Canon? What's canon? This fic takes place post-ATLA, but does not follow TLOK or any other ATLA content (such as comics).

The background is given in the fic, but I thought I'd state it here to be clear. This fic takes place 5 years after ATLA ends. Katara and Zuko are in a relationship. Katara lives in the Fire Nation for majority of the year, as she's taken up the mantle of the Southern Water Tribe Ambassador.

This is written for Zutara Week 2019. It is based on the prompt Day 1: Gifts. This is EXTREMELY late because I forgot what week it was happening. Whoops.

I hope you enjoy! Reviews are appreciated.

The Beauty in Lost Things

"Have you seen my necklace?" Katara spoke as soon as Zuko opened his bedroom door. His eyes were cracked open and he was barely standing up-right, but the panic in her voice made a chill run down his spine.

"Wh- What?"

He automatically stepped aside for his girlfriend, and she entered his room. The only source of light in his room was the oil lamp flickering in her hands, and she set it down on his desk.

"I'm looking for my necklace. Have you seen it recently?"

Zuko was still half-asleep and his mind was foggy. He stood stunned in the doorway as Katara began moving papers around on his desk, checking under each one.

"Your necklace?" He shut the door with his foot and rubbed his face tiredly. The room was still dark, as was the hallway. "What time is it?"

"Past midnight." She slowed and glanced up from her task, looking slightly sheepish. "Sorry to bother you."

He crossed the room and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She back leaned into his chest and the back of her head came to rest against his shoulder. "You're never a bother." He pressed a quick kiss to her temple. He quickly shifted topics as he became more and more awake. "You're looking for your necklace? You lost it?"

She let out an exhausted sigh and turned to face him. She looked like she was glowing under the flickering candle light. Katara always looked beautiful, and this moment was no exception.

"It's missing. I don't know where it went…" Her fingertips came up to rest against her bare neck. Her hands were shaking from the panicked state she was in. "I need to find it. I… I need it."

He pressed another quick kiss to the side of her head before releasing her from his arms. She instantly went back to searching through papers on his desk.

He knew how important that necklace was to her; he'd known about it for years, long before he loved her, and even longer before they were friends. It was the last connection she had to her mother, and it was one of her most prized possessions.

That was more true now than ever. That necklace wasn't just a connection to her mother anymore; it was a connection to her people and her home. She moved to the Fire Nation Capital the previous year to become an ambassador for the Southern Water Tribe, which meant she had to live away from home for most of the year. That necklace reminded her of who she was and where she came from.

If she lost it, she would be distraught.

"We'll find it," he promised her. He tried to smile reassuringly. "When was the last time you had it?"

She pressed a hand to her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut. "Oh, I don't even remember. I've searched my whole room though, and that's the only time I take it off."

Katara glanced around the room, her expression cracking. She looked like she was on the edge of tears. Her eyes came to rest on his bed, where his blankets had been thrown onto the ground in his haste to answer her frantic knocks.

She locked eyes with him, a guilty expression plastered all over her face. "I woke you up, didn't I?"

"Katara—"

"I did, didn't I?" she pressed. She closed the distance between them again, falling easily into his embrace. She pressed her nose into his neck and drew strength from his hold. She didn't need to wait for his answer; she already knew. "I'm sorry."

"This is important," he assured her. "You don't need to be sorry about this. I would've wanted to be woken up."

She nodded against his shoulder before pulling from his embrace again. She kept a hand on both of his elbows, steadying and grounding both of them.

"You haven't seen it, have you?"

He wished he could've told her yes. He wished that he could give her hope, and solve all of her problems, and take away her worries.

But, he couldn't.

"I haven't," he said. Her face fell. "Did you take it off after training yesterday? We came straight back here. You showered here."

Her face lit up at that. Hope came flooding back into her eyes.

"You're right!" She pressed a chaste kiss to his lips before spinning on her heel and dashing to the bathroom.

It turned out, the necklace wasn't there either. When she emerged seconds later, she looked even less hopeful than before.

"We'll find it," he reassured her again. He turned his palm up and let a soft flame grow, breathing life into the room. He could see her more clearly now, and his heart tugged at her red-rimmed eyes. He wanted to comfort her, but he knew the biggest comfort would be finding what was lost. "Try the couch. Maybe it got caught in your clothes after your shower."

They searched the room until the sun was peeking through the curtains drawn over the window. It must've been four in the morning when they decided to give up for now, both too tired to continue.

They collapsed onto the couch together, Katara finding her way into his arms. Despite her exhaustion, she still looked panicked. Zuko didn't doubt that her mind was flying a mile a minute, trying to figure out where she could've lost something so important.

"I'll tell the staff to keep an eye out while they work," he said after a long moment. With his eyes still shut, his lips pressed against her head. "Give it a few days. It'll turn up."

He tried to keep the worry out of his voice. She needed his strength right now. He needed to keep calm and optimistic for her.

Still, as soon as she stilled in his arms and sleep overtook her, he couldn't help but worry. He stared at the ceiling, a sinking feeling filling his stomach.

If this necklace wasn't in her room nor his, where could it be?

.

Two days later, the necklace still hadn't turned up. Katara spent hours overturning every piece of training equipment in the gym, convinced that it somehow fell off during their most recent session.

He helped her as much as he could, but he was needed elsewhere. He spent his days in the courts, dressed in formal wear that made his skin prickle, listening to the problems across the nations. Floods, droughts, harvest failures, temperature fluctuations, rebellions — he heard it all.

He couldn't take his mind off Katara and her necklace though. They both weren't very materialistic people: they grew up in a war-torn world, and they both went on the run with nothing more than the clothing on their backs. He knew she valued this object above others; not because it was pretty or expensive, but because it was sentimental to her.

He remembered the first time he saw the necklace. The ribbon was torn, clearly having been ripped from the owner's neck. It was beautifully crafted, with the stone smoothed out, the design etched perfectly. The symbols on the rock were unmistakably from the water tribe, and he knew it must've belonged to her.

Her; the girl that annoyed him to no ends, the girl he wanted to best in a fight more than anything, the girl that he needed out of the way.

Like most of his past, his memories from that time made him sick. His skin crawled when he remembered how he tried to use something so special against her on so many occasions. He tried to use it as leverage to get her to turn over Aang when she was first learning bending, and he tried to use it to track her down by scent not much later. He kept it from her, and tried to use it as leverage.

It was awful to think about. He knew how important it was, yet he only thought of how it could further what he wanted. His lack of empathy made his blood chill.

It was obvious to him back then; this necklace was important to her. That fact hadn't changed within the five years of knowing her.

He knew they had to get it back.

.

Four days after it went missing, they were both beginning to lose hope. Katara felt terrible, and Zuko decided seeing her like this was worse than torture.

Her panic and distress had melted away to guilt. She blamed herself for being careless with something she cared about. He could see how upset she was about losing something so important to her, but she pulled away from the subject when he tried to console her.

He understood why she pulled away. She thought that if it was her fault, then she shouldn't be comforted. If she was to blame, then she should deal with the consequences alone.

Her mentality was wrong, but he understood where she was coming from. He did it to himself, too.

They were similar in that way; if something went wrong, the only person they liked to blame was themselves.

It was on the fourth night that Zuko lit the oil lamp on his desk and pulled out a quill. He began writing a letter to an old friend.

Sokka,

I need your help.

.

A week after Katara's necklace went missing, they were put in a very familiar position. It was past midnight once again, but it was him who was planning on knocking at her door.

He was nervous as he waited. He ran his palms along the sides of his pants several times, wicking away the moisture. His heart was beating steadily in his chest and blood rushed through his ears.

She answered her bedroom door only moments after he first knocked. The bags under her eyes indicated she hadn't been sleeping well; no doubt from the guilt that came with losing her necklace.

"Hey," he greeted simply. He tried to keep his voice steady despite the nervousness.

She smiled, but it didn't quite reach her. "Hi, Zuko."

She stepped to the side and beckoned him in. The room was lit by two oil lamps on her desk and the ink was fresh on the parchment. She was writing a letter to someone, and it made him feel better to know that she was doing something other than drowning in her misplaced guilt.

"How are you?"

She shut the door behind them and shrugged. "I could be better, but I've been much worse." She eyed the gash along the palm of his hand. "Maybe I should be asking if you're okay."

He flexed his fingers and suppressed a wince. The wound was fresh — he got it only hours before — but he didn't want to worry her.

He almost forgot about his injury that he got from the tool slipping as he worked. It was the last thing on his mind.

"It's fine," he promised her. "Just a little scrape."

"That's not little." She took his hand in hers and pouted the slightest bit. "Can I heal it?"

Zuko wasn't expecting that, even though he should've been. If he was being honest, he was so nervous in that moment, that he hadn't been thinking of anything else except for his upcoming conversation.

"What?" He blinked slowly at her. "Right. Yes, of course. I'd appreciate it."

Katara left him sitting on the edge of her bed when she went to fill a basin with water. As soon as she had disappeared, he gently tapped the pocket in his pants, feeling the outline of the contents inside.

She made quick work of sealing the cut on his palm. He watched her closely as she worked, his heart racing in his chest. He could've sworn she heard how loudly his heart was pounding.

The large window in her room allowed for more moonlight to stream in. If he thought she was beautiful under firelight, then he didn't have the proper words to describe her here.

The silver light made her looks like she was the source of the light. It was different than the candlelight, which made her simply look like she was glowing.

No, she looked like the source of the light now.

She looked ethereal.

"You're gorgeous," he told her, breaking the silence.

Her eyes flicked up from the palm of his hand, her smile soft. He doubted he'd ever get over how the corners of her mouth turned when she smiled, or how her eyes would crinkle with joy. She was breathtaking in every way possible.

"You're gorgeous and I love you," he continued.

While this wasn't the first time he spoke these words, it didn't make them any less meaningful. Every time he told her those three words, he felt it from the deepest part of his soul.

Her thumb brushed gently over the closed wound. "I love you, too, Zuko."

Her eyes shone brightly with the moonlight. He remembered how he once told her that she was like the moon, and he like the sun. He thought they were polar opposites then, that they were destined to be enemies.

Yet, he couldn't imagine anything so far from the truth now. He couldn't imagine living a life without her in it. He didn't want to imagine that life. She was his best friend and the other half to his soul.

"I was wrong before," he said suddenly. She watched him curiously. "When we first met."

She looked thrown by the shift in conversation, but she listened attentively. "What about?"

"I was wrong about a lot of things back then," he said simply. "I was wrong about us, though. About you. I thought that we were destined to be polar opposites. I was wrong. We aren't opposites; we're complementary matches of each other."

She was the moon, while he was the sun.

She was water, while he was fire.

She was the heart, while he was the head.

They were always together, in one way or another. They weren't destined to be opposing each other; they were destined to be beside each other.

They were two halves of a whole.

"I know you've had a bad week," he said. "I know you blame yourself for what happened to your necklace, and I know that necklace meant more to you than anything. It's something that connects you to your family and your home. I'm really sorry it is lost."

Katara's smile was sad. "You don't have to apologize," she told him. "It isn't your fault."

"I know, but I'm sorry that it happened to you. You care about it, and I care about you." He withdrew his hand from hers and reached into his pocket. His heart was pounding. "I know this isn't going to make things all better. I know this isn't going to replace what you lost, but…"

His fingers grasped the piece of ribbon in his pocket and pulled. The cool piece of stone rested in the palm of his hand.

The stone was whiter than the one her necklace was made out of, but Sokka assured him it wasn't what the stone that made the necklace meaningful. It was the design, the thought behind it, the words that went with it.

He wrote Sokka only days before, asking him to help him understand the process that went into making a necklace similar to the one she lost. As soon as he received a reply, he used every spare moment he had to craft it.

The stone was one he picked out himself on the beach the previous evening. He spent hours sanding it down, making it as smooth as possible. The rest of the night was spent carving an intricate design into it, per Sokka's instructions. He couldn't replicate what was carved into Katara's original necklace, so he decided to etch a different design entirely.

A nearly perfect circle rested in the centre of the stone. One half of the circle curved into the shape of the moon, while the opposite half grew into the sun.

The sun and moon.

It was them. Two halves of a whole. Two pieces to the greater picture. Two elements in balance.

"Sokka told me the design is supposed to be something meaningful to both of us," he said after a beat of silence. Katara was staring at the necklace, her eyes widened in shock. Her reaction was making his nervousness grow. "Whenever I look at the moon, I think of you. Not only because of your bending either, but because it's you. The moon — the stars — the night; it's you, Katara. It's powerful, and guiding, and bright. You were like a bright light in a world full of darkness for me, and you guided my way home. You are my home.

"I know this isn't going to replace what you lost. I'd never expect it to fill that void in your heart, because that necklace belonged to your family and your home. I would never dream of you forgetting about that one, just because I made you this one. I just… I thought I could make this for you, to help fill that gap."

Her hand came to rest on top of his. Her fingers were shaking, and she still looked shocked. "Zuko…" She swallowed thickly. "Do you know what these necklaces mean in my culture?"

"I know." He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. "I wrote Sokka about it, when you lost your original one. I told him I wanted to make one for you, to give you something that reminded you of home and your family. He explained how, and he reminded me that they're usually given during proposals, or from mother to daughter." He hurried along, suddenly worried that this was the thing she was worried about. "This necklace doesn't have to mean that, though, if you don't want it to. It can just be a gift. A temporary replacement until you find your other one."

They fell into silence. For a moment, Katara didn't move — her fingers were frozen over his, her face slack with shock.

Then, her grip tightened. Her smile was lopsided when she met his eyes. "And what if I want it to mean more?

The breath was sucked from his lungs. The words tumbled easily from his lips. "I love you, Katara. I've known since the first time I told you that I love you that I wanted to marry you. If… if you want this to mean that, then yes, of course."

Katara looked amused. "I want to marry you, too, Zuko. One day, I want to be your wife."

His throat was right. "So…?"

"So, yes, I want this to mean that."

He let out a breathless, blissful laugh. "Okay, then." He shifted the necklace in his hand. "This can be a promise. A promise for me to love you until my last moment in this world, and then beyond that. A promise for us to marry when the time is right — however long away that is."

Katara's fingers were warm on his palm. "A promise that we'll grow old by each other's side. That, no matter what, we're in this together."

He nodded. "Together."

Her grip tightened on his hand for a second before she released him entirely. "Together."

It was a promise.

She shifted on the bed, closing the gap between them. Their lips connected for an entirely too brief of a moment, yet it still left Zuko feeling warm and dizzy.

When they parted, she took the necklace into her hands and examined the design on it. Her smile was wide, lighting up her whole face. It made his heart flutter.

When her eyes locked with his again, her felt the breath leave his lungs from the intensity contained in them.

"I love it." She squeezed his hand. "Thank you, Zuko. This…. this means a lot; not just the promise of a future with you, but the fact that you went through all this trouble to—"

"I'd do anything for you," he promised. He brushed a lock of her hair away from her face, his fingertip grazing her cheek softly.

"But… you wrote Sokka about it, and you learned the customs and the traditions, and—" She shook her head fondly. "I didn't expect you to not do that, but I'm just… Thank you."

He gave her hand a brief squeeze. "I love you, Katara. And this isn't the final solution; we'll find your mother's necklace."

.

True to his word, the necklace turned up a week later, washed up on the bank of the pond. She determined that it must've come loose when she was bending and been washed to the bottom, only making a reappearance because of the storm the previous night.

He tried to assure her that she didn't have to wear the replacement necklace he made for her now that they found her original. Still, she didn't take off the white stone.

"I want to wear it," she had told him. "It's special to me. It's from you."

"Your mother's one is special too."

She lifted her sleeve. Attached to her left wrist was the very familiar blue ribbon and blue stone. Her mother's necklace.

"I'm not giving it up. She'll always be with me, even if I don't have her necklace." She dropped her sleeve again. "I want to wear this," she promised him. "How else is the world supposed to know we're going to get married one day?"

He grinned widely at that, a feeling of joy bubbling up and out of his chest.

The pendant started out as a gift to help fill the space left behind by her mother's necklace, but it had become so much more than that.

He pressed a quick kiss to Katara's temple and she melted easily into his side.

It was similar to them, in a way. What started out as hostility had turned into an alliance, which slowly morphed into a friendship, and then—

And then, it became so much more.