Author's Note: This takes place in the same universe as my main Zutara Week story, A Wave To Glide In On. For the purposes of that storyline, it would've messed up the overall flow, so I decided to publish it as a one-shot. It's not necessary to read that story to understand this one but it sure does help frame it much better. Plus, you get to see what happens after the end of his story. ;)

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, otherwise Zuko and Katara would've ended up together.

Zutara Week 2012
Day 6: Faded

To be Alone with You

She is 20 when she finds herself being suffocated by all the things she isn't saying.

She has come to occupy the spaces between the phrases that should have been true.

The difference between what she wanted and what she should've wanted.
The gap between being good to someone and good for someone.

The silence in loving someone and being in love with them.

She is 14 and they have just saved the world. She meets Aang on the balcony and leans into his kiss; he is the conquering hero that gets the girl.

(It occurs to her, before, during, after, that there are two heroes to this story.)

She is 19 and feeling stifled by how easy her life has become.

The monotony of pattern, of sameness are just as exhausting as a break-neck feeling of change that had occupied her days during the war. Easy is the permanent status between her and Aang.

She thinks, maybe this is just growing up.

(She doesn't, shouldn't, can't help but think that a life without change is a life without growth is a life without stakes.)

She is 21 and his eyes are so filled with sadness that she can barely meet them.

"We were just so young." She finds herself saying, desperately. "I'm not the same person I was at 14."

"I knew," he says, accusing, pleading, never angry - just disappointed. "I knew at 12 and I know now. It's you. It's always been you."

But Aang, she thinks wearily, wants to sob out loud. Not all of us can live in absolutes.

(Zuko understood a world filled with grey, the sliding scale of change; the once banished prince and erstwhile enemy now ruler and best friend.)

She is newly 14 and facing a forlorn, forsworn fire nation prince. Her goal is to protect but her gaze is on the scarred prince before her.

Water meets fire and the rest of the world dissolves out of focus until it's just her and him.

She is only 14 but already feels old and worn as she watches her newest friend and closest ally struggle to inhale. She casts one look back at his rabid sister and sprints towards him, her vision shrinking around her until he is all she sees. She is pleading to every spirit, to her ancestors, to Yue that the water she holds will be enough.

Her sigh of relief is nearly a sob when she finds that it is. Tears come to her and she whispers her thanks, knowing that their lives, their friendship, their history, will forever be changed by this one moment.

"You rise with the sun, but I rise with the moon." She tosses at him, flipping the phrase and grinning.

She is hardly 14 and the world is at peace (tenuous as it is). He drops his stance, a look of confused hurt on his face. The rest of their friends just look confused.

She smiles kindly and says, "C'mon Zuko. Even back then, I could appreciate that it was a clever phrase."

He smiles back, uncertain at first, then cocky.

Their next sparring match, he's the one to mention it.

The summer after her 15th birthday finds her back in the fire nation, studying the weary Fire Lord before her.

"Something I can do for you?" Zuko asks, and she swears she can almost see the fatigue dripping from his words.

"Take better care of yourself." She demands.

He snorts, not even lifting his head from the pile of papers in front of him. "I need to take better care of the Fire Nation first."

She huffs, placing her hands in front of her to cover his notes, forcing him to look up at her. "You're no good to the Fire Nation if you drop dead from exhaustion." She argues.

He glares ferociously at her, though the effect is slightly lessened as he fights a yawn (besides, she wants to say, your glares stopped having any effect on me years ago). "I don't have time to rest." He says bitterly. "Everyone is expecting me to fail. They all think that the Fire Nation's honor can't be restored. But it can. It's just me against the world and I'll prove that I can be better."

She's quiet for a moment, studying the boy before her. Man, she amends, aware that he'd now crossed that threshold; officially on his birthday, unofficially the moment he confronted his father. She realizes that for all his fine threads and golden crown, he still wears insecurity like a favorite shirt, keeps his honor on his sleeve.

She softens and leans forward, covering his hands with hers. "Oh, Zuko. Haven't you learned anything? It's not just you anymore. " She continues on, her voice gentle and reassuring. "You're not alone. Not in this. Not in anything. Not ever."

He looks at her tenderly, judging her words. His face relaxes into an expression of surprise and gratitude, as though even now he can't believe that she cares about him.

Finally, he squeezes her hands and lets go, getting up from his table. "Still taking care of team avatar?" He teases, the undercurrent of affection obvious.

She smiles at him. "Well, I didn't save your life just to watch you run your health into the ground."

Their footsteps echo in the empty halls, the only two souls walking through the palace at this hour. He walks her to her room, saying goodnight. His last thought before he drops off to sleep is how warm and secure her hands felt on top of his.

"You want to talk about it?" She asks the bent figure before her.

Zuko turns in surprise and she studies his face. She is 17 and feels her heart break at the dejection in his eyes.
He gives her a half-hearted grin. "What's to say?" he replies with a shrug. "She said that I didn't know how to balance being the Fire Lord and a boyfriend, that I was closed-off and secretive, that she never tried to ask for much but that she was tired of being thrown scraps."

"Well that's -" she says vehemently, ready to deny, defend.

"She's right." He admits. He looks at her sadly. "I could never be the person she needed me to be, not with everything I had going on. It seems like I can't be a good Fire Lord without being a terrible boyfriend." He clears his throat and looks up quickly.

She comes up behind him and wraps her arms around him, hands clasped around his chest, head resting between his shoulder blades. For a moment, they stop being war heroes with the weight of the world on their young shoulders. They are just two old friends, the heartbroken and the comforter, content in the push and pull of friendship and familiarity. Around them, the world looks faint and otherworldly in the pale moonlight. The only things that seem real are the warmth of his body and her steady, soft arms anchoring him to her.

It's three months past her 19th birthday and she has just successfully negotiated a new trade agreement between the water tribes and fire nation. The buzz of conversation around her recedes slightly as she shoots a triumphant grin to Zuko. His face remains passive but his eyes are bright with pride and pleasure.

She bows low to all representatives, calmly waiting for everyone to file out of the room, before turning to Zuko and throwing her arms around him.

He doesn't hesitate, doesn't fumble, doesn't freeze as he sometimes does and instead just hugs her back, fiercely, lifting her up slightly off the floor. For a moment, he allows himself to hope for a different future and forgot about the damning reality. He imagines a life in which he could hug her, tangle his hands in her hair, kiss her, whenever he wants. But he only allows it for a moment, and even that is almost more than he can bear. He sets her back on the ground and swiftly steps away, head down for a moment before lifting it up again to look at her, smirk firmly in place.

"I told you so," he says smugly.

She laughs cheerily, too exhilarated to formulate a snarky reply. She grabs both of his hands, envelops them in hers. "Thank you," she says sincerely, looking up at him fully. "I'm..." she trails off, not quite sure where she meant to go with that sentence. She is happy with the successful day, confused about Aang, apprehensive about the future, intoxicated at being so close to Zuko at this moment. "I'm just really happy to have you on my side." She finally says.

His eyes soften as he grips her hands tightly. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

She is 21 and not considered anyone's other half for the first time in six years.

She walks side by side with Zuko through a fire nation marketplace, relishing her first real day of vacation. Since her arrival nearly a five days ago, she had spent most of her time sleeping, sloughing off the travel and malicious break-up gossip that had followed her for five long months. Today she had woken up and realized she had only a month of vacation and shouldn't be spending it sleeping. Happy to finally rejoin the land of the living, she threads her arm through his, smiling up at him serenely. She tells herself not to think about how right it feels to be next to him, arm in arm, and he ignores the fluttering in his stomach. Passersby jostle them in a rush, but all they can sense is the feeling of arm against arm.

His hand reaches up to help her out of the carriage. Even though he's done it a thousand times before, a slight jolt runs through her at his touch. He seems to feel it too, as he suddenly can't meet her eyes and she can see a slight flush rising in his cheeks that she's sure are mirrored in her own. His hand lingers on hers, a moment more than necessary, his touch whisper soft as he lets go.

Their walks become a ritual, something to look forward to whenever he has free time.

Which, it seems, has only increased since her arrival a little over three weeks ago.

They spend time walking and exploring landmarks, the marketplaces, all the hidden nooks and crannies of the city. Despite all her visits here, she's never really gotten to know the capital the way she wants. They try new restaurants and food stands, become friendly with shopkeeps as Katara drags him into every kind of shop looking for gifts for her brother, for his uncle, for a palace guard's newborn son. Sometimes their conversation continues unabated, sometimes they sit in comfortable silence; always they seem to find new ways and reasons to brush up against one another. His hand on her shoulder, elbow, small of her back, helping to steer her through a crowd; her arm through his as they wait for their lunch at a food stand; heads close, shoulders leaning into one another as they examine a tea set for his uncle. Often in the carriage ride back to the palace, she will lean her head onto his shoulder as he rests his arm across her shoulders.

Their marketplace contact seeps into their interactions within the privacy of the palace grounds, becoming less guarded, more intimate. Her hand tracing his jawline as she teases him about his morning stubble; his hand smoothing a loose strand of hair on the crown of her head, then following the path of the strands and coming to rest in the small of her back; her arms around his shoulders as she stands behind him at his desk, reading over his shoulder; his fingers entwined with hers as he tries to keep her from executing a winning move in their game of pai sho.

In-between these touches, these glances, these brushes and caresses, they aren't the Fire Lord and the Southern Water Tribe Diplomat. They aren't war heroes that grew up too fast or adults that had to put duty before all else. They aren't the Avatar's closest friend or his ex-girlfriend. They are only Zuko and Katara, old friends on the cusp of something more, and the rest of the world fades away.