chapter: light me up

setting: the fire nation, seven years after the end of the war.

disclaimer: I own nothing.

author's notes: calm your fears, you can climb again. we forget that it's so easy to love when everything is good. don't compare, 'cause every sea sees rain. while you're here, just know I'll hold your hand - light me up

The Fire Lord decides to take a week to honeymoon with his new wife.

A single week, one that he must stretch to fill the following months when he knows he will not be able to spend his every moment with her. A week of mornings where he can trace the curve of her shoulder with his fingers, where they can tangle together in the bedsheets until the sun has long since risen. They curl their toes in the fine sand of Ember Island, giggling; she kicks sea spray at him and teases him for being afraid of the big swells of waves as they hurtle towards the shore.

A week to stare into eyes bluer than the morning sky, to take his time admiring how she moves; a week to curl her into his arms any time he wanted to, all sun-warmed almond skin and tangled sea-soaked hair. They gaze at each other with searing, burning eyes, feeling such freedom, such unbridled joy at the realization that they belong to one another. She sways with the song of the sea, humming to him peacefully in the muddied dark blue of their evenings.

He never wants it to end, never wants to stop recklessly loving this woman every waking moment he has. There are no judging gazes of other courtiers here; no one to stare in disapproval. There is only the two of them, Zuko and Katara, clasping hands and dancing through the quiet mornings together as if there was never a war that burned through both of their childhoods.

They can feel the haunting heaviness of the war that they will face when they return. Both of them sigh regretfully in those few moments where they are alone, remembering the impending, unavoidable chaos that awaits them.

Katara finds it harder to sleep than Zuko does, and once she can hear the sound of his breathing smooth into an even rhythm and his pulse slows to a contented crawl, she tucks herself carefully into his side. She traces the edges of his scarred chest with butterfly fingertips, staring at the delicate blue veins that spiderweb his wrists and his arms and remembers how she must look after him, she must never leave his side again.

But the end of the week comes sooner than they'd like, and they are soon on a ship returning to Caldera; hands clasped tightly, white knuckled with tension. Neither know what awaits them when they return; what state the world will be in, whether Aang has heard of their marriage.

The moment they step into the palace, Zuko is whisked away almost immediately, and Katara wants to cry out as he is tugged from her by his advisers. The warmth from his hand is suddenly gone, and the chill of the stones beneath her feet creeps up her spine. Her Fire Lord casts one mournful look at her over his shoulder, golden eyes in a sea of red robes, and then he is gone.

Her fingers curl against themselves, hand dropping to her side.

The hall is empty, now, echoing with a deep silence that makes her tuck her hair awkwardly behind one ear and begin the lonely walk away from the week of bliss that they had shared. This is the hardest part, she decides, sharing her Fire Lord with the Nation he serves.

Iroh is there to greet her as she returns to her old chambers, bearing a jovial smile and several cups of tea. Arms wide, he embraces the slight warrior-girl with joy- I have missed you, Katara - and he goes about describing every item he has collected for her in her absence. There are new tapestries that he has had commissioned for her, ones woven with rich colors and bright blue hues depicting her and her brother in their best furs. New training robes, too, he notes with pride, letting her finger the rough-hewn material fondly as she smiles up at the old General. He has always thought of what she might want in life rather than what she expressly needs, and she places a kiss fondly on his wrinkled cheek in thanks.

He explains patiently the rules she must follow, the traditions to pay attention to; he directs her to several thick scrolls about past Fire Ladies. They spend the afternoon in the sun, sipping tea from a new china set he has acquired and pouring over how she should dress the following day.

Her inauguration ceremony is the next morning, and she is dressed in a stiff-necked, carmine and crimson gown; her hair pinned up elaborately with golden combs and chopsticks dangling with merry, jingling trinkets.

Zuko has talked her through the intricacies of the ceremony several times already, and she faces the audience before her with a stone-hardened stare smoothed into sureness. The people need reassurance in these fragile years, Zuko has told her a thousand times, they need someone to trust that they will guide them into the new world.

A golden circlet, woven with thin strands of silver, is placed gently upon her brow by her Fire Lord himself. She can feel his warmth tinging the cool metal, a detail that makes her eyes lock with his.

He holds her gaze, hovering in the silence of the moment before a smile curls his lip and he turns away from her to present her to the people. When a room full of Fire Nation people fall to their knees and touch their foreheads to the flagstones beneath them, Katara lifts her chin; she does not smile. She is somehow older and wiser and freer all at once; somehow she feels as if she has come home for the first time in her life.

These are her people, now.

Two weeks pass, quiet, the slightest of chills in the air encouraging Katara to keep the windows to their chambers flung purposefully open; even though the Fire Lord shivers. Fire Nation winters are mild at best, but Katara spreads the furs from her homeland across the foot of their bed even so; she takes to wearing the black furs Zuko gifted her when they leave the palace.

The two of them spend long evenings drafting laws, writing plans; sometimes, they argue in the wee hours of the morning when they're too tired to comprehend anything but their own frustration.

They plan for closing weapons factories, for opening hospitals. They plan to train nurses and to employ builders. Together, they decide to create and seed special community gardens in honor of those fallen in battle; they hope that this will teach neighbors to look after one another.

Katara spends long, wearisome afternoons with groups of war widows eager to learn; she teaches them how to mend wounds, how to stitch flesh as if it were fabric. She teaches them what herbs are best for fevers, how to make a broth that will soothe even the worst of headaches.

Zuko watches her efforts with pride. Before too long, they will have a staff of dedicated, trained nurses to oversee their new hospitals. The women of the city are all too ready to earn a living wage for their families. They are pale and thin; worn to the bone with the weight of grief. But after a few weeks of Katara's teachings, and a few weeks more of earning a steady living, the city begins to breathe again.

But no matter the new Fire Lady's accomplishments, there are certain meetings she is still not allowed in; and no matter how hard she rages against the societal wall that has been placed, the Generals do not acquiesce to her attendance in war counsel.

"It would break with tradition to have a Fire Lady involved in politics, my Lord!"

"What shame it would bring to have a woman overseeing our council. Think of the proud traditions we have upheld for so long!"

After weeks of waiting by the chamber doors, weeks of arguing with courtiers and Generals and Fire Lords and royal staff, she has well and truly had it with tradition.

She just decides to show up laced into her full set of armor and Water Tribe garb, uninvited, perching herself in a chair in the corner of the room with wide, ice-sharp eyes that dare any of them to say anything against her.

"I will remind this council that as a Waterbending Master and trainer of the Avatar, I have a right to sit among you. I commanded ranks in the Great War. I defeated the mad princess in combat. Should you request me to prove myself to this small council, I will do so in battle." The water-girl cuts a striking figure; the bones clicking in her hair, her scars shimmering against the almond-tint of her skin. Her teeth are partly bared, feral; almost begging for any of these old, heavyset Generals to try to challenge her in battle.

No one dares, of course– but they all look more than a little afraid of her after that, much to her amusement and Zuko's horror.

It's as if life has decided to march steadfastly onward, and they must move with it; making time for one another when they can. Katara is gripped with the realization that this is now. This is her life. She feels purpose every time she rises from her bed in the morning, feels as if she makes a difference in peoples lives.

Zuko reminds her often how proud he is of her and Agni he could have never done these things without her. She has a way with people that he does not; always knowing what to say, how to retaliate. The set of her jaw and the slant of her eyes alone could make one of his Generals redden around the ears and divert their path away from her.

Sometimes, she thinks, she is more at home here in the Fire Nation than she ever was in the frozen tundra of her homeland.

She stares after Zuko when he isn't looking, watches him smile in his sleep and thinks gently to herself how beautiful their children would be before remembering, with a jerky, painful lurch, that she is too broken for children.

That night, she dreams. She dreams of Yue, moving through the night sky as if it were a large, dark pond; she is smiling.

"The stars will align for you, Katara, and you will have what you seek. The spirits know you have chosen well."

Katara wakes with a start early in the morning, a sheen of cold sweat across her forehead and rushes to the bathroom; unable to soothe her roiling stomach. This happens every morning at the same time for nearly a week, and before too long, she grows suspicious of her own body. She has kept this as quiet as she can manage, kept it from Zuko, kept her hand from wandering to her stomach.

this will pass, she tells herself, you will lose this battle as you have lost all the others.

But she does not. The sickness continues, and her monthly flow never appears. As time passes – more than ever before – she realizes that the smallest of bulges has appeared between her hipbones.

Even though she knows, she knows – she can feel the fluttering heartbeat – the nurses in the palace's infirmary confirm what she had dismissed as impossible. She is with child.

Zuko returns to his chambers later than usual that night, eyes bruised with exhaustion, unlacing his robes with stiff, tired fingers. Katara, clothed in a blue silk dressing gown, opens her arms for him when he collapses into the bed, into her embrace. His raven-dark hair spills across her as he pulls his top knot free, sighing heavily and letting his head rest on her shoulder.

"Zuko," She whispers, tears thick in her throat already. He startles, pushing himself from her arms with alarm.

"I have something to tell you." The water-girl's voice is soft, hesitant; Zuko cradles her cheeks in his calloused palms, frowning deeply at the sight of her tears as they spill over his fingers.

"What's wrong? Has someone hurt you?" He asks urgently, swiping the pads of his thumbs under her eyes to smooth the tears from her face. His eyes are stormy, darkening like the skies before a thunderstorm. Katara shakes her head slowly.

"Nothing's wrong. But something has happened that I think you should know about." Fingering the hem of her dressing gown nervously, Katara pauses briefly before gently reaching for the Fire Lord's hand. She spreads his palm across the tiny bump in her abdomen, swallowing hard against the lump in her throat. Zuko's eyes are clouded with confusion for a moment as he stares at her, mouth opening in shock; tears spill from the waterbender's eyes, then, and she is unable to stop them.

"You're going to be a father, Zuko." She murmurs the sentence as best she can, voice cracking with emotion.

"I didn't think it was possible-"

"Neither did I. But here we are." Her shoulders curve inwards, a dark, awkward blush spreading across her cheekbones as she hovers there, holding his hand to her stomach and feeling as if she is floundering in a bottomless ocean.

"Are you– are you happy?" Katara chokes the words through her tears, hardly even able to look at him. What if he didn't want the child?

What if he was unhappy?

Before the words leave her mouth, he is kissing her; he is kissing her everywhere, frantically, his hands shaking. She can taste the saltiness of his tears, can feel the emotion surging through him.

"Agni, Katara, you have no idea how happy this makes me." Zuko mutters fiercely, pulling her to his chest and burying her face in his shoulder.

"It's a chance for me to truly be honorable – to raise a child with love. To undo the hate my father brought about. To break the cycle," His words are thin, stretched so tightly with emotion that Katara is almost waiting for him to dissolve into sobs.

"To raise a child with you is a dream realized." At this, Zuko presses his mouth to hers, and they cry together; from relief, from sorrow, from the sheer weight of emotion trembling through them both.

"I have news, my Lady."

A grim smile quirks the corner of Katara's mouth.

"Nothing good ever starts with 'I have news', Uncle." She murmurs, sitting across from him and folding her hands around a cup of tea. The older man chuckles slightly, acquiescing with the slightest of nods.

"Well, then there's no use wasting time by mincing words, then, is there?" He sighs, putting his cup down and resting his hands on his expansive stomach. Iroh's expression changes, then, hardening slightly into a seriousness rarely seen in his expression these days.

"My intelligence has brought word that the Avatar has heard of your marriage to Lord Zuko. We don't know for sure when he will arrive, but we're assuming within the week."

oh.

Katara is vaguely aware of the sound of the teacup shattering against the stone floors; she is starting to murmur an apology to Iroh before she realizes that her vision is fogging and there are suddenly people all around her as the world slants and she finds herself falling into the darkness that surrounds her.

The next thing she knows, a worried Zuko is hovering over her.

"He's coming, Zuko," She whispers, the words as thin and dry as rice paper, and he nods; golden eyes narrowed with seriousness and mouth turned down.

"I won't let him harm our family." Zuko's voice is as cool as ice, hard as stone - she curls into him as her hands begin to shake.

Katara knows he thinks she is shaking from fear. Her eyes are wide and cool and expressionless, and she realizes he doesn't know what to do with these sudden and strange emotions; so she lets him hold her.

She is not afraid, she doesn't think. This time, she has something to stand for, to protect. This time, she has the power and the strength to stand without the help of others. Something to use the nightmares for, something to help her turn the screams that she muffles with pillows in her sleep into war cries.

Her hands shake because they seek familiar, spidery poses that crackle with power.

It is time for her to taste retribution.

It is time for her to feel the pain again - to make him feel it.

She smiles at the thought.

There are several problems all at once that evening.

The first occurs around nine that evening; alarms sound in the city. There are fires breaking out city-wide, houses being broken into, screaming villagers. Zuko sends his troops down immediately, and Katara sits on the edge of their balcony to rain-bend the fires away. Brow furrowed with concentration, she lifts water from the ocean and releases it in tiny droplets to the city below.

They are lucky that Water Tribe ships had arrived earlier that morning; lucky that Sokka is there, lucky that Suki and her legion of Kyoshi Warriors are there.

Katara can feel the change in the air. She knows.

The second happens nearly an hour later.

Zuko's guards inform him that Ozai, who he had been keeping under a strict watch, had been released into the chaos of the evening.

"He's here." Katara murmurs, oddly serene in the moment, now that it's arrived. The culmination of months of waiting, of feeling the buzz of anxiety has come to an end.

"I'll have to go face him, Katara." Zuko's eyes were searching, and he rests one hand protectively on the soft swell of her belly as he said the words.

"Not alone, you won't," Katara almost snaps the words, her palm on the star-shaped scar in the center of his chest, hand fisting in his shirt as if to beg him to take her with him.

it's me who should be thanking you-

"We're better together, Zuko, you have to know that now. This isn't just your fight." The sentence had an edge of desperation to it; and the corners of Zuko's mouth turn down. He bends slowly at the waist to press his mouth to hers, cupping the back of her skull in his calloused hand.

"You're the future of the Fire Nation, Katara. You and our child. I'm responsible for keeping both of you safe. You have to stay here. That's an order." His voice is rough with emotion, low in his throat, and before she could argue, he had pressed his mouth to hers in a fevered kiss; he gripped her to him with a ferocity that alarmed her. There was history in this kiss, searing through her as they moved together, her fingers fisting in his hair; his hands around her waist bruising and painful and somehow very final–

Was he saying goodbye?

click.

She can hear the sound of something metal shutting, but she refuses to believe it at first- Zuko has closed a metal handcuff around her right wrist, tight, chaining her. Katara laughs in disbelief, the sound high and bright and afraid.

"I love you. Please never forget that. I'm doing this to keep you – and our child – safe." He presses one last kiss to the top of her head.

"You're not leaving me here," She insists, and his only response is a sudden stiffness.

"Zuko, don't you dare leave me here!" The words are savage, strained, she pulls against the chains with what strength she has and nearly falls to the ground.

He turns from her then, jaw working, exiting the room as swiftly as he had entered and slamming the door shut behind him. She could hear him bark orders to the guards outside, could hear the pain in his voice; and she sank to her knees.

A howling cry of agony tore from her lungs then, and she pushed herself from the ground to batter her fists against the wooden door, screaming his name.

Aang was hovering, his feet a breath away from the spinning circle of air he had conjured to keep him afloat. Zuko felt a deep sigh rattle his lungs as he stepped out on the terrace to meet the airbender face to face.

"Fire Lord Zuko." Aang's voice was eerily still the same, somehow; child-like, an unexpected bell ringing in the gravity of the moment. But it was missing all of the brevity from the lifetime before, all of the humor, the giggles. It was hollow, now, a sucked-out version of someone he had once called a best friend.

"Avatar." Zuko quips the title, omitting the name purposefully, folding his arms across his chest and keeping his expression carefully neutral.

"You must be wondering why I'm here, Fire Lord."

"I'm more curious about why you lied about my father's death, to be honest with you." Zuko slid the information like a playing card across the space between them, cat-like eyes flicking up to meet the grey orbs he had once recognized.

Aang shrugs, folding his legs to sit crossed-legged on the ball of air.

"He seemed like a useful tool to hold onto at the time. And I was right. There are thousands in this city who would see him take the throne from you." The words chill Zuko to the bone; goosebumps rising along his arms as he contemplates the truth in that statement.

"Do you even hear yourself, Aang? We were spirit brothers once. Friends. What happened to you?" Zuko's cool exterior cracks, then, and he edges closer to the monk.

"I think you're well aware of the answer to that question, Fire Lord. You've stolen something that belongs to me, and I need her back. I'll make sure your reign ends now to reclaim what you've taken!" A snarl tore through the end of his sentence, and the Avatar sent several disks of air towards the Fire Lord; aimed to kill.

Zuko wasn't quick enough to react, then, and raised his arms to shield his face from the blast, ducking and curling inward to try and mitigate the damage it would have on his body.

But the air blades fell harmlessly against a sudden, solid block of ice raised between the two men.

"I don't belong to anyone but myself." Katara rose from behind Aang, then, standing atop a cresting wave.

Zuko, flinching at the sight of her, struggles to his feet.

"There's no use in telling you what to do, is there?" He shouts, feeling the wind pick up around them; Katara's hair whips about her face as she smiles, teeth bared, bone-white and feral.

"Did you really think a closed door and a chain would hold a waterbender during a full moon?" She retaliates, feeling the rush as she lifts her hands and twin waves emerge on either side of her.

"This is my fight, Zuko. You cannot take this from me."

Aang can only stare at her, wide-eyed. She is swirling in a vortex of sea water and icicles and she has never looked so ethereal; eyes bright with an odd light.

the woman he had left behind had been curled into herself, white-faced, eyes too big for her face-

"Aang, I don't belong to you. I don't belong to anyone. I'm here because I want to be here, and for no other reason." She directs her gaze at the boy she spent her summers with, all that time ago; watching his face struggle with inner turmoil.

He can see the strength in her now, can see the power that bubbles and froths just beneath the surface.

"I almost didn't believe it was true, Katara. I wanted to believe you'd be faithful to me. But I was right all along. You wanted him, not me." He was laughing darkly, and she felt hot, burning tears rise to her eyes. Her throat was tight and pained, bile rising into her mouth the longer she looked at him.

This was the boy she'd rescued from an iceberg. This was the boy she'd raised as if he were her own; sheltered, cared for, loved in her own way.

"You drove me away, Aang. You nearly killed me. You forced me to do things I never would have done!" Fists balled tightly, knuckles white, the waves continue to rise behind her. The skies darken around her.

"You betrayed me, Katara! I wanted so little from you, and you lied to me!" Aang cried, his eyes suddenly spinning wildly in all directions.

"You should have listened to the spirits, Aang! They told you that you had to release your earthly desires in order to ascend to a true Avatar State. You had to let me go, but you couldn't!" Katara's voice cracks as she speaks the words, remembering days in the sun where the little airbender had laughed in her arms; a boyishness that is now lost.

"Where is the other waterbender, Katara? Who else have you brought to ambush me?"

Aang's eyes are flickering dimly with the white of his Avatar State now, fury tight in his limbs, his expression threatening to tear with the weight of his pain.

"There is no other waterbender." Katara frowns deeply, confused; she is thrown off.

Zuko's face pales with horror as he realizes, all at once, that there is indeed another waterbender- one that hasn't been born yet. A moment of joy and fury boils inside of the fire bender at the knowledge that the Avatar is now privy to their most intimate secret.

His fists start to glow faintly, smoke trailing from his fingertips. Bile rises in his throat, fear dropping low and deep into his stomach.

Aang raises a finger, stabbing it into the air between them, pointing directly at Katara's middrift.

"That's supposed to be impossible," He hisses through clenched teeth, his whole body shaking with fury. She curls her arms about her body protectively, face aflame, and the waves she'd pulled from the sea start to harden just as protectively about her body.

"The other waterbender is inside of you."

Hatred washes over the boy then as he realizes all at once that the spirits had been correct in the visions they'd given him; he bites down so hard on his tongue that he can taste blood.

A scream ripping from his lungs, he tilted his head back; the Avatar State took hold of him and he struck out in all directions.

Zuko dropped to the ground instantly, ducking the attack; when he scrambles back to his feet, Katara is gone.

She is crouching in a puddle, leaning heavily against the stone wall of the palace. Her clothes are smoking faintly as she struggles to push herself to her feet, chest heaving.

"Katara-" He cries, reaching, but she is already shoving herself up to her feet and readying herself again as a cry of agony rips from her. He can see blood pooling around her feet, staining her legs; staining the ground beneath her- and he knows that nothing good must have happened, but she is already sweeping her arms forward and bringing the wrath of the sea with her.

"Don't you dare try to harm my child!" Her scream tears the sky in two, waves crashing upon them; Zuko manages to avoid the rush of salt water by the skin of his teeth. It's as if she can no longer see the fire bender in her path, she can only see the boy before her; the boy that wronged her, the boy that tried to harm her child.

Zuko watches in awe for a moment as Katara manages to hold her own against the Avatar State; watches the blue-eyed water warrior as she bends the sea to her will and the rain whips against her cheeks. Her ice eyes are cold with blue-fire fury. She is focused and furious and a master waterbender.

she has to have a chance. she has to make it.

When her hands crack with the all-too-familiar blood bending poses, he thinks he knows then- she's got him. he can't escape now.

It is almost poetic justice, Zuko thinks, as he watches the Avatar fall from the sky.

Almost.

Katara's head is tilted towards the sky, mouth torn wide with a wild scream, palms flat and facing the stars above as the monk's limp body hurtles towards the ground. justice. retribution. at last.

almost.

A pair of glowing eyes flicker towards her, then, hands moving in a form that Zuko hasn't seen in years - a rumble echoes dully throughout the sky above them, and by the time the Fire Lord realizes what is happening, it's too late.

A bolt of lightning tears the sky in half.

Aang is standing, now, dusting himself off; his chest heaving. The waves that had crested about them are moving back down to the ocean. There is a low humming echoing in Zuko's ears as he registers what has just happened.

The firebender is hardly aware of his own lungs that can't stop screaming her name, his eyes scanning the area frantically as he shoves himself to his feet and scrambles messily towards where she had stood before.

His stomach heaves as he sees the inky spread of dark, red blood touching the flagstones by his feet.

Katara's body is crumpled just beyond the growing stain, hair over her face, the strands merging with the deep crimson blooming across her limp body. Zuko falls to his knees beside her, fury tight and hot and hateful quivering through his bones.

"Fire Lord, I'm not here to fight you." The Avatar's voice, mocking, echoes around him. Zuko reaches out as if to touch the waterbender's body for a moment, long, pale fingers tinted with red, but he retracts his hand instead and stands to face the monk. His fists light with a blue flame as effortlessly as he inhales, turning, light on his feet.

"You'll die for what you've done, Avatar." The words are a rasp, snapped from a jaw clenched so tightly it threatens to break.

Instead of finding the bald teenager behind him, however, he comes face to face with a darkly familiar figure.

"I'm here to fight you, Zuko. For the throne."

Ozai, mouth curled in a feral smile, stands across from his son.

sorry for the long wait again, everyone!
please drop me a line if you liked this chapter, we're nearing the end of this journey.

xo,

nightfall26