el mañana
it's the dawn, you'll see
The party is roaring in the room behind her, and she's hiding out here like a child in trouble with her parents. She's found a neat little enclave in the alleyway that hides her from the view of anyone who isn't standing in the direct right position where next-door's lanterns shine on her - a small enough space, she figures, and pulls her knees tighter to her chest.
If asked, even under pain of death or dismemberment, she doesn't think she could explain why she's here.
This party is for her, after all.
But everything she eats turns to ash in her mouth, and every smile feels horribly fake, and she thinks that if she has to thank one more person telling her how wonderful it is that she's going to marry the Avatar, she's going to scream, and possibly kill someone. It all feels so wrong, somehow, like this is all a huge mistake that she can't fix.
She shouldn't feel this way. Eighteen and newly engaged - to the Avatar! - and with enough stories of valor to last her ten lifetimes... she should be happy, ready to settle down, ready to pop out a few airbenders and retire to a life of mundane simplicity, in the Southern Air Temple. Ready to never amount to anything more than one of the millions of war veterans, the has-beens, the ones whose glory days are behind her. Ready to be another woman with too many kids, her life assimilated into that of her husband and children.
It makes her sick to think about. And it's... it might not be an accurate picture of her future. Teaching a new generation of airbenders and restoring a race that's been extinct for a century doesn't sound boring, until she looks a little deeper, and realizes that what it really means is that she'll be the cook and the mother of the whole temple, while Aang teaches airbending and air nomad philosophy, smiling - just like she has been all night - and serving dinner to a bunch of children who won't call her "Mom" (because nomads have no real families, as Aang explained to her, and are raised by the tribe as a whole). But it might be more interesting than that. She could be a diplomat, she thinks, to the other nations.
And then it occurs to her just how pathetic that thought is - she's only just been engaged, and she's already plotting ways to escape her marriage.
"So what are you doing out here?" a voice drawls, and she jumps. The dark bounty hunter with too much makeup raises an eyebrow and sits down next to her. "Isn't that party in there for you?"
"Yes," she replies, and curses her voice for its weakness. June peers at her through the half-light and draws a flask out from her belt, taking a deep swig and handing it to her. For a moment, she considers not taking the drink, but then thinks that - damn it - she could use this. The alcohol is strong and bitter, and burns its way down her throat like a tongue of flame. She coughs and blinks hard a few times before taking another swig.
"That bad, huh?" June asks, not asking for her alcohol back. "I thought you looked a little pained in there. Not too enthusiastic about marrying tattoo-boy?"
"It's just... I mean..." she splutters a few times, before sighing heavily. "No," she admits, handing the flask back to June, "not really."
"So why'd you agree to it?"
"I..." she says, and leans back against the wall. The drink is settling heavy in her stomach, already warming her blood and just beginning to give her a very light buzz that is entirely unpleasant. It's muddying up her thoughts and loosening her tongue, and she's deeply tempted to have more. It won't make things better, but it will make her forget, and hopefully by morning, this nasty mood will have passed her right on by. "He's the Avatar, isn't he?" she continues, taking the flask again without letting June have another drink. "I don't have a choice."
The words are agonizingly true - she's never really had a choice in the matter. Aang is in love with her; as far as anyone is concerned, that means that they are meant to be, because the Avatar and the Lover are well-known parts that have been played by thousands of people all through history. Roku and Ta Min, Kuruk and Ummi, Kyoshi and... someone. It's always been assumed that Katara would be in love with Aang the way he is with her - even she assumed it would happen, that she would just wake up one day and bam! be in love with him.
But that hadn't happened, and it was looking more and more unlikely that it ever would. June, half-forgotten beside her, snorts and pulls out another flask, apparently resigning herself to the fact that Katara is going to finish the first one. "You've always got a choice."
"Not really," she replies thickly, already planning to blame drunkenness for the tears pricking at her eyes (and, she muses, everything else about this conversation). No, she hasn't been drinking long enough to be drunk, but if there's anything she's learned from Mai, it's that one should not allow things like truth to get in the way of preserving one's dignity. "I mean, it's Aang. He's been in love with me since he met me. He... He saved the world for me."
"And, so you're, what, his prize?"
The next swig she takes is the largest one yet, and between it and the tears she's fighting desperately to control, her throat is raw. "I love him," she chokes, "I do. He's my best friend, and... And I'm happy to be marrying him." The lie falls flat even to her own ears, and June is clearly not convinced.
"Sure you are. That's why you're hiding away from your own engagement party, crying into a flask of really strong whiskey. It's because your happiness is just overwhelming you, isn't it?"
She gives up all pretense, letting out a breath she barely even knew she was holding, and begins to cry outright. "I... I'm stuck," she whispers, shaking and sniffling and feeling just about as disgusting as she can ever remember feeling - and that includes that incident with the Drill. "If I break off the relationship, everyone will hate me, but if I marry him, I'll end up hating myself, and probably him, too." Thinking about the Drill reminds her of the days before Sozin's Comet, and all the fun they had then, running around the world and getting into crazy situations. Sure, the war was terrible, and she'll be the first to cry that peace is glorious, but there are some things she misses.
"It's already starting," she says, miserably, and drains the rest of the flask. June pries it out of her hands and replaces it with the other, merely watching her hysterics emotionlessly. "I... We had so much fun back then, you know?" she breathes, and glances at June, smiling slightly. "We got into all sorts of messes, and everything was simple. We were all just good friends having a blast and saving the world while we were at it. Now..." she trails off and examines the flask in her hands. It looks too expensive for June to own, and Katara thinks that it must have been a gift from some nobleman - whether he knew he was giving the gift, however, is up for debate.
"Now?" June prompts, the same blank look on her face.
"Now all he talks about is restoring the air nomads. And rebuilding the air temples. It's like I'm an accessory," she says, thinking of it like that for the first time. "I'm just his..."
"His prize," June finishes for her. Despair crosses over Katara's face. "You're the trophy he won for defeating the Fire Lord, and now he's placing you up on his mantle. Sounds like a healthy relationship to me," she adds darkly, snatching the flask back from Katara and drinking from it. There's something more underneath June's careless facade - and she thinks she might have a clue what it is.
"Were you ever in love?" she asks, and her voice startles her with the slurring creeping into it. Her head feels heavy. She just wants to forget about this.
June barks out a laugh and takes another draught. "No, but someone was in love with me once," she says, like that's the end of it.
"Let me guess," Katara whispers. "He and everyone else thought he deserved your love, and that you were a terrible person for denying him?"
"Something like that," June mutters, and then looks at her flask. "You know what I think?" she asks, glancing at Katara, "I think we need more alcohol." Katara nods.
"Strong alcohol," she clarifies, and June laughs.
"Of course. I don't play light when it comes to drinking. C'mon, let's leave this depressing alley behind."
It's Zuko who finds her, three hours later, in a deep, drunken discussion about the nature of love and nice guys and emotional manipulation with June the Bounty Hunter, of all people, her face stained with tears and alcohol and what might be lipstick (although he doesn't, and never will, ask).
"There you are," he says, coming over to their table, annoyed beyond all reckoning. "Everyone's been looking for you. Sokka's about to have a panic attack."
"Suki didn't go into labor, did she?" she slurs, barely glancing up. Zuko blinks.
"She's only four months pregnant, Katara... Are you drunk?"
"Are we drunk?" June repeats, her tone sarcastic, and then laughs. "Tell me, firecrotch, do we look drunk?"
"Yes," he says sardonically, crossing his arms. "Yes, you do. You look very drunk."
"Then we are very drunk," June answers him, and then taps her chin thoughtfully. "Well, I've been drunker, but your friend here doesn't seem like she's too good with alcohol. You might want to watch her," she adds, with a twinkle in her eye. "Make sure she doesn't end up with too nasty a hangover."
"Katara..." Zuko groans, and then leans over to help her to her feet. Katara, however, is having none of it.
"Go 'way. I wan' another shot."
"If you'd wanted alcohol, why didn't you drink at the party?" Zuko asks, finally giving up and sitting down next to her, figuring that she's already nine sheets to the wind, so maybe more alcohol will make her pass out, which will make things exponentially easier for him.
"'Cause I didn' want to," she replies bluntly.
"June?"
June waves a hand and orders another round for the whole table, taking Zuko's shot when it arrives. "Aang is at the party. Way I hear it, he doesn't exactly approve."
"Of anything," Katara slurs. He glances at her, and then takes a deep breath.
"This isn't going to end well, is it?"
"Depends on your definition of well," June says, her usually immaculate appearance now rather mussed and - Zuko notices, with both horror and what he swears isn't excitement - her lipstick, the same color as the stains on Katara's face, is smudged. "See, I think that the worst possible ending for this is for her to go right back to Avatar Goody-Goody and pretend nothing happened."
"...What happened?"
"She got drunk, stupid," June tells him, although she does seem amused. "And spent the whole night complaining about how she doesn't want to marry him."
"Not the whole night," Katara peeps, her voice slightly distant and drowsy. "We also talked about that guy who wanted to marry you."
"Which turned into more complaining about Aang."
"Let me get this straight," Zuko says, running a hand through his hair and contemplating just going outside to find the others and claim that he didn't see anything and that no one in this bar had seen Katara. "Aang proposed to you," he continues, indicating to Katara, "and you accepted, even though you don't really want to marry him. And instead of talking to him about it or doing anything constructive, you decided to get drunk with a bounty hunter and not tell anyone where you were going?"
"That's pretty much the gist of it," June confirms, but Katara scowls.
"You're one to talk about const - constru - bad ideas," she counters drunkenly, as though it's becoming a hassle to speak. He figures that she's got about ten, maybe fifteen, more minutes before she passes out. And he has a nasty feeling that he's going to be the one taking care of her, because Aang will be furious that she skipped out on their engagement party to get plastered, Sokka will be too busy with Suki's pregnancy, and Toph will probably just laugh at the whole thing.
Or maybe not, he thinks, glancing at Katara's miserable face. Maybe not even Toph would find this funny.
"Okay, I'm not," he says gently. "But this isn't going to make anything better."
"Speak f'yourself," she mumbles. "Hopef'lly, I'm not gonna remember a thing from tonight, and that's 'xactly what I want."
"Healthy relationship," June quips, "isn't it? I keep telling her to end it now, before she's old, has seventeen kids, and hates everything. I've seen that happen before, and it's not pretty."
Katara makes a sound somewhere between a whimper and a laugh, and Zuko's chest hurts. She just looks so sad, so defeated... It isn't right, Katara looking like this. She's always been the hopeful one, the optimist - it's wrong on every level, the way she's slumped over a half-finished glass of something alcoholic, like the weight of ten miserable lifetimes is resting on her shoulders.
He wants to be angry with June for getting her drunk, but he can't find it in him to - after all, June is trying to help, the best way she knows how, and the advice she's giving is pragmatic, and mostly sound. He takes issue with the method, but then again, he remembers the period immediately following his banishment and how well acquainted he got with the bottle (and, subsequently, alcohol poisoning) before his Uncle had sharply explained to him that this wasn't going to solve anything except destroying his liver.
Sometimes, he thinks, maybe people need to self-destruct. Angi knows he's the king of doing just that.
"Come on, Katara," he says in a low voice, arm around her shoulders, "let's get you back to bed, all right? And we'll deal with everything in the morning. Or, well," he adds, noting her heavy posture and half-closed eyes, "the afternoon. June, here," he says, and pulls out a handful of coins, "that should pay for her drinks."
"Thank you, Fire Lord Grumpy," June replies, her voice slightly slurred, and swipes the coins over to her side of the table. "And, Katara? Listen to what I told you, all right?"
Katara manages to nod, and by the time they reach the door, is barely even walking, most of her weight on Zuko's shoulder. Finally, he gives up all pretense and picks her up, carrying her over to a bench and letting her sit down. She slumps over, groans, and then throws up, narrowly missing his feet, before coughing twice and passing out. "Dammit, Katara," he sighs, and looks around.
He doesn't dare leave her here - a young, unconscious woman on the streets of Ba Sing Se's Lower Ring in the middle of the night? Not happening. On the other hand, she and June went well out of their way to find a bar to drink at (presumably so they wouldn't be disturbed by anyone Katara knew), and everyone is back at the Jasmine Dragon, no doubt worried sick. He's reasonably confident in his arm strength, but he is not so cocky as to assume that he can carry her all the way back there, even with the streets being empty as they were.
That leaves two options: convincing June to run back to the Jasmine Dragon with information as to their whereabouts, or sitting here with her until she wakes up or someone finds them, whichever comes first. And considering that June is not much more sober than Katara, he figures that he'll just have to get comfortable.
She wakes up far too early, horribly uncomfortable, and with the awful knowledge that she is about to vomit. She opens her eyes, and barely even registers that she's outside and that her head is in someone's lap before she rolls over as much as she can and begins throwing up. Her pillow cries out and recoils, which only causes her head to swim worse and brings her attention to the fact that her brain is apparently attempting to evacuate her skull.
"Ugh..." she groans, and her pillow makes an odd sound.
"Morning," it croaks. She rolls over and blinks, trying to focus on him in the glaring mid-morning light.
"Zuko? What are... Where am I?" she asks, but then it begins to come back to her - the alley, June, the bar, the stories, the crying... "Oh," she whimpers, and brings up a startlingly heavy arm to block out the sun. "Is this a hangover?"
"Either that or you're still drunk," Zuko replies dryly. "Come on. We've got to get back to the others. They're probably about to call in the Dai Li to find you."
"Why did I sleep on a bench?"
"You passed out," he tells her, helping her to her feet and gingerly avoiding the mess she's made all over the ground. "I couldn't get you back to the Jasmine Dragon, and I wasn't about to leave you here alone."
"Thanks," she mumbles, and staggers. Zuko reaches out to steady her and pulls an arm over his shoulders to help her walk. "I feel awful." And, she realizes, judging from the way her lips are cracked, and the way she can feel her hair sticking out in at least two more directions than was normal, and from the general grimy feeling all over, she probably looks awful, too. "Can we get to a restroom or something so I can clean up?"
He hesitates, and then glances at her. "Sure," he says, confirming her suspicions. He helps her into a shop that's just getting into its breakfast rush, and winces as the patrons all snicker at her. She has half a mind to waterbend them all into next week, but then again, she's fairly sure that if she tries to waterbend right now, she might actually die.
"Looking for a restroom?" the hostess asks delicately.
"Yeah," Katara answers, and the woman points them in the right direction. Zuko promises to wait for her outside the restroom, and she stumbles inside. A little girl at the sink stares at her with huge eyes, and when she looks in the mirror, she can see why.
Awful is an understatement. Her hair is greasy, matted with... gross, messy from sleeping on a park bench and in Zuko's lap, and smells. Her face is streaked with old tears, lipstick (the exact shade that June was wearing, she realizes, with absolute horror), along with dried vomit, is smeared around her lips, her right cheek is red from where she was laying on it, and her eyes are bleary and puffy. Her clothes are rumpled, stained, and even torn in a couple of places.
Shame begins to sneak under her skin - and a very sharp memory of Zuko's voice, understanding but admonishing, this isn't going to make anything better. He's right, but then, she knew that before she took the first sip. She just chose to ignore it, just for now, just for one night. So she tells herself that she won't feel ashamed for this, even though she really kind of is. She gives a half-hearted smile to the little girl who's watching Katara like she's about to attack her and gobble her up right here, but is too exhausted to care that she's officially moved into the "scaring little children" stage of hangovers.
The little restaurant has stocked several dishtowels to use for washing, and while they aren't exactly high-quality, they're sufficient. She washes her face (scrubbing a little harder than necessary), until it's pink. She can't scrub the haggard, puffy look around her eyes away, but it's good enough. The hair... is a nightmare, but one she tries to tame with soap, and only sort of fails at. At the very least, she no longer smells like a trash heap, so there's that.
The splitting headache, nausea, and vertigo are more reluctant to go away, but it'll have to suffice for now. She returns to the dining room and rejoins Zuko, who smiles tightly.
"Feel better?"
"Sort of," she replies honestly. He sighs, and helps her walk, a power which is only slowly returning to her. "I'm sorry," she says quietly, once they're back on the street, "for getting you mixed up in this."
He shrugs. "Don't worry about it. What are friends for?"
"Bailing you out of horrible, self-inflicted situations?" she offers, and he smirks.
"Of course," he says, and then gets serious. "Don't worry about it, though, honestly. I've been there."
"You have?"
He nods, "Yeah, and I was on a ship, too."
"Ugh," she groans, "I don't even want to imagine that."
"A steel ship," he continues, trying to lighten the mood, "and Uncle thought it was a suitable punishment to bribe the kitchen staff into waking me up by banging on all the walls with their pots and pans." Katara winces. "Yeah. Not fun."
She laughs, but it comes out weak. "Still," she mutters, "I'm sorry. For what it's worth."
"It's still all right," he replies, with as much warmth as he can. They walk (stagger) in silence for a moment, before he takes a deep breath. "What are you going to do about it?" he asks in a low voice.
"I don't know," she whispers, and then looks at him. "Can I just... not? I mean," she cuts in, before he can say anything, "I will, but not now. I just... Not now," she repeats, and leans heavily onto his shoulder. "I don't think I can do this right now."
"Whatever makes you happy," he replies neutrally.
"I'm beginning to think that's an unrealistic goal," she says, so quietly that he can barely hear it. It hurts to say, to think - but the world won't be on her side if she breaks off her engagement to Aang. They'll hate her if she does; she'll hate herself if she doesn't. And right now, her head and throat hurt too badly and she thinks she might still throw up and she still feels too unclean, inside and out, to think about it or make any kind of decision.
"I don't," he says evenly, and his fingers tighten around her waist ever-so-slightly. "Besides, you're supposed to be the hopeful one, aren't you?"
"Come back when I'm sober," she mutters.
A/N: This is the baby of a plot bunny that's been bugging me for weeks to write. I decided to try and sate it by writing a one-shot, but it remains to be seen if it's satisfied.