Disclaimer: It's all Bryke's, except what's not.

A/N: Drabbles are not in chronological order.

I wrote most of these without internet access and couldn't remember what two of the prompts were, so, after the fact, I've decided to call this "week" complete at five completed prompts.

melancholy (n) - a feeling of pensive sadness

Some wounds run deeper than skin and bone.

Katara remembers Gran-Gran telling her this, years ago, when her newly-widowed father would go for long walks alone on the ice, even though children as young as Katara knew it wasn't a safe thing to do. When the men came back from war with smiles that didn't reach their eyes, and hugged their wives and children with a fierce sense of protection running through their scarred bodies, as though each family unit was a fragile thing, poised to break.

And they could break. Katara had seen that, too.

Sometimes she thinks she and Zuko have that going for them—they were both already broken when they entered this marriage, and there can be nothing left to give, no kind of hurt they haven't already endured.

They're already broken, so now they can heal.

It is a slow process, and the war taught Katara that, too—that no matter how skilled her healing becomes, physical wounds are only part of the battle.

She could give Zuko sleeping potions or herbs when he wakes up, shaking and haunted, from nightmares of his past. But when she tries, he argues with her, his face pale and his eyes wide like a skittish ostrich-horse colt.

He has been trained, like most men, to think that accepting help means showing weakness, and he refuses to take medicine like a sick child being nursed back to health.

(They don't know what health is, anymore, aside from healing-scroll definitions of a sound body.)

Katara has given up on the potions, but she has learned that there are other ways she can comfort her husband. He will usually consent to being coaxed back into bed when he's left it, to her wrapping her arms around him and running tender fingers through his hair—it grows longer by the month, in the style of old lords, but he won't grow a beard for fear of looking like his father (and nothing she can say will convince him otherwise)—until he sleeps.

She stays awake, those nights, and holds both of their hurts in her heart.

And when the rains come, when there is so much water drenching the Fire Nation that it coats as thick as new-fallen snow, except that it is temporary, and not nearly cold enough—those are the times when Katara feels her own brokenness the most. She is not at home here and never will be, just like the monsoons. She is begrudgingly accepted, but whispered about behind her back, and she will never be loved by the people she helps her husband rule.

She stands outside in her element, soaking in the pouring rain, and refuses all of Zuko's offers of cover while she's outside or blankets to wrap up in when she returns inside.

Eventually, Zuko learns to stop offering.

He comes to stand beside her in the rain at times, tentative and hesitant because he can be strong for his country as it heals, strong for his broken sister who tried to kill him, but he doesn't think he can be strong for her, his wife.

He says she's always been the strong one, but she disagrees.

She wouldn't have married him if she didn't think they could help each other, and his presence at her side, even when the lightning flashes in the distance, means more than he knows, although she tries to tell him, to convince him, in her own way.

And so she lets him take her hand and lead her to cool, quiet gardens when the rains are gone and the dry heat of winter, the endless sameness of days and nights that never vary in their length, take their turn to make her mourn the home she left behind.

(She gave it up for him, and she wouldn't trade his love for all the bitter, icy freshness of her home and tribe, but she welcomes the fact that he doesn't judge her sadness, all the same.)

Some wounds run deeper than skin and bone, some hurts are too ancient for one young lord and lady to mend, and some days, all they can do is cling to their own fragile promises.

Most days, that is enough.