Ch: 7 Destiny
Zuko follows Katara complacently, head bowed, black hair falling across his forehead, fluttering into his eyes, his golden gaze boring into the ground at his feet. His heart aches, but for a new reason that's wormed itself into his burdened conscious. He has lost his crown, any hope of returning home, the supposed love of his girlfriend, and now he's lost the Painted Lady – she wasn't real. Looking up, he watches the back of the Avatar's waterbender, her brown hair swishing and bouncing as she walks and with painful clarity, realizes he misses the easy, pleasant, uncomplicated relationship he had with his companion that was now replaced by an awkward, suffocating silence with a girl who he knew only as an enemy.
He doesn't know where they are going, and suddenly, the implicit trust he had given the Painted Lady no longer applies. Betrayal fresh in his mind, faith wavering, he pushes the question out of his throat.
"Where are we going?"
"To finish what we started."
Zuko abruptly stops walking.
Katara continues a few steps before realizing he isn't following and stops as well. Letting out a long sigh, she turns to look at the thoroughly emotionally beaten boy behind her.
Their eyes lock and Zuko's brow furrows as he asks wearily, "Are you just using me too?"
"No!" Katara blurts urgently, taking a step forward before her feelings pull her back to stand still, looking at the ground. Her arms fold protectively over her chest, unfold, then refold as she begins again, "We've done so much for these people, but they're going to continue to suffer unless the mines are destroyed. We have to do this."
Zuko hears her words but they feel alien to him. Was it really them who started this, or was it the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady? Were they, two enemies from warring nations, really capable of finishing the work that the heroic spirit companions had started?
"I don't know," Zuko manages with uncertainty.
Pulling her gaze from the road, Katara looks up to the firebender, sighing once again, "It was different when we wore masks."
"Things have changed," Zuko replies, raising his head slightly, barely meeting her gaze.
He might have been able to do it with the Painted Lady, but she was gone and now he was with Katara. His feelings for the Lady beg to be acknowledged, but he ignores them as he struggles to find the strength to follow the waterbender. He has an unpleasant history with her, and though she says she wants to help him, he finds it difficult to accept. He doesn't deserve the chance she's giving him, and suddenly he hopes that she is using him; they'll destroy the mine together and then she'll leave and he'll be free to crawl away from the world.
"Alright," he finally says, causing Katara to smile weakly, "Lets go."
"What were you thinking?" Katara asks suddenly, breaking the heavy silence between them as they head through the darkness toward the mine.
"When?" Zuko asks blankly, looking towards her but seeing she hadn't looked his way when she'd spoken.
"When you found out it was me, that I was the Painted Lady. What was your reaction?"
Zuko drops his gaze back to the muddy ground, contemplating, as they continue to walk. He answers after a short moment. "Surprised."
"Is that all?" Katara asks, turning her head to look at him this time.
A glimmer of the Painted Lady drifts across Zuko's vision, and for a moment, merges with his image of Katara, but he forces it away, once again telling himself that the waterbender was not the Painted Lady, and his love does not translate.
"Yeah," he finishes, then looks her direction, "What were you thinking?"
Katara looks away, her heart aching again and her throat growing sore.
"Surprised," she manages, unable to meet Zuko's gaze.
"Is that all?" he questions.
A rush of answers flood over Katara and she physically cringes under their impact. Paralyzed. Shocked. Enraged. Tricked. Betrayed. Disgusted. Bitter. Confused. Scared. Disappointed. Heartbroken. Hopeful.
"Wary," she finishes, suppressing the breakdown and confession of her true feelings to Zuko when he couldn't possibly understand what she felt for the Blue Spirit or how those emotions had blurred onto the firebender.
"I don't blame you," Zuko nods, unaware of her inner turmoil, "I can't even trust myself anymore. No matter what path I choose, I always end up on the wrong side in the end. You're right not to trust me."
"Zuko, that's not who I am."
"I know, its just...I don't know..."
"And that's not who you are either! You can choose the right path and you can stay on it!"
"Katara, even as the Blue Spirit I couldn't do it. When the time came to make a decision, I chose to be the Fire Nation's Prince Zuko because that's all I'll ever choose to be."
But you didn't, Katara thinks, you came to me...
"Maybe you're just confused as to who Prince Zuko is," she mutters, knowing the same confusion swells within her.
"If you had done your job this wouldn't have happened," Azula snaps, pacing furiously before taking a seat.
Mai remains silent under the princess' glower, standing stalk still in front of her.
"Do you have any idea where he could have gone?"
Mai stares at Azula without a single emotion flitting across her face, remembering finding Zuko on his bed, wounded. When she heard the reports that the Painted Lady was accompanied by a masked man, it didn't take her more than a second to put two and two together. She had been less concerned with his actions than she had been with his neglect of her; as long as he was hers and gave her the attention she wanted she didn't mind what choices he made. But now...now he was gone, with the Painted Lady no doubt. She looks up at Azula, meeting the angry girl's fierce glare, and smirks.
"I don't know where he would have gone."
Scowling disgustedly, Azula orders, "Out."
But maybe, Mai thinks as she turns to leave the room, maybe there's still a chance. Maybe if she finds him, explains things, he'll understand.
Azula remains seated, frowning in contemplation, clicking her fingernails on the chair.
Ty Lee, silent this whole time, somersaults out of her seat across the room and plops down next to her friend.
"Don't worry Azula, I'm sure we'll find him eventually."
"I am certain of that," Azula replies vaguely.
"But, whats wrong then?" Ty Lee asks in confusion, "I thought you didn't think we'd find him?"
"We won't have to find him, he'll come to us," Azula explains, "Zuzu isn't aware of it, but we've both hired the same man to do our dirty work. While the assassin refused to reveal the objective Zuko set for him, it was only a matter of paying the right price to have my business take priority."
"...and how will we find Zuko?" Ty Lee interrupts curiously, not seeing the princess' point.
"Zuko will go back to the assassin, of that I am sure, and when he does he'll have to answer to me and the entire Fire Nation for the assassination of our father."
Wide eyed, Ty lee gasps, "You're going to blame him for your plan! It's brilliant, no one will ever suspect you and—wait..." she trails off, her expression losing its excitement as she asks with concern, "What will happen to Zuko?"
Getting out of her chair and walking away from her friend, Azula replies coldly, "It's out of my hands. He's chosen his own fate."
As they approach the mine, the silence between them born of awkwardness grows into necessity. Crouching low, they return to the scene of their fight the night before, both pushing away the overwhelming feelings that come with defeat and attempting to focus on the task at hand. The cart that had aided them in hauling the blasting jelly only exists in broken fragments and splinters littering the ground and Zuko swallows hard, remembering being hopelessly pinned, knowing he too could've been scattered in pieces if it hadn't been for the Lady's intervention.
Katara brings him back to the present when her hand ghosts across his arm and instinctively he flinches away. Averting her eyes as she bites her lip, hurt at his reaction, she points to the entrance of the mine where two guards stand watch, unaware of their presence, and safe in their belief that the two enemies of the Fire Nation would not attempt another attack so soon.
Zuko peers into the darkness, cautious, looking for evidence of more guards. Seeing footprints nearby, he narrows his eyes. Hesitantly tapping his companion's shoulder, he begins to point to himself and use hand signals to convey his wishes but stops, remembering he no longer needs to disguise his voice.
"I'm going to find the others."
She nods.
He creeps away into the shadows and she watches with confused longing. Tearing her gaze away, she focuses her energy on dispatching the guards ahead of her.
With one quick motion, she gathers the moisture from the still damp ground and separates the two guards with a wall of water. Moving her hands to the side, the men are tossed in opposing directions and quickly ice crystals begin to slither over them, until they are stuck fast.
Suddenly, a plume of flame lights up the night sky, and peering around the corner of the building, Katara catches a glimpse of a man running toward her. Scrambling behind him was Zuko, fists wreathed in fire.
"Stop him!" he yells.
She does not hesitate and immediately freezes the ground beneath the fleeing soldier's feet. He slips, and then catches a jet of water in his chest. Hitting the ground with a loud smack, he lays unmoving.
"Couldn't handle one?" she asks a smirk on her lips.
"There were three," he answers, brushing past her toward the mine entrance.
Unfazed, Katara turns and follows him.
"We should be able to block off the opening with our bending," Zuko states, looking at the rock outcroppings that lay overhead.
Brushing past him, Katara walks into the darkness of the mine without faltering, "We need to do more than block the entrance, we need to destroy this whole tunnel."
When they enter, Katara lets out a small gasp as Zuko dispels the crushing darkness with a ball of flame in his palm. All around them the light reveals low ceilings and crumbling walls, dangerously held together by nothing more than wooden beams. With every breath, they can feel the noxious fumes and clinging dust entering their lungs.
Inhaling, Zuko coughs. How could he have condoned this? How could anyone work in such conditions for days, weeks, months on end?
Walking over to a wooden beam, Katara pulls out a trail of water and begins slicing through it, saying, "Help me weaken the beams, then we can collapse it from the outside. Careful, we don't want it to come down while we're still in here."
Zuko nods and begins bending a string of fire in a similar fashion as the waterbender.
This girl isn't the same as the Painted Lady. What were the silent gestures and pleasant touches are now strict orders and unnecessary warnings. Or maybe he's just not used to being spoken to while committing these treasonous acts toward his nation. Splintering a wooden beam with a searing whip of fire, he tells himself to stay focused. There's no use in thinking about the Painted Lady or what could have been anymore.
Katara harshly chips into a wooden support, her face tense from the thoughts inside her rather than the work she performs. She wants her feelings for the Blue Spirit to disappear and be forgotten now that she knows who he really is. Despite this, those feelings of affection continue to project themselves on the boy who works with her nearby and she's furious with herself for it. Furious and confused, because she's torn between giving in to the desire and fighting it.
"That's the last one," Zuko's voice echoes softly through the tunnel.
Outside now, they both breathe deeply, feet spread in their bending stances, Katara feeling the water around her and Zuko feeling the fire within. Simultaneously they let their elements rush into the mine, fire and water swirling and biting at each other as they roar and hiss down the cavern, thrashing against the earthen walls.
They hear the groaning of timbers, feel the shaking of the earth as it folds in on itself, rocks and wood tumbling together in a cacophony, and suddenly the hillside collapses. Despite the previous night's rain and the flooding torrent Katara has unleashed on the dreaded mine, dust explodes into the air and for a moment they are blinded.
With the mine destroyed, the citizens of the town would no longer be forced to deal with the poor conditions they were formerly under. Undoubtedly they would be the ones to dig a new entrance to the collapsed mine tunnels, but working in the open air was exponentially better than in the nauseous conditions inside, and by the time the damage was fixed the war would be over and the forced labor would end as well. Covered in the dust coughed out in the mine's dying breath, the two benders walk silently away from their victory.
Trudging through the rubble, Zuko missteps among the debris and loses his balance, but before he falls, Katara reaches out. One hand on his arm, the other on his chest, she steadies him. She looks up to ask if he's alright, but is suddenly caught. He is covered in dust and dirt from head to toe, he smells of soot and ash, but she cannot speak, can barely breathe. He feels the same as the Blue Spirit, she wants to believe it's him, and the desire overtakes her. It fills her, swallows her, washes over her and she is swept away in the torrent. Heart thudding in her ears, her hands fist into the fabric of his clothes and she pulls him toward her, crushing her mouth to his. His lips are softer than she hoped, warmer than she expected, and she ignores the faint taste of dust as she urgently tries to resolve the turmoil within herself through a kiss.
Zuko barely has time to register the pained hunger of her expression before her lips make contact with his. Shocked, eyes wide, stunned into stillness, for the briefest moment he doesn't move, doesn't think, until he feels her draw the tension out of his muscles, feels the softness of her face so close to his, and as he relaxes, his eyes flutter shut. His mouth responds to hers and his hands drift to her waist.
As suddenly as it started, Katara's eyes fly open in horror as her hands unclench Zuko's clothing and she pushes herself away from him. Zuko's hands linger where her waist had been and he worriedly meets her abashed expression.
"Zuko I'm sorry!" Katara quickly cries out, apologizing franticly, "I didn't mean to—It's just—with the Blue Spirit I felt—and when I found out—I'm just so confused—I loved him and—I know it's different now—I didn't mean to—"
She doesn't even comprehend his movement as she agonizingly tries to explain herself and she's forced to an abrupt stop as his lips gently descend upon hers. Her protests and explanations die in her throat as she leans in, her eyes drifting closed. She feels his fingertips brush her cheek then tangle in her hair as he softly, slowly, kisses away her inner chaos.
Reluctantly, he pulls away, breaking the kiss and the spell. Looking into her each other's eyes, they realize that with or without the mask and veil, they were Zuko and Katara the whole time, whether they knew it or not.
"So what do we do now?" he asks in a whisper, his mind made up and a piece of his destiny realized.
She gives small smile and holds out her hand, "Come with me."
End Note: And so it ends. Thanks for reading and we'd love to hear what you thought:)
This story was written by both myself, Steamboat Ghost, and my writing partner in crime fuzzytomato. We each worked equally hard on this and it couldn't possibly have turned out the way it did without our constant exchange of ideas and cooperative writing.
We plan on writing more together in the future, but whether we'll get to a sequel or not, well, our answer to that right now is, "If we do, it will be a hell of a while later". Hearing what you think about this story will certainly be part of our motivation, but we aren't making any promises.
Want more reading? Check out our other stories:
Fuzzytomato's "Brothers in Arms" takes place after the "Crossroads of Destiny" as an alternate history in which Sokka and Zuko must overcome their differences to escape the clutches of Azula. No romance or explicit Zutara here, but its an awesome story with lots of tension, adventure, and humor. Tomato's had quite some experience in writing fanfiction, bu this was her first serious endeavor at writing an epic avatar story (and its rocks from start to finish).
Steamboat Ghost's "The Swiftly Tilting Balance" is a post-war story that started during the long wait for season three. Most of the gaang's dynamics remain at the status quo they were in at the end of season two, with the exception that Zuko has been added to their group and a few other minor things. Minimal romance here (nowhere near as much as "Come With Me"), but plenty of action, conflict, and varying character interaction. Ghost is relatively new to fanfiction and this is and continues to be his first project (you can expect that the early chapters won't be nearly as good or filled out as the later ones).