In this one-shot, the characters are slightly older than they are in the series. The setting is the Fire Nation Royal Palace, where Fire Lord Zuko has allowed some of his friends to take up residence for the time being.

It was night.

The curtains were drawn.

The only light in the room was a single candle.

It provided just enough light for her to see what was in front of her.

Spilled water.

Jagged shards.

Bloody hands.

She idly lifted the water from the floor with one hand, also lifting several sharp fragments of glass with it.

She stirred the water in the air and then let it fall, not flinching when the pieces of glass shattered into more broken pieces.

She did this again and again.

Lifting slowly. Dropping quickly.

Controlling. Destroying.

There was a glazed look in her eyes. Her hands shook, but she wasn't sure why. She just sat there on the ground, manipulating the water, not minding the drops of blood that were mixed with it.

He ran down the hallway toward her room at top speed, blind to the strange looks from the other inhabitants of the palace.

She didn't hear his pounding footsteps approaching. She didn't hear him breathlessly questioning the two guards outside her door.

"What happened?"

The first guard sounded genuinely afraid. "She was acting normal, Fire Lord Zuko, until she accidentally knocked over her washbowl. It shattered on the floor, and then she just… snapped."

He was confused and upset. He had been Katara's guard for a while now. He had grown fond of the little waterbender. Nearly everyone had.

The other guard was one of the exceptions. He was older, more traditional, more strict.

Still, he continued for the first guard, who had temporarily lost his ability to speak. "She started screaming and crying, Fire Lord. She fell to the floor and tried to pick up the pieces with her bare hands, saying that she had to put the basin back together. We tried to make her stop, sir, but then she threatened to use bloodbending on us, and we all know what she can do-"

"Silence," Zuko barked at him, clenching his fists at his sides.

The other guard spoke once more in a small voice. "Please help her, Fire Lord Zuko."

"You men stay out here," Zuko ordered.

He entered the room slowly, finding Katara sitting on the floor, her eyes empty as she continued moving the water—up and down and up and down…

She was only aware of his presence when his shadow enveloped her. She didn't need to look at him to see who it was.

He raised a hand to light the rest of the candles in the room, but she said roughly, "Don't."

His hand fell back to his side. After a moment, he took another step toward her.

"Don't come any closer," she said emotionlessly, eyes transfixed on the ball of water in front of her.

He took another step toward her.

She closed her shaking fist, dropping the water. Shattering the glass.

Emotion wound its way back into her voice.

"I'm warning you," she said tightly.

He had never seen her like this before.

She was fragile.

He had been on the wrong end of Katara's wrath many a time, but this was different.

There had always been strength behind everything that she did. She was emotional at times, but never fragile.

His feet moved inevitably toward her.

The two guards slipped into the room behind him unnoticed, but only one of them was prepared to make a move.

It all happened within seconds.

Eyes flashing, Katara savagely screamed, "Get away! I'm dangerous!"

She was up off the ground in a flash, and she bent the water straight at Zuko.

The water contained one large shard of glass.

He barely registered the cold water hitting him and the warm blood running down his face when he turned and threw a concentrated blast of fire square into the chest of the older guard.

The guard skidded across the floor on his back.

The first guard gave Zuko a panicked glance, his eyes becoming even wider at seeing Zuko's face.

Looking straight at the older guard, Zuko said, "Don't hurt her. Ever. I'll let her kill me before I let you touch her."

Katara, who still had her hands in the air ready to attack, felt her stomach and jaw clench involuntarily.

Weakly, the injured guard said, "Fire Lord, I was just trying to protect-"

He didn't finish his sentence, promptly passing out.

"Take him to the infirmary," Zuko ordered the other guard.

He nodded and started to drag the older man away.

"Close the door on your way out," Zuko added, exchanging a silent knowing look with the guard, who nodded again gravely and pulled the heavy door shut behind himself.

"What are you doing?" Katara asked coldly, feeling claustrophobic as the door closed and the walls seem to press in toward her.

Finally reaching his hand to his face, Zuko felt the deep gash. His own touch stung and made a violent shudder go through him. He reflexively pulled his hand away, only to see his fingertips coated in fresh blood.

"Bleeding, apparently," he answered her.

He turned back toward her, and she finally saw what she had done.

The gash was on the right side of his face. It ran straight from his nose to his ear, right through the soft flesh at the base of his eye. The white part of his eye was now pure red as blood poured from it like tears.

Lightheaded, he felt like he might collapse soon, but he knew he couldn't.

With great effort he brought his eyes up to her, and for the first time, their gazes met.

His face was straight from a nightmare. It made something in her quiver with fear, even though she had caused it.

Something buried in Katara's mind registered, and she quickly lifted water from the floor, this time free of any glass.

She closed the distance between them and raised her hand to heal his face, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled it downward.

"Heal yourself first," he said, grimacing.

She didn't understand. She tried to use her other hand, but he grabbed that wrist too. She gave him a piercing glare and tried to break free of his hold, but he was too strong.

He moved his bloody gaze to her hands, which he was holding captive between the two of them.

"I won't let you heal me until you heal your hands," he spelled out for her.

Her eyes darted to her hands which were covered in their own gashes, some of them still leaking blood from her half-crazed effort to force the broken pieces of the shattered wash basin together.

Unable to keep looking at her own hands, she brought her eyes back to his, but those weren't much easier to look at.

"No!" It came out as a squeak, filled with rage and desperation and something else she couldn't quite place. "Let me heal you, you idiot!"

"Heal yourself first," he repeated, his hot breath washing over her face.

"I'm not going to heal my hands! These hands are dangerous! They deserve to suffer! I deserve to suffer!" she yelled in his face. He showed no sign of yielding. "Don't make me bloodbend you," Katara threatened furiously, once again failing to free herself from his hold. She balled her hands into fists, halfway wondering if giving him a good punch to the gut would do her any good.

"You can't," he said, scowling in pain.

They both knew that she was too weak to bloodbend him then, after all she had been through that day.

"It's getting harder to see you," he told her quietly, his voice filled with anguish.

She screamed angrily, and her hands were glowing. Her wrists were free, and then her left hand was covered in new blood that wasn't hers.

Feeling a lightning bolt of pain as soon as she touched him, he shot his hand out and wrapped his fingers around her side to steady himself.

Just as quickly, she ran her hand across the gash, wincing as she felt its depth.

When he opened his eyes, she was clear again.

Once she saw the whites of his eyes, she somehow found her way back to the ground, moving in slow motion as if she was melting.

He touched his face where the gash had been, and it was replaced with a very thin scar. It would probably be gone within days, unlike the large, rough scars on Katara's hands.

Her left hand was now free of his blood, but she stared at it as if it wasn't.

"Your blood… your life… I can bend it inside of you. I can make it spill out of you. Your life is in my hands." She dropped her head, and tears started falling from her eyes. "Do you understand that?" she asked hysterically, dropping her hand and looking up at him through the tears.

He knelt in front of her.

"That man was crazy. He killed five of my men. He would have killed Sokka if you hadn't done something."

"I could have just used bloodbending to stop him. I didn't have to kill him."

"You think I've never killed anyone? You think your brother or your father, or Suki or Toph has never killed anyone? The war we won had casualties on both sides. Airships and navy ships go down, buildings crumble, and the people inside don't survive."

"This is different. I'm as bad as he was. I'm a murderer."

"You didn't have time to think."

"Stop defending me! I did have time to think!" she cried, kneading the fistfuls of her dress that she had in her hands. "I wanted to kill him. I wanted to make him suffer, and I wanted to make him die, and I did. I'm a monster."

Hearing this admission out loud, Katara crumpled into herself, sobs taking over her body.

Zuko sat and waited for her.

When she had temporarily cried herself out, she weakly said, "I want Aang."

"Aang is in Ba Sing Se right now."

"Send a message. Tell him I need him."

"Why?"

"I want him to take my bending away," she said, her tone just as calm as his.

"No," he said simply.

Her calm state disappeared.

She grabbed him by the front of his robes, seething. "My powers make me dangerous, and I want them gone! I want them gone!" she shrieked, close to snapping back to her violent mode.

Using his fist and then his fingers, he quickly jabbed her in several pressure points and then caught her as she began to helplessly fall sideways.

Her eyes grew in horror as he laid her gently on the floor.

She couldn't bend.

She couldn't move.

"You wanted your bending gone? Well, it's gone now," he told her, his face painfully serious.

She could still move her eyes and speak, but she didn't know what to say.

He continued, "You'll be able to move by morning, but you won't be able to bend for a day. You can see how you like it without bending. When your bending comes back at night, I'll come and take it away again. After a couple of weeks, if you still don't want your bending, I'll send for Aang so that he can come and take it away permanently. Until then, you're confined to this wing of the palace, which will be heavily guarded."

Her brows furrowed, and he answered her unasked question.

"Ty Lee taught me the last time she visited from Kyoshi, said I needed every form of defense possible as the Fire Lord. Hardly anyone knows I have the ability because I don't like to use it, and I don't even like to acknowledge that I have it. You're not the only one who doesn't like how dangerous their powers make them," he said with a frown, not looking at her or what he had done to her.

His breath caught in his throat, and he couldn't breathe for a few seconds.

Now breathing heavily, he shook himself and then swiftly picked her up off the floor. He tried not to look at her face, but even in the dim candlelight, she saw how his eyes were glossy as he put her on her bed.

"I'm going to go get something for your hands," he told her, moving toward the door.

She opened her mouth to protest but then shut it and said nothing, realizing that there really wasn't anything she could do to stop him.

"Afterwards, I want you to sleep. You need to rest."

And then he was gone.

He came back with bandages, some sort of herbal mixture, and a towel. After lighting just one more of the candles on the wall, he sat on the edge of the bed and meticulously applied the mixture to her scars. When he was finished with that, he wrapped her limp hands in the bandages, making sure that they were on tight enough to be effective but not so tight as to cut off her circulation.

The process took him a while, and all she could do was lay there. For part of the time, she watched him, but for most of the time, she stared at the ceiling or at the barely dancing flame on the candle he had lit. The whole time, he didn't say anything.

When he was done, he took the folded-up towel and placed it between her head and her pillow. He didn't explain why.

As he was leaving the room, she spoke very softly.

"Can you turn me on my side? I don't like sleeping on my back."

He hesitated and then walked back to her. He rolled her onto her side and then moved her arms into what looked like a comfortable position.

"Zuko?" she said tentatively as he began to walk away again.

He looked back at her.

"I hate myself," she said in a broken voice.

"I don't hate you," he said, and then once again, he was gone, the flames from the candles extinguished.

She cried herself to sleep, the tears falling on the towel that he had put under her head.

When she woke up, she groaned at the light that was streaming past the open curtains. The day was halfway over. She stretched her arms out experimentally. They moved just fine.

She looked around the room. The floor had been cleaned of the previous night's evidence.

On the corner table was a tray of food, a change of clothes, new bandages, herbal medicine, a new stone washbowl filled with water…

She sat up and attempted to bend the water in the bowl.

Nothing happened.

She thought she would feel some sort of relief, but she didn't feel much of anything. She just felt empty.

She then used her regained ability to move to get up, cross the room, shut the curtains, and then crawl back into bed.

She fell back asleep relatively easily.

He came at night, waking her. He somehow convinced her to eat dinner without saying a word.

While he was redoing her bandages, she could feel her bending returning, humming to life inside of her.

Seeing the fear on her face, he quickly did his little jabs, and it was gone again. She was empty again.

He finished his work and then rolled her onto her side the way she liked.

He then left her alone with a new towel under her head, but when she fell asleep, the towel remained dry.

The next morning, she found the curtains open once again, allowing light to fill the room.

Her stomach was growling, so she ate the breakfast on the table, allowing the sunlight to soak into her skin while she ate.

She had no desire to leave the room, but her insides begged to differ.

She knocked on the door, and one of her familiar guards let her out. The older guard had been replaced.

A woman guard escorted her to the bathroom. She graciously held Katara's hair as she threw up, with an audience of two more female guards.

Katara tried to bend water into her mouth to clean it out but then remembered and threw up some more while one of the other women fetched her a clean towel and a cup of water.

When she got back to her room, the empty food tray was gone, and she was glad because she didn't want to see it. She threw the curtains shut and went back to sleep.

He couldn't get her to eat dinner, but he did force her to drink some herbal tea that would settle her stomach.

He did her bandages. He took her bending. He left.

Daylight again.

She gasped a little bit when she saw that she had a visitor.

"You're finally awake, huh, Sugar Queen?"

"Toph," Katara said softly.

She was beside the bed, sitting in a chair that hadn't been in the room before. She held her hand out in Katara's direction and in it was a perfect little white flower.

Katara took it in her hands and stared at it.

"It's a white lotus. Or so Piandao tells me. I was at his place, so it didn't take me long to get here. I've got to leave tonight, though, on Lotus business. I decided to join up with the Order not too long ago. It's full of old farts, so I figured they could use some new blood."

"That's perfect for you, Toph," Katara said, almost surprised at her own sincerity.

"Well, enough about me. How about you go and take a bath while I make one of those bozos get us some lunch? That breakfast on the table must be cold by now."

"Are you saying I need a bath?" Katara asked humorlessly, still staring at the white lotus and envying its purity.

"Well, if your plan is to escape from this zoo by knocking all the guards out with your fumes, then no, you don't need to take a bath."

It was funny. Katara knew that.

"I really wish I could laugh at that right now, Toph," Katara said hollowly.

"One day, you will. I'm sure of it."

Katara took the change of clothes that was on the table and then was escorted to the bathroom. She took her bath the old-fashioned way, not that she had a choice. It wasn't as refreshing as she had thought it would be, but nothing really was.

She returned to the room and earned her lunch after Toph sniffed her and gave her approval.

Katara's hair dried in the sunlight while they ate together. Katara wasn't in the mood for idle chatting, but she wasn't in the mood for serious conversation either, so there was little talking as they finished off their food and herbal tea.

"So what do you do around here all day?" Toph asked as she set her empty teacup down.

"Sleep, mostly."

"That sounds great, actually. I could use some rest before I go on my Lotus mission."

Katara was confused at first, but then she got the idea and showed Toph the way to the bed. Toph plopped gratefully onto the mattress and then rolled over onto her back to make room for Katara.

"There's room for two, Sugar Queen," she said, patting the empty half of the bed. "Where are the blankets on this thing, anyways?"

"It's too hot for blankets. I never use them," Katara said, climbing onto the bed and lying down on her side.

"I guess you're right," Toph said, already yawning.

The warmth of the sun was at Katara's back, and it wasn't long before she was nodding off.

The last thing she remembered before she fell asleep was Toph taking one of her hands and running her fingers over it, cataloging the scars.

It took Toph a significantly longer time to fall asleep than Katara, but she eventually managed it.

When Zuko came in, he almost felt like he could smile at the sight. Toph was snoring with her mouth wide open and had an arm slung over Katara, who miraculously wasn't woken by the thunderous snores.

He woke Katara first, who raised her eyebrows at seeing Toph tucked against her. She flinched at hearing Toph's violent snoring and then took a moment to really observe the girl, who had grown taller but was still small in stature. There were some new muscles. Her hair was slightly longer. Her face had gotten prettier.

Katara tapped Toph's shoulder, but the snoring only got louder. She almost could have laughed.

Zuko shook Toph awake and narrowly missed getting punched by the half-awake girl.

The girls got up, and they ate together once more while Zuko watched.

Toph had to leave after she ate.

She surprised Katara by hugging her tightly and whispering something in her ear.

"I promise I'll be back as soon as I can. I love ya, Katara. You're still the Sugar Queen, and you always will be. You just remember that, okay?"

Katara nodded, even though she wasn't sure about what that was supposed to mean.

Zuko led Toph to the door.

"I'll see myself out. Figuratively," Toph said. She gave Zuko a similar tight hug and then said loudly, "Now you be a good little Fire Lord while I'm away. No bickering with Sugar Queen. Also, you better start eating and sleeping more."

"Toph, quit it."

"No! You've gotta stay healthy, for the honor of the Fire Nation or whatever. I'll see you soon. Take care, Timebomb."

"Don't call me that."

She punched him in the arm and then began walking away. "I'll call you what I want! Later, Sugar Queen! Later, Timebomb."

And then she was gone.

"You haven't been eating and sleeping well?" Katara asked as he shut the door.

He sighed. "I'm just fine."

"Did you eat dinner tonight?"

"No."

"Guards! The Fire Lord needs dinner!"

"We're on it!" a voice outside the door responded.

Zuko shook his head wearily.

Within a few minutes, a dinner identical to the ones Katara and Toph had arrived.

He struggled to eat all of it, but he got through the meal. Just when he thought he saw a fleeting look of satisfaction on Katara's face, he knocked his tea over.

It was a reflex. She quickly bent the tea back into the cup and set it upright before she knew what she was doing.

When she did realize what she had done, she jerked her hands back.

Zuko watched and scrutinized her every move.

"I didn't mean to."

"I know."

There on the floor, he did her bandages, balancing her hands on his knee.

"Are you going to sleep tonight?" she asked.

"I sleep every night."

"Maybe you should paralyze yourself to sleep. It works wonders."

"I don't think it works like that."

He stood and then helped her up. She shut the curtains, and then she lay down on the bed in her preferred position.

"Do you still want-"

She nodded.

Several painless jabs.

Peaceful paralysis.

Not that she had expected any visitors at all, but her second visitor definitely was unexpected.

Ten minutes after she woke, she was still sitting in bed, and the older guard that Zuko had knocked out walked in. She noticed that his gait was stiffer than usual.

"Prince Zuko—I mean, the Fire Lord—hit me pretty hard," he said, seeing how she was looking at him. He took a seat in the chair that had been left beside the bed. "He never meant to hurt me, though. He purposely hit me in the strongest part of my armor to minimize the damage while still knocking me out. I had just wanted to protect him, but the job he had given me was to protect you."

Katara just looked at him, wondering where he was going with this.

"I never wanted to be your guard," he admitted. "I've worked in the Royal Palace for a long time, and I thought I deserved a more important job, something more significant to the Fire Lord. I didn't know then how important you were to him. I didn't know that he had given me what he thought was one of the most important jobs in the Fire Nation, maybe even the whole world. Goofy kid. Don't tell him I said that."

Katara shook her head. She wouldn't tell.

"I hear that you think that your powers are what make you dangerous. Well, you're wrong. Trust me, I've got gray hair and wisdom. I think what makes you most dangerous, little lady, is how much certain people love you. The Fire Lord knocks out his own guards for you and says he'd rather die than let you get hurt."

"Don't hurt her. Ever. I'll let her kill me before I let you touch her."

The words came back to Katara. She hadn't fully grasped the weight of them on that night. She still didn't know if she could.

He went on, "Before she visited you, that powerful little Earthbender spent her morning fortifying the crater that the palace is in and adding in some new security measures so that you would be safer. Not to mention your family, the Order of the White Lotus, the Kyoshi warriors, the Dragon of the West, or the Avatar… especially the Avatar. I don't think it would be too hard for you to convince him to give you this world and the Spirit World."

"You're exaggerating."

"No, I don't think so. If everyone loved each other like your friends love you, then the world would have that era of love and peace that the goofy kid is always talking about."

"Murderers don't bring love and peace."

"Do you regret saving your brother's life?"

She hesitated. "Well-"

"Yes or no."

"No! Of course I don't regret saving my brother!" she yelled, frustrated.

"Then snap out of it, Princess. You did what you had to do. If you hadn't killed him, he would have killed your brother, and then he might have gone after more of our men or even the Fire Lord. If you hadn't killed him, we would have, one way or another. Welcome to the Fire Nation. Welcome to a war-torn world. All you did was save a life, maybe multiple lives, and I'm not going to feel sorry for you for that."

"I wanted to make him die."

"So did the rest of us. You just beat us to the punch."

"I reached inside of him and bent his blood. I can't think of a worse way to die."

"I can. He could have been thrown in jail for the rest of his life and been left to rot. He could have been interrogated and tortured until he was driven so insane that he would eat his own foot. He could have been burned until he was unrecognizable. He could have died a lot slower than the few seconds you gave him."

Katara bit her lower lip.

"He could have died innocent. I think that's the worst way to die."

"Me too," Katara found herself saying before she even thought about it. She shut her eyes to regain her composure, but when she opened them, he was already on his way out, holding his ribs.

"I'll be back outside your door as soon as I've fully healed. Unfortunately, regular healing takes time. If you ever need a reality check or gray-haired wisdom, I'll be around, Princess."

"Why do you call me that?"

"Remember that slip of tongue I made when I first came in?" He laughed and then exited the room.

Katara had tried to avoid thinking, and for a couple of days, she was pretty successful.

He had just thrown all of that out of the window. He had given her a million things to contemplate and dissect. He made it all seem so logical.

She got up and closed the curtains, but she didn't sleep through the afternoon. She just sat there and thought, experimentally toying with logic and trying to leave emotion out of the process as much as possible.

When he came in, she was wide awake. She was sitting on the floor where she had eaten with Toph before, observing her white lotus while she waited. The petals were already starting to turn brown at the edges. He sat down in front of her and placed her dinner between them.

She started speaking in a faraway voice, never tearing her eyes from the flower in front of her.

"Flowers aren't exactly common in the South Pole, but when I was a little girl, my mom used to tell us a story about a princess from the Earth Kingdom who had a palace surrounded by beautiful flowers. She wasn't a bender, but she loved the earth, and it loved her back. Her parents, who were benders, were always bringing potential suitors through the palace to see their only daughter, but she refused to be with anyone that her first love, the earth, didn't approve of. Every time a suitor came, the earth would give the princess a flower, and the flower would tell her whether or not the man truly loved her. All she had to do was pick one petal off at a time and say 'he loves me' and then pick off another petal and say 'he loves me not.' She would keep switching between the two, and whatever she said when she got to the last petal would be the truth."

Katara demonstrated, picking two petals off of her white lotus and letting them drift to the floor.

"What made you think of this story?" he asked.

Katara shrugged. "This flower, I guess. And the guard who visited me today kept calling me Princess."

Zuko's eyebrow quirked.

"But I'm not done with the story," she said.

As she finished telling him the story, she continued to slowly pull off the many petals of the white lotus two at a time and repeatedly mumbling 'he loves me not' under her breath.

"After the princess had turned down many suitors because of her flowers and their petals, her parents became angry with the earth. They believed that the earth was being selfish and purposely giving the princess certain flowers so that she would never be married and give her love away to someone else besides the earth. Enraged, they destroyed all of the earth around their palace, uprooting the beautiful flowers that their daughter knew and loved. That night, the princess decided to run away. She was crying as she was forced to run through the ruined earth, but her tears stopped when she reached the edge of their property. There was a single red flower there that had survived her parents' destruction. The earth offered its last flower to her, and when she picked it, she realized that it only had three petals. She said, 'he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me,' and then there he was. The earth spirit had just enough life left to give up its immortality and become a human, and they lived happily ever after."

"That's it?"

"Yes…"

"So the parents were right, the earth was trying to keep the princess to himself."

"No! The earth was waiting for her true love to come along. Things like true love don't just happen quickly! There were a lot of flowers left in that field before her parents destroyed it. They weren't patient enough," she said animatedly. "Since they took away the option of waiting for some man who truly loved her to come, the earth, who already loved her, became human."

"So… her flowery yard was the earth spirit?"

"Yes."

"And they didn't get back at her parents?"

"No."

"What about her actual true love that was supposed to come along? What happened to him?"

"I don't know."

"And she was okay with her yard turning into a man, and being forced to date it… him?"

"Yes, she was! They lived happily ever after!" She sighed. "I used to think that story was romantic."

He shrugged. "Sometimes your thinking has to change."

She sighed again and then looked at her lotus, which only had a few petals left.

"I guess using flower petals is kind of a silly way to try and figure out something as important as that," she said as she picked off a petal. "Loves me not."

There were two petals left.

"Exactly," he agreed, leaning toward her. "It's completely unreliable," he said as he ripped the remaining two petals away.

"He loves me," Katara said. She looked up into his eyes, something she had typically avoided as of late. "You cheated."

"All's fair in love and war."

"Do you really believe that?" Before he could answer, she asked, "What happened the other day… was that part of war?"

It took him a second to follow her thought process, but then he got it and nodded.

"The Hundred Year War is over, but the world is still at war with itself. The era of love and peace I imagine may not happen soon, maybe not in our lifetimes. Until then, we have to fight for it."

"All's fair in love and war," she repeated. She didn't believe it, but for some reason it still made her feel a little bit better, if only momentarily.

She had no visitors the next day. Not until her nightly visitor came.

He was carrying two trays this time.

She was lying in the middle of the floor, playing with her hair—tying it in knots, making painfully tight little braids, wrapping it around her fingers and pulling until they changed color.

He noticed that her curtains were gone as he set the trays down.

"Where are your curtains?"

"I tried to be a firebender."

"You… set the curtains on fire?" he asked, noticing that the candleholders on the wall had been upgraded so that the candles were housed in protective cages.

She pulled her fingers out of her hair and watched them return to their normal color. "Whoever comes in every morning while I'm still sleeping always opens the curtains. I prefer the curtains closed. Daylight makes me angry. But I guess setting the curtains on fire didn't really help the matter, because now the curtains are gone and can't block the light. Destruction is a funny thing."

"The guards took the curtains away?"

"Yes. What was left of the curtains, anyways. I was actually surprised at how long it took them to smell the burning."

"I'll get you some fireproof curtains."

He sat her up, and she scooted toward her tray. Instead of sitting across from her, he sat behind her. He untied the knots, undid the braids and smoothed out the crinkled hair. She couldn't eat while he did it, so she just sat and waited.

It took him a long time because he was being way too gentle, evaluating how best to untie each knot while doing the least damage. After he had combed out the natural knots caused from a lack of brushing with his fingers, he took his place across from her.

"Can you heat my tea? I think it's gotten cold," she suddenly said.

"Sure," he said. He reached for her tea and, of course, knocked it over. He cursed under his breath and then quickly said, "Don't worry, I'll clean it up."

"Don't bother," she said, bending the tea back into the cup. She didn't look afraid this time. They sat in silence and stared at the teacup.

Then the tea was dancing up and out of the cup, swirling around in the air. Katara twirled her index finger around, making a tiny tea tornado. She split the tornado into five parts, and then there were five spheres of tea floating around in a circle. She turned the spheres to ice, and then she shaped the spheres into icy daggers. The daggers flew together and formed one large dagger in front of Zuko's face. It then traveled downward, the sharp tip of the dagger stopping just in front of his heart and levitating there tauntingly.

"You really shouldn't allow me to have any sort of liquid at night," Katara said flatly. "I'm dangerous, remember?"

"You know what I think the most dangerous thing about you is?" Zuko asked, calmly taking hold of the dagger and sticking it back in the teacup. He melted it, and it was once again steaming tea.

She picked up the teacup and took a sip before saying, "I want you to take me to the guard. Now."

He didn't have to ask which guard. Abandoning their food, they left the room.

When they entered the room the guard had been occupying, he woke up immediately.

Seeing Zuko, he began to sit up, but Katara said, "Stay down. I'm going to heal you."

"So you finally got my hint, Princess?" he asked with a groggy voice as she called water from his basin to her hands.

His middle was wrapped tightly in bandages, which he swiftly ripped off, causing sweat to form on his brow. He revealed a large bruise that spanned his entire chest and the top of his ribs.

"I apologize for that… again," Zuko said to the guard while Katara set to work on him.

"I should have obeyed your orders, Fire Lord," the guard replied.

A second later, his eyes were round and his teeth were gritted. Another second later, his bruise was barely visible, and what was broken inside had been mended.

"Thank you," Katara said, not looking at him as she put the water back in the basin.

He tested himself out by nimbly jumping out of bed and then punching the air, creating a sphere of fire. Katara turned around just in time to see him land a one-handed flip.

He raised an eyebrow at her and then said, "I'll be outside your door as soon as I get my armor on."

"Wait until tomorrow. Rest now," she said, breaking eye contact and starting to leave the room.

Zuko began to follow Katara out and nodded to the guard, who bowed in return.

He finished his dinner before she did, and then he simply stared into his half-full teacup, swirling the liquid around.

He eventually felt her staring at him, and he set the cup down.

When he brought his eyes up to hers, she said, "You shouldn't love me."

Zuko frowned. "That won't stop me."

"Will anything?" she asked, not blinking.

His frown faded, and he shook his head.

She sighed. "You know, I used to think you were the monster, and I hated you for it. Now I know that I'm the monster."

"You're wrong," he told her. "I'm a monster too. People are monsters."

Katara closed her eyes and then nodded vigorously. When she opened her teary eyes, she gave him a certain look, and within seconds she was wrapped in his arms. He squeezed her tight. She didn't move, just allowed herself to be held as her tears fell lazily into the folds of his robes.

She fell asleep there.

He hadn't taken her bending away.

She woke in the middle of the night.

He had fallen asleep, holding her there on the floor.

She kissed him and then fell back asleep.

They both woke well before sunrise, and he let her pull him outside. Not releasing his hand, she silently took in the cool air and looked up at the stars that had become foreign to her.

The moon was full. It took everything in her to not be terrified, but she had him to hold onto.

He was pointing out a certain constellation to her when a guard came to them and said that Sokka was well enough for visitors.

The run to his room was all a blur to her. She only regained her senses when she was in Sokka's arms.

There were flurries of words between them, but none of them really mattered until he said, "Thank you."

She hastily pulled away and looked at him very seriously, trying to make sense of the two words.

"I love you, Katara."

The apology was in his eyes, and she was glad for it, because she didn't want to hear it out loud.

"I love you too, Sokka," she said, and then she bent his tears from his face. She didn't want any more tears.

For a while, the words were enough to fill the room, and they just sat and let them have their weight.

"You've changed," he finally said, observing her with tired eyes.

"I'll never be the same," she admitted, glancing at her bandages.

"You'll be better," he said with a confident nod, taking one of her hands and squeezing it.

And she felt that tiny thing, a drop in the ocean.

Hope.

As he finished her bandages, she said, "I want to write a letter to Aang."

Zuko didn't look at her, but she could almost hear his heart drop. Still, he nodded.

She reached out and touched the scar that she had given him. It was almost gone.

"I want him to come here—when he has time—and teach me about inner peace, maybe some meditation. Maybe he can help me with forgiveness too. He's good at that sort of thing. Plus, it'll be good to just see him again."

This time, Zuko did look at her, eyes filled with that strange hope she was slowly becoming reacquainted with.

When he didn't say anything, she shrugged. "I'm a waterbender."

And with the way she said it, they could both almost believe that it was that simple.

Years later, when he proposed, she said no.

She said no because she was afraid of him. She was afraid of whatever part of his brain made him want to marry her even when he had seen her at her darkest, even when he knew the great evil she was capable of.

She didn't say yes until his third proposal.

She liked to use her bending primarily for healing. She mostly did this in the palace infirmary, though she did occasionally venture out to make house calls for those who needed her most.

She did have to resort to bloodbending on several occasions, though.

On two of those occasions, she killed men, once to save Aang while he was in the Avatar state and once to save Sokka's newborn son.

Zuko was always there for her, to forgive her when she couldn't forgive herself, to take her bending away temporarily so that she didn't have to be a monster for a while.

He was always there.

She loved her nieces and nephews more than she could stand.

She didn't want kids of her own. She didn't want to produce anyone like her.

Sokka had two boys, then two girls. The littlest one was an earthbender.

Every time she saw them, she forgave herself.

Forgiveness was a never-ending process for her, but she could always found strength outside of herself to make it happen.

He always forgave her, and she helped him learn to forgive himself.

Together, they survived, eventually coming to terms with the fact that they were monsters, just like everyone else.

They also came to terms with the fact that, like all the other monsters, they were capable of love—so real, so sacrificing and strong—that it completely overshadowed all of their wrongs.

This one-shot is dedicated to madthesaxon. I know I said I would get this done for you quite a while ago, but I hope the length makes up for it. I had intended to write something much shorter, but this one just kept going on and on, and it wouldn't have felt right to cut it short. That being said, I wrote the majority of this in a couple of days. However, I couldn't think of a way to end it for the life of me, and what is a story without a proper end? I have only recently written the end, and I hope it at least does the story some sort of justice.

The request was for much anguish and then fluff, and I can say that I believe I accomplished the former. As for the latter, I think what I have written here attempts to go into something much more deeper and fulfilling than fluff, partially to balance out the depth of the anguish. I am currently going through a time of redefining what love means to me, especially when it comes to having a partner, so it is funny that most of this was written before I started going through this phase, as it very much reflects the views I am beginning to take on. This story perhaps does not seem very romantic, neither in subject matter nor writing style, and I have done this on purpose. Many points are made through magnifying glass-subtleties, but I hope that perhaps someone will catch on to these.

I hope that you could take something valuable away from this, and to madthesaxon, I hope you could enjoy some part of this story. Thank you for reading, and if you have any questions/comments, please do contact me.

-Skye