"I brought you a blanket." It's not until Katara drapes the sheet over him that Zuko realizes his teeth are chattering and prominent goosebumps dot his skin. Her hands are smooth and cool against the scabs and scar tissue covering his arms.

"Thanks." Zuko draws the blanket around himself, then thinks better of it and extends half to Katara, who willingly tucks herself under his arm. The warm scent of jasmine and something cleanperfume the air. "What are you doing out here? It's cold. You should drink some of Uncle's tea." Duh, stupid, he scolds himself. That's why she brought you a blanket. Cause it's cold. And it feels like it's about to rain. The air is stuffy with the feeling of holding your breath, waiting for an absolution you might never get.

"I went looking for you and guessed you were outside, and I didn't want you to get cold. Well. Not that you couldn't do anything to fix being cold, but—do you wanna talk about it?" she asks, all the words rushing out of her mouth. Her wide blue eyes are filled with genuine concern and compassion. "It's okay. I'll wait." A pause. "Or—or I can just go back inside." She starts to move away from Zuko when his hand gently touches her shoulder.

"No, don't leave. I just..." he trails off, looking down over the railing at the ruins of the palace courtyard. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth and keeps the scar on his stomach throbbing. He hopes the bubble of heat in his throat is due to Sokka putting extra fire flakes in his rice and not the prelude to crying. "I don't know if I did the right thing. When I threw my father in jail. When I put Azula in the mental facility. If I should even have assumed the title of Fire Lord, instead of giving it to Uncle. I don't know if I've done anything right in my life!" He exhales sharply and turns away from Katara, shamefaced, eyes closed. "And I still don't know what happened to my mother." His voice breaks on the last syllable and suddenly, it's hard for him to breathe and his eyes are hot with unwanted tears.

"Zuko," she says gently, "it's okay." She wraps the blanket more tightly around them, and an uncharacteristically cold breeze for a Fire Nation summer sweeps through the courtyard. The boy's shoulders shake through the thin silk of his robes. "The 'right' decisions don't always make themselves known right away. Maybe you just need to give it some time."

"Give it some time?" Zuko demanded. "Katara, these people don't have the time to spare to rebuild their homes, their families. I need to make decisions right now if they're going to do anyone good!" He brought his trembling fingers to the scar covering his left eye. Light rain begins to fall, like small, cold needles.

"Zuko—"

"No! Don't tell me it's okay, because it's not! It's not!" His knees give way and he collapses on the cold balcony, palms slick with tears. He hunches over, sobbing, begging and praying to deities he doesn't know to take away his pain. "I took away people's homes, their lives, their families, their everything. I'm a murderer, Katara," he whispers. "Don't you see?" He gestures at the rubble. "I did all this...it's my fault..." Every last bit of horror and carnage hits him like a bolt of lightning. All the crumbling houses, the dead parents, the children who might have scars across their faces just like his...

"No, it's not. You're trying your best to fix everything. That counts for something. That counts for everything," Katara says. Zuko's shoulders still shake beneath her palms as another violent sob wracks his body.

"You don't understand," he says hoarsely. "I didn't care about these people. I took and took from them for my own gain and still expected more. I was proud to have laid ruin to all those cities. I thought it made me a conqueror. I thought it would bring me back my honor, but it didn't. It made me a monster." Something deep inside Katara begins to ache, a deep throbbing not unlike the reopening of old wounds. She wraps her arm around Zuko's form, usually so tall and sure but now hunched over like prey fleeing from its predator, like he's shielding himself from a thunderstorm of bullets only he can see.

She cups her hand on his chin and gently bends his tears away so they fall quietly to the courtyard below. He doesn't even wince as she wipes away the tears beneath his scarred eye. "You're not a monster."

"How do you know?" his ragged voice seems to choke him.

"Because you risked everything to come teach Aang firebending. You helped Sokka find our dad and you helped me find my mother's murderer. You did everything you could to prove yourself to us. You turned your back on your father to help us. You care, Zuko. That's how I knew, all the way back there on the dock, after I went to kill Yon Rha, and that's how I know now." She throws her arms around his neck fiercely, holding onto him like he might dissolve in the rain. "You're not a monster. You're you."

All the breath rushes out of his lungs and the tears from his eyes as he finally lets his muscles relax, letting Katara trace swirls of water over his burn scars, clearing the ash and smoke. There is a purity to rain, a cleanliness and calm that only water can bring. And that's the only thing he needs right now, the water's promise of healing, rebirth, and redemption, not the rage and passion of fire.

"Don't leave." His whisper is so faint and fragile, just a brush of wind against the skin of Katara's neck. His arms find their way around her waist, and all the stars align again.

"I won't."

Time melts away from them—slowly, quietly. They fall asleep to the rhythm of rain and heartbeat of the sky, sleeping off the horrors that the world has cast upon them both. And when the new dawn rises, they will hold each other close, and know that they will prevail.

They always have.

fin.