A/N: Written for season 3 of the 2016 Pro-Bending Circuit

Waterbender: Two characters go swimming

Prompts: dice (easy), Cave of Two Lovers (medium), suspense (hard)

Word Count: 2372 words (excludes author's notes)

Disclaimer: ATLA/LOK are property of Bryke forevermore, all characters and settings mentioned herein belong to them.

Before the Dawn

The clink of chains against a metal grille.

The glow of healing water against wounded flesh.

The roar of the comet, streaking across the blood-red sky.

The Princess wails in frenzied despair.

"Let's get out of here."

Zuko's voice, forced into a gritted mutter, reaches Katara's ears as though across a very great distance. She starts at the sound, roused from the trancelike state in which she'd been. They'd been standing, frozen in place, for a very long time.

It is victory, yet it feels so hollow.

Their most terrifying foe, arguably the greatest firebender of her generation, is now reduced to a deranged, slavering wreck. Though the seeds of her unraveling had been sown long before their arrival at her coronation, her current state is a direct result of her and Zuko's handiwork. She will never be the same, and her blood is on their hands.

It is a terrifying feeling. Though they have saved the Fire Nation from Azula's reign, the look on Zuko's face makes her question everything.

As they turn away from the battle-scarred arena and the chained princess, she feels him buckle slightly. He's lost a lot of blood, she recognizes, and a lightning bolt to the heart needs a lot more attention than what she's given him.

"I need water," she finds herself saying. She is strong, but after fighting with Azula, she is exhausted and doesn't have the energy to bear his weight if he falls.

There is a pause before he answers.

"I know a place."

Together they limp past the ruins of the courtyard, through the ornate palace corridors, before Katara's eyes widen at the scene before her.

Standing in defiance of the day's violence and bloodshed, is a garden of picture-perfect tranquility, made eerily surreal by the fiery red clouds moving angrily across the sky.

In its center is a large pond, its mirror-like surface undisturbed, except for the dozen or so baby turtle-ducks that paddle about nonchalantly.

"It's beautiful," she breathes, unable to contain herself.

Zuko remains still for a very long time. When he speaks, his voice is very quiet.

"It was my mother's favourite place."

Katara lets the significance of his words wash over her. His mother. The mother he'd lost. The mother the Fire Nation had taken from him. It seems like ages since the crystal catacombs of Ba Sing Se, but she remembers it vividly. Remembers her despair upon finding Zuko, and then Azula, hidden in the city. Her fury when Zuko had later been dumped into the subterranean chambers with her. Her assumption that he was just going to use her to find the Avatar, the way he'd always done in their time of knowing each other.

Most of all, she remembers the way it all evaporated when he'd uttered those important, fateful words.

"That's something we have in common," he'd said.

Because that was when everything began to change.

"She liked being around water," Zuko continues absently, almost as though he's forgotten she's still there. His voice remains very weak, and Katara remembers her purpose for being here.

"So did mine," she offers in return, and finally, he meets her eyes.

They still don't know if Aang is alive or dead, if Phoenix King Ozai has succeeded in razing the Earth Kingdom to the ground, if Sokka and Suki and Toph are alright or not. Zuko is grievously injured and Katara is so tired she does not know if she can heal him properly. In this moment, everything is in free fall, left to the dice of fate.

She guides him to the edge of the water and helps him in.

When he turns his head to face her as she enters the water as well, she can tell thoughts of a similar nature are running through his mind.

"Do you think he did it?" he asks her. Though he is holding himself in careful control, she can hear the underlying concern and anxiety in the minute quavers of his voice. "Do you think he came back?"

Because who would have anticipated that Zuko, the exiled prince of the Fire Nation, hell bent on capturing the Avatar and restoring his honour, would today stand by her side, genuinely concerned for his safety and wellbeing? If Aunt Wu had predicted that, perhaps she would have taken her fortunetelling with the healthy grain of salt that Sokka had always recommended.

Instead, she stands waist-deep in the warm water, presses her hand against the wound on Zuko's stomach and, summoning the last reserves of her energy, begins the healing process.

"He has to," is all she says. Her own voice sounds strained to her ears, heavy with exhaustion.

And if someone had told her that one day, the same prince who had once tied her to a tree, knocked her out cold at the North Pole, and betrayed her trust in Ba Sing Se, would take a lightning-bolt to the heart for her…

"Why did you do it?" she asks suddenly. Beneath her palms, she feels the pulse of his blood, warm and sluggish, but still moving. The flesh knits, the skin grows.

"She was going to bend lightning at you," Zuko answers simply, his eyes closed. "She did bend lightning at you. I couldn't let her."

Katara swallows past the growing lump in her throat.

"I could have taken care of myself," she points out to him, somewhat reproachfully.

"Yes," Zuko acknowledges, and for a moment, she is stunned by his admission, "but I –"

He opens his eyes and looks at her.

"I couldn't let you get hurt by my actions again."

Because both of them remember what happened the last time Azula had bent lightning in their presence. The Avatar had fallen, Ba Sing Se had fallen, the hopes of every free person had fallen…

"That was different," Katara brushes his explanation aside, with an obstinacy that surprises her. "Aang was unprepared for Azula's attack."

"And you weren't?"

"That's not what I mean. You –" and she struggles to voice what's been bothering her about this whole scenario, "you didn't have to risk your life for me."

How did they get here? They used to be enemies, after all. He'd sneered at her for being a peasant, for being a member of what the Fire Nation considered a weaker race, for being a pathetic bender back when she had only been a novice. And the sight of him had once filled her with a range of emotions. Fear, at first. Then fury and determination. Then, strangely, pity, that one time Azula had wounded his uncle. For that was the first time she'd acknowledged that a monster, too, could feel.

And then there was Ba Sing Se, and everything that came afterward. A roller coaster of sympathy, and understanding, and betrayal, and rage, so much rage, because…

"Yes," Zuko rebuts gently. "I did."

Katara removes her hands from his wound and jams them on her hips.

"You could have died."

He shrugs, stepping deeper into the water.

"I knew you'd heal me."

"I could have died."

"It's the risk we took." Zuko remains infuriatingly nonchalant about the whole ordeal as he lightly begins to tread water, recently inflicted wound be damned. "Not just you and me. Everyone. We still don't know what's going on out there. The comet is still in the sky."

Katara looks up and sees that Zuko is right. Sozin's comet burns with the intensity of a second sun.

"Do you think Aang could really defeat your father?" she voices out loud the fear gnawing away at her. Because if Aang really did run away on the eve of battle…

"I don't know," Zuko admits. "But if we could find a way to subdue Azula…"

He trails off, and his face closes up again.

"I'm sorry," Katara says hesitantly. Because even if she was a fire-spitting demon, she is still his sister. Katara cannot imagine the pain of having to defeat such a sibling. She cannot imagine how Zuko must be feeling.

And yet, she can try.

"We used to play together here, when we were young," Zuko says softly. His eyes have a faraway look in them and he is facing away from her as he speaks. "She would chase me, and I'd run away as fast as I could. She'd always catch me, though." His voice grows bitter. "Even back then, she was always better than me."

"Don't say that." Katara unconsciously takes a step further into the water, to place a hand reassuringly on his shoulder.

"It's true, though." He shrugs halfheartedly, then turns to give her a wry smirk. "She defeated me tonight. If it wasn't for you, she would be sitting on the throne right now."

"But she's not," Katara tells him. "And that's because in the end, you were the better one. There are other things besides bending. You're – well, you've become the better person, Zuko."

There's a heavy pause as Zuko contemplates her words.

"Thank you," he says at last.

"You're welcome," she concedes, before casting a critical eye at his exertions. "Now stop that, you're undoing all the work I put into healing you."

He gives her such a wounded look in response that she cannot help but laugh helplessly. The fate of the world hangs on a knife's edge, and here they are, a waterbender and a firebender, swimming and laughing together in the palace gardens of the Fire Nation.

The spell is broken as Zuko winces and doubles over, clutching at his wound.

"Let me see," Katara says, pushing closer to him and pressing her hands against his stomach. "I told you not to do that…"

She begins the process all over again.

"How do you think this is going to end?" Zuko asks her quietly, watching her intently as she focuses on healing him.

"I don't know," she admits. Her large blue eyes are worried, but she pauses to look up at him expectantly. "Everything's going to be different now, won't it?"

He hasn't dwelled on what tomorrow might look like.

"If Aang fails –"

The thought is terrifying. If Aang falls, not only will they have lost a most precious friend, but it would also spell the end for the world as they know it. His father would not hesitate to burn everything in sight to the ground, and countless innocents would lose their lives.

"My father comes home a hero," Zuko replies bleakly. "He comes home to find me sitting in Azula's place. He'll probably challenge me to another Agni Kai, and this time he won't spare me."

"Aren't you afraid?" Katara presses, and her hands come to a still at a point just beneath where his heart beats faithfully in his chest. "After what he did to you?"

"No." Zuko's statement is made with a serenity that sends chills down her spine. "I won't beg for mercy this time."

"And you'd have me around too," Katara points out helpfully, a small smile spreading across her lips. "I'd heal you."

"I know." For a moment their eyes meet, and time seems to slow down as, at long last, the comet recedes from the sky, and leaves a blanket of darkness in its wake.

"But it doesn't matter," Zuko breaks the silence by speaking first, "because Aang is going to win."

His voice is comforting in the dark.

"You're right," Katara agrees. "It's the Avatar's duty to restore balance to the world."

"But even then, things will be different," Zuko points out. "The Fire Nation is going to be at war with itself, even if Aang succeeds. My father's supporters will remain a thorn in my side. And –" he stutters, because his next thoughts are ones that clearly make him upset, "and then there's the matter of the other nations. How will they view us after all this conflict? Will they even want the war to end? Won't they want revenge? How can people who have been enemies for so long, suddenly live in peace again?"

Katara finds herself recalling another time when she had been lost in the darkness, in a labyrinthine cave beneath the mountains of Omashu.

"Once," she replies with a small smile of understanding, "when I was lost in the Cave of Two Lovers, I read a story about two villages at war. They had fought with each other for generations, for so long that nobody could even remember what their conflict was about. Anyway, there came a time when two lovers, each from a different side of the war, overcame the hostility between their two tribes. But one of them was killed in the war, and in response to that loss, the war ended. Both villages united as one, and erected the city of Omashu."

Zuko stares at her blankly as she continues, finally understanding.

"Yes, we've been at war for a hundred years, but on each side, there's loss. On each side, there are people that are loved. I'm sure people will see past that when the war ends. Enough people have died."

"Enough people have died," Zuko echoes in agreement.

"We'll rebuild the world," Katara says. "All of us. You won't have to do it alone."

"I'd like that," Zuko says softly.

Following her instincts, Katara takes a step closer and wraps her arms around him.

"Me too," she says, his pulse a steady rhythm against her ear.

He returns her embrace, resting his chin on the top of her head.

It's always darkest before the dawn, Katara thinks to herself.

And, as she'd also learned in the cave, certain things burn brightest in the dark.