Title: Proposing Accommodations

Author: SCWLC

Disclaimer: If I owned A:tLAB, I would never have let Shyamalan get his hands on it. But I don't. 'Nuff said.

Summary: Katara's on her way to the Fire Nation. She's not really sure deserves any of it. Fourth in the Proposal series.

Author's Notes: So here's Katara's perspective at last. I had a hard time trying to get into the head of someone who is blaming themselves for something that's so obviously not their fault. I'm not necessarily going to go over all of Katara's emotional recovery, so don't take this to mean that I'm assuming one conversation would fix everything. But she needs to have breakthroughs at some point, so I'm putting one in here.

She stared around the stateroom, uncertain, uncomfortable and heartpoundingly nervous. It was a beautiful suite. There was a sitting room, the first place you saw when you came in through the door, with decorations in shades of blues, greens and purples. The decorations were an appealing mix of Water Tribe and Fire Nation styles.

The walls were painted in a pale blue, with elaborately woven silk hangings, a style Katara recognised well from her time in the Fire Nation. The floors were covered in furs and cushions, with a few chairs upholstered with those same furs, to match. The bedroom was just as lovely, but done in reds, oranges and browns. The bed had silk sheets, but was piled high with furs and pillows, just like a Water Tribe bed would have been, and while the walls were decorated in the style of the Tribes, the floor had the elegant rugs you could only find in the Fire Nation or Earth Kingdom.

Gathering herself, she looked that little bit further, finding a closet behind one door, and a washroom behind another. The bath was a bit of a revelation, and she looked at the enormous tub, tiled in a beautiful mosaic, just like one she had once admired in an Earth Kingdom temple.

It was too much.

She hurried back to the sitting room and stood there, twisting her hands nervously, not wanting to sit on anything, feeling grubby, uncouth and worried. Surely there had been some mistake. This couldn't be hers. It was too grand, too beautiful. It must be for someone important.

There was a knock on the door, and she nervously went to the door, pulling it open. On the other side was Zu- the Fire Lord.

"Katara I uh- I just wanted to see if you were settling in all right," he told her, rubbing a nervous hand over the back of his head. "Is everything okay? I meant to have the servants ready when you got here, but then I got worried you wouldn't feel like you could settle in with people you didn't know. So . . ." he trailed off, and held out his hands in something that looked like supplication. "Could I uh . . . come in?" he asked.

Her eyes widened. "Oh! Yes." She backed away from the door, and watched as her husband-to-be crossed the threshold with his usual grace and stood, suddenly awkward, across from her. "I was actually just wondering uh . . ." She bit her lip for a moment, before remembering her father had told her such childish actions were unbecoming. "If there was some kind of mistake."

"A mistake?" he echoed, looking confused.

"It's not that I don't appreciate the rooms, the suite," she told him. "They're beautiful, and I love them and the bath looks . . . interesting-"

He cut her off. "It's a new thing. We've connected the plumbing and run part of it through the boilers we use to run the engines. It means you can fill the bath with hot or cold water just by turning the levers on the bath." He took her hand and eagerly pulled her with him to the washroom. "See?" He reached over, pulling first one lever then another, producing two streams of water, which were, as he had said, one hot and one cold.

"It's . . . nice," she said, hesitantly. The Fire Lord looked at her, seeming somehow disappointed in her response. She didn't know what to say to that, so she gathered her courage, little as it was, and told him, "This is just too much."

The man she was going to marry in a second ceremony in a month stopped dead and stared at her. "What's too much?" he asked. He looked . . . confused.

"This," she gestured around at the suite, taking care not to be over-vigorous in her movements. It wasn't proper. "These rooms. Zu-" she cut herself off. He was the Fire Lord, it was not her right to call him by his name. Her father had reminded her of that often enough. It had been one thing when he was an enemy and she wasn't supposed to respect him, or when they were just children and the travelling companions of the avatar. Now, she was a woman, and the union was too important for her to risk offending him in any way. If she did, he would be in his rights, certainly by Water Tribe law, to reduce or eliminate the bride price. She made a helpless gesture with her hands, and continued. "I know my father told you about my disgrace. I don't know why you would want a ruined woman for your wife, it's not my place to ask, but I don't deserve this. I'm not valuable enough to."

"What?" he asked her. "Not valuable? You're the only woman waterbending master in the world. You're the daughter of a chief, you defeated Azula and saved my life, you brought the Avatar back to the world which means, in the end, that you were the one who caused balance to be restored." He stepped forward, and she, instinctively, shrunk back. It wasn't that she thought he would grab her, the way Ujarak had, or shake her, the way her last husband had, or press her into the table to . . . the way he'd pressed her so her belly had been bruised from the pressure, so that she hadn't been able to save the baby when he'd . . . been too enthusiastic.

Suddenly a little lightheaded, she managed to cross the space to a chair, feeling as though her head was tethered to her body, floating overhead, like that first airship Sokka had built with the Mechanist.

"Katara?" she heard Zuko's voice, as though from a distance, it felt muffled. There was a blank moment, and suddenly she was seated, and the Fire Lord was kneeling – kneeling! – beside her, holding her hand. "Katara, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said, trying to made sure her voice was even. Her momentary weakness wasn't important. She shouldn't be upsetting her future husband and Lord with her petty issues.

"That's bull-pig dung and you know it," he snapped. His face softened. "What did you mean you're not worth this?" he asked, gently. She lowered her gaze to the floor. Would he make her say it? Being forced to speak of her self-deception hurt. "You're going to be the Fire Lady. You will be second only to me in governing. If, at any time, I am unavailable for any of my duties, they will fall to you." Her head came up, and she stared.

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"I mean, I don't want a bedwarmer, I don't want someone to sit next to me and look pretty to distract petitioners and I don't want a stranger who I sometimes bed because I need an heir," he told her. "I want a partner and a friend. I want someone I can trust to treat me as Zuko and not as 'The Fire Lord'. I want someone I can relax with because I know I can trust her with everything. I . . ." He paused for a moment, an odd looked drifting over his face. He took a deep breath and put a hand under her chin, making sure she was looking in his eyes. "I want you."

The words came out of her before she could control them. "You don't mean that."

Another odd look flickered over his face. "I do."

"You can't!" she said, and a dam broke. "Why are you doing this?" she demanded. "You've been so nice, and sweet and generous and you brought Gran and Sokka and Suki and you don't need to." Her breath in was more sob than breath. "I'm not important, and . . . and you should have a pure woman, someone who isn't – isn't tainted. You should be with someone like Mai. She's pretty and graceful and strong, and I'm not that, I'm not any of it!"

He looked angry, and she tried to shrink back, but she was in a chair and she couldn't. He looked so much like her father had when she'd tried to explain what Ujarak had done . . . what she'd thought or said or something he'd done. It came roaring out of him the way fire always did when he was under stress. "Not pretty? No, Katara, you're more than that, you're beautiful. And graceful and strong and powerful, and they all make you even more beautiful than just the fact that you have stunning eyes, and flawless skin and your hair's like silk, and seeing you bending was enough to make me need to hide under a cold waterfall."

"I am?" she whispered. But he didn't hear her.

"And the whole time you held everyone together when Aang was training, motivating and cooking and cleaning and keeping everyone on track – Katara, that's the kind of strength and leadership a Fire Lady needs. I need someone who can do whatever needs doing and force others to do it just by staring them down. You were able to stare down the Avatar!" he shouted. "Sokka told me. He told me about the Southern Air Temple, and about when Appa was taken by the sandbenders. You forced the Avatar to back down. I need someone like that on my side."

"It wasn't anything-" she tried to explain that all Aang had needed was comfort, and he cut her off.

"It was amazing. I would never have dared the Avatar like that, but you just did it. Without thinking, without fear." He grabbed her hands in his, and suddenly the look on his face wasn't her father's as he accused her of lying about Ujarak, but the pained look she'd seen on his face when Azula had hit Iroh with lightning after those terrible days of being chased so relentlessly by Azula, Mai and Ty Lee. The look he'd had as he'd flung fire at them ordering Aang and the rest to leave. It was pain disguised as anger.

"I'm not-" he still wouldn't let her finish.

"You're important Katara. To the world. You're the Avatar's water master. You taught the Avatar waterbending. Not Pakku, not some other person, you. You fought Azula and won. You are a waterbending master and a leader in your own right. And you're important to me, and your brother and all your friends. You saved me. Not just from Azula, but from myself."

He was so passionate, so sure of everything he was saying, Katara found herself being caught up in the words pouring out of his mouth. Zuko had never been eloquent, he'd never been one to talk something to death, and this outpouring had her riveted. She could almost see this amazing person he was describing.

"And as for purity, it doesn't matter. Not to me. What matters to me is that no one ever make you feel like you're wrong because a man is too stupid to understand he's unwelcome."

He hadn't been there. But Sokka would have told him, she knew that. She knew that Sokka tended to exaggerate. Tended to be overprotective. Her father would have told her future husband what had happened between her and Ujarak. It was a matter of honour, after all. A man deserved to know if the woman he was marrying had a history.

"What did my father tell you?" she asked.

"What he told me was something I can't believe. I can't believe it because I know you better than that. You can be vengeful and you've been known to leap to conclusions, but you've never made baseless accusations." His hands had somehow crawled up her arms, so that both their forearms were braced against each other. He was leaning so close she could feel his overwarm breath on her face. The heat, more like the warmth coming off a fireplace than mere human warmth, felt soothing.

"I must have wanted him," she tried to explain. "I'm a master waterbender. I should have been able to stop him. How could I not have been able to stop him if I didn't want him to . . . touch me?" It had been explained to her often enough. It made sense. If she could have tossed him out with a mere thought, how could he have possibly overpowered her? She was just ashamed of her weakness. It had to be that, she certainly felt enough shame.

Something furious sparked in his eyes, and he demanded, "Sokka said there was an eclipse that night. Was he lying?"

"I . . . no. There was an eclipse," she told him. "But it's not the same for waterbenders. Our bending doesn't go away-"

He cut her off again. "So a trained warrior took you by surprise when your bending was at its weakest, pinned you down, tied you so you couldn't bend and forced you." He stared at her, a strange intensity in his eyes. "Ty Lee beat you, and that was without a special advantage on her part. That . . . son of a hog-monkey grew up around water benders. You think he wouldn't know their weaknesses?"

She felt tears pricking her eyes. It was the one thing her father had refused to believe her about. The next morning, she'd healed her wrists because they'd hurt so much. "How did you know? I healed the rope burns before I even went to see my father."

Zuko pulled away, gently picking up her hands, running his fingers over her wrists. "I can see the scars, Katara." A finger traced the slightest difference between the normal colour of her dark skin, and the small patch of ever-so-slightly lighter skin that stretched around her wrists. Suddenly he yanked up a sleeve, showing her a similar patch of skin around his elbow. A small area circling the joint, where the skin was even paler than his normally pale colour. "Azula once tackled me and tied me up when I was twelve. The rope burns took a while to heal and they scarred. Like this." His hands were circling her wrists again.

Something inside her shattered, and then reformed into a new shape. "I didn't want him."

"No," Zuko said. Gently he reached for her, and Katara closed her eyes, feeling herself pulled against him and pressed to a firm, unyielding and familiar body. He'd done the same after she'd decided not to kill Yon Rha, they'd held each other in silence after defeating Azula and they'd clung to each other late at night after the others had gone to bed that horrible evening they'd watched the Ember Island Players do that awful show about them all.

With her eyes closed, it was almost like none of it had happened. That they were still in those oddly idyllic last days before Sozin's Comet had come. "He surprised me," she whispered. "I was sleeping and he came in, and I didn't know what was happening, just that suddenly I was tied to the chest, and I couldn't move. He was so angry, and he kept saying I was teasing him, that I didn't know my place." She started shivering uncontrollably, remembering the cold air and floor of the igloo, the knife Ujarak had used on her clothes and underwraps.

"He was a fool," Zuko growled into her ear, and she felt his body heat up a few degrees. He pulled her closer.

The heat seeped into her and kept the worst of the memory at bay. Zuko smelled nothing like Ujarak. Where the tribesman had smelled of fish and whale oil, rancid breath and sweat, Zuko bore hints of leather and strange spices, his breath, so close to her, smelled of one of the exotic teas his uncle was always forcing on him. "He used a knife, to get my clothes . . . off. And then he just . . . just . . ." Tears came.

Katara had cried over it before. She'd cried when her own father had told her she was lying, she'd cried to her grandmother over her ruined reputation and she'd cried alone out of sheer loneliness. This time, something wasn't just exploding out of her, some hurt was being eased. Sokka had tried to comfort her, but he'd always become so angry with Ujarak, he'd stop comforting, moving on to describing lurid acts of violence to be done to the tribesman. Her grandmother had believed her, but hadn't ever had Zuko's knowledge. Zuko had seen the scars and known them for what they were. "It wasn't your fault," he murmured. "He was wrong, and he hurt you and you didn't deserve it and you didn't let him do anything."

"But no one believes that!" She cried. "And I should have done something. I'm a bender. I'm a bloodbender! Tui and La, I should have been able to make him leave!"

He pulled away enough to look her in the eye, and Katara felt the loss of warmth like a blow. "Did you struggle? Did you try to force him to leave you alone?" he demanded.

"Obviously not enough," she whispered, despairing. This was where he'd leave her. "I'm not strong enough, Zuko. I'm not strong enough to be Fire Lady. You need someone who wouldn't just . . . give up."

"When did you ever give up?" he asked, sounding bewildered. "I tied you to a tree and had you surrounded with Fire Nation troops and pirates and you didn't give up. You stopped a boat from going over a waterfall because you wouldn't give up. You got the Avatar to the North Pole and got training in bending in spite of everything in your way including a foolish old waterbending master. Sokka once told me that was why you were both so sure Aang and I hadn't died in that blizzard. That I never gave up. You are just like me like that. Agni! You stopped Azula, who's just as determined as we both are. When have you ever given up?"

In spite of herself, she curled into him. He tightened his arms around her reflexively. "When Ujarak had me tied down. I'd tried to get the ropes off, but they wouldn't go, and I was so cold and I couldn't move and he was on top of me. He'd just . . . put his . . . and I hurt so much and he wouldn't stop . . . and I just . . . there was nothing I could do, and I . . . I stopped fighting."

"There is no shame in a moment of weakness," Zuko said into her hair. They'd somehow shifted so that she wasn't even on the chair any more, she was curled into his lap while he sat on the floor, leaning his back against the seat of the second chair. He'd tucked her head under his chin, and Katara couldn't help but feel safe. Her gran had sat with her like this before, but Katara had stopped feeling like Gran-gran could protect her from the world a long time ago. This felt like when she was a little girl and her father would hold her after a nightmare. Zuko didn't smell the same and there was a subtle undertone that came with him not being family, and her old enough to appreciate, intellectually, that he was a well-formed man. But she could ignore all that in favour of the comfort he was offering.

Eventually, her arms, curled against her chest and held there by his own, started to feel uncomfortable, and Katara knew he couldn't be comfortable where he was either. Reluctantly she separated herself from him. She saw him immediately resettle into a different position, a look of relief on his face. She looked around, and realised they'd gotten off-topic entirely. "This is still too much," she said. "I don't need all this."

He looked confused, his mind backtracking over everything until he recalled the earlier conversation. "Are you still talking about that? You're going to be the Fire Lady. You'll have your own suite that makes this look like a hovel, let alone your solar, office and any other areas of the castle you want or need for your own projects and work."

"My own suite?" a sudden sinking feeling hit her in the pit of her stomach. "I thought . . . I mean . . . we're going to be married."

He didn't seem to see anything amiss with that. "Of course. The Fire Lady's rooms. I've already had the palace redecorating my mother's suite for you. There are decorations and furnishings from the water tribes that date back to before the war in the palace stores. And of course you'll be able to change them however you wish."

Katara felt a combination of relief and anger at this. On the one hand, she was relieved. She had no desire to ever share a bed with anyone ever again. Just the idea made her cringe, and she'd taken to avoiding all the men of her tribe because so many seemed to think she would want to, and were very open in telling her that. Another part of her, however, was angry. Yes, she knew he had chosen her to marry because they were friends and he didn't want to be married to someone he couldn't stand. Yes, it was effectively an arranged marriage, but it was still a marriage. Married people slept in the same bed and shared the same space. Was he so repulsed by her after all his words?

Was he going to just bed her and ignore her once she was carrying an heir?

No, she told herself. Zuko wasn't like that. She couldn't go around presuming the worst of him. He had asked her because he wanted a friend if he couldn't have a loving marriage, and he was providing her with a retreat. It had to be at least a little normal, since Lady Ursa had had separate rooms from Ozai, if this conversation was any judge.

She was still a little miffed he wasn't going to try.

Katara was about to see if she could still talk him into giving her a room that was a little less opulent, she was afraid of breaking something or dirtying something, when there was a knock at the door.

Zuko rolled to his feet smoothly, and opened the door, while Katara hastily straightened herself up as much as she could. When she looked up, there were four people standing in the room. Two younger women, one older one and a middle-aged man. "Katara, this is Lan, she is the maid who will be primarily assigned to your suite for the trip. She's to do the cleaning, and assist you with any laundry or food service or other, similar, needs for the duration."

One of the two younger women stepped forward. She was dressed in the clothes Katara had noted seemed to be a uniform for the ship, her hair tied back into a simple knot at the base of her neck. She bowed, and said, "It is my honour to assist you on this voyage Lady Katara."

"Uh . . ." Katara didn't quite know what to say. "Thank you?"

Lan nodded solemnly and stepped back. Zuko gestured at the other of the younger women, this one dressed in a dress decorated in a pattern of cherry blossoms, her hair in a long, severe braid down her back and something in the way she moved reminding Katara of all the firebenders she'd ever met. "This is Shui. She'll be your personal lady's maid. If she should displease you, I'll find you another. Her duties are to help you with dressing, with your personal affairs and in overseeing your rooms and keeping them and your personal items in order."

Shui stepped forward, bowed, and simply said, "My Lady."

The older woman was introduced as Zhi. Her hair was steel-grey and unlike the other two, who were dressed in Fire Nation colours, she was in a formal, yet simple, dress of white and pale grey. "I really trust you Katara. Not just as a waterbender and someone to have at my back in a fight, but I trust you to be able to handle being in court. But-" he said, clearly trying to put this in some way that wouldn't offend, "You haven't been trained in court manners. Zhi's here to help you with that. She's supposed to make sure you know the things a lady is supposed to know, so that if you need to know those things, you will."

He looked at her, pleadingly. "What sorts of things?" Katara asked.

"If I may, my Lord?" Zhi asked. Without waiting for him to reply, she turned to Katara and said, "First, there are things that are . . . technically polite to say, but that mean something different in the Fire Nation than anywhere else. To use a crude example, fire lilies are often spoken of in the Fire Nation as a . . . metaphor for a woman's . . . private places." She smiled gently as Katara blushed. "If one were to comment upon such a thing, it could be taken the wrong way."

"Oh!" Katara said, eyes wide.

"There is also the matter of discerning ranks, and understanding the relative standings of families, as well as the complexities even of table manners at court banquets. What might be more than adequate manners for anyone else, may be thoroughly inadequate at the head table in a royal feast." Zhi took in Katara's sudden pallor. "There is no need to worry, my Lady. The Fire Lord has assured me that you are an excellent student, and I see no reason you should not be prepared for such eventualities in a short time."

"Thank you," Katara said, faintly.

Finally, Zuko pointed at the man. "Xun was my own tutor when I was growing up. I told you I wanted a partner in governing the Fire Nation. He'll help you understand what you need to know to help me govern. Politics and history and geography," he told her.

"Oh," she replied, as the man bowed.

There was a long pause as the six of them stared at each other, and then Shui spoke up, "I see that my Lady has not unpacked her things, if you will excuse us, Lan and I will begin our duties." Without waiting for Katara to say anything, the two women bustled off, and started sorting through Katara's things, straightening pillows and murmuring to each other about La knew what.

"Perhaps," suggested Zhi, "Master Xun might begin to speak with you on such matters as he will need to ensure your education. I am sure this has been most overwhelming for you, and it will be easiest for me to begin my lessons at supper. I am also sure," she shot a sidelong look at the Fire Lord, "That my Lord has something that needs doing beyond standing about in his betrothed's rooms?"

"Ah, right." Zuko abruptly turned for the door, turned back and said, "Does that sound okay, Katara?"

A chance to do something with herself, even if it was history lessons, and to get a handle on the change in circumstances and in her own view of things was very welcome. "Yes. Yes, thank you."

Zhi bowed herself out, Shui and Lan had made themselves invisible in the bedroom, although there was some sort of conversation being murmured back there, and Xun had seated himself on a chair, pulling scrolls out of a bag he'd brought with him. "I'll pick you up for dinner?" Zuko asked. He seemed nervous, and it paradoxically made Katara less nervous to know that she wasn't the only one.

"Sure," she told him, smiling a little. She was startled then, when the young man she'd known, the one who'd tied her to a tree, tried to beat her to a pulp with his firebending, who'd been rude and blunt and the last thing she'd think of as truly princely, suddenly swept into an elaborate, perfectly royal bow over her hand, kissed her palm and swept out.

And then she was alone with a tutor in Fire Nation politics so she could learn how to govern a whole country. What have I gotten myself into? she thought as she walked to the seat beside Xun.