forgive; she demands more, slots herself in next to him like they’ve always been friends, grabbing his hand, teasing him, running her fingers through his hair. This is how she is; it’s no different than the way she acts with Sokka or Suki or Toph or Aang, he tells himself.
He has to tell himself, to barricade his heart against the way it speeds up whenever she enters a room.
Of all the dumb things he’s done in his life, falling for Katara is the dumbest by far because it’s a fleeting dream that exists only in the confines of his room, where she takes her hair down and her faces relaxes into the girl she might be if there had never been a war at all. If his family wasn’t a scourge on the earth. And there it is, the thing that keeps him from pressing fully into her, much as she has started to stare wistfully at his mouth: how can this be where it all ends? After every bad thing he’s done, how can he think this is anything but a test?
What is the cost of redemption? The voice in his head - the one that sounds like Uncle - scoffs at the very idea. But Zuko made his peace with his role in things the moment he left the palace. He knew, coming here, that he would serve the Avatar at all cost to his own comfort, however it had to happen - as ally or prisoner. It can’t be now that he really has friends. Certainly, the other shoe will drop - they’ll uncover some other awful thing that he’s done, and Sokka will stop joking with him, and Toph will stop demanding a spar, and Katara…
Katara will look at him the way she did after he sided with Azula, and it will be what he deserves.
This is his role, and he will play it as best he can.
Next to him, Katara sighs softly, shifting deeper into him. He stills, lest he wake her, and she makes an embarrassed, rush exit, never to return.
But she does blink awake, eyes blurry, and she doesn’t rush out. Instead, she stares up at him as she traces her thumb along the very edge of his scar.
“It’s strange,” she murmurs. “Sometimes, in here, I forget…I forget we have to make sure the world doesn’t end.”
Zuko licks his lips - don’t say it - and asks, “Is that why you keep coming back?”
She hums at that, more fully cupping his cheek, her own tinting red. “No, I - I guess I…missed you.”
“Always,” she confesses. It catches in her throat around her embarrassment. “I think I’ve…been missing you, for a while.”
He bumps his forehead against hers gently. “Why me? I don’t deserve that.”
She frowns, pulling away, a big crease between her eyebrows. He thinks she might chastise him or argue but instead she just leans in closer, burrowing herself, and mutters into his shoulder, “Well. I do.”
Maybe he’ll pay the cost later, Zuko thinks, wrapping his arms fully around her - but then maybe this is the cost, giving himself wholly over, thrusting the fate of his heart into someone else’s hands.
He closes his eyes and surrenders himself to Ember Island time.
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