It felt like a phantom washing over him, a presence beside him that was there, and wasn’t at the same time.  Even breathing and the soft whisper of fabric over the carpet made this spirit being all the more alive.  Still, Zuko refused to open his eyes.  It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream, it’s just a dream…

His mattress shifted, and Zuko’s heart stopped.  There was a puff of warm breath at his neck.  His eyes snapped open.  A gentle hand rested on his head, the thumb just barely skimming over the scarred flesh of his left ear.  Zuko moved.

He had the intruder pinned against the wall in seconds, breathing hard, sweat cold.  The stranger’s face was hidden beneath a large conical hat and veil, and the dark, heavy cloak they wore made it hard to distinguish gender.  Still, this person seemed far too familiar for Zuko’s liking.

“Who are you, and what are you doing in my room?” he demanded, his voice hard and dangerously low.

The stranger’s wrist trembled within his grip.  “I thought…  I wanted to try.”

Female, definitely, and her voice brought back memories Zuko had been trying very desperately to get rid of the last few weeks.  It couldn’t be…

How did she get into his room, into the palace, into the Fire Nation, without being caught?  And why was she here anyway, to kill him in his sleep?

“What do you want from me?” Zuko demanded, tightening his grip on her arm accidentally.  She didn’t seem to notice.

“I wanted…”  Zuko had to lean in close to hear her trembling whisper, and the lady lowered her head, hiding her face under her hat.  “I wanted to heal you.”

“Why!”

“You would have turned good if I had!”  Her voice was no longer a whisper, but a desperate cry.  The lady raised her head, and for the first time in months, Zuko looked into those deep blue eyes that burned and cleansed his soul at the same time.  Katara wore red face paint to look like the Painted Lady, a lesser known spirit who healed and watched over all those who needed her.

Fitting…

What makes you think so?”  His voice was rough, hoarse.  Why did this girl have so much faith in him, even after he’d betrayed her?  What could have possibly bent her brain enough to think that he would have joined her?

Maybe because it’s probably true…

And what made her think healing him here, in the Fire Nation, would make him give up everything he’d ever wanted to join her?

“I know you would, Zuko,” Katara said quietly, reading his thoughts.  “If you were free of it-” she reached up without warning and laid a gentle, cool hand on his scarred cheek.  Zuko started, but did not pull away.  “-you would be changed.”  Their eyes connected, deep and dark and sparkling in the moonlight.  “You would be everything you know you are.  It would be so much easier to give up all this-“ she gestured to the room, which suddenly seemed so extremely big and lavish and pointless “-and join us.”  Her eyes pleaded to him, her lips trembled, Zuko could see tears forming and smudging her makeup.  He looked away, but Katara’s hand remained against his face, her thumb intimately pressed against his lips.

“You can’t even heal it without your Spirit Water,” Zuko argued bitterly against her thumb, reluctantly loving the feel of her soft fingers against his marred skin.  “You used it to save the Avatar.  You can’t-”

“Come with me,” Katara ordered gently, removing her hand from his face and taking both his hands in hers.  She smiled, melting his heart.  Why did she have to be so insanely beautiful?  Suddenly, it all meant nothing, all the money and fame and honor and perks.  They all faded away as Katara pulled him through the palace, giggling and smiling and running, and he ran with her.  Thank the spirits no one awoke.

Waiting just outside the palace, Appa sat, Aang at the reigns.  He beamed.  “All aboard for the North Pole!” he cried as Katara tugged Zuko up into the saddle and into a seat beside her.  Sokka and Toph and Suki were there, too, and they all smiled at him.  The reigns snapped, Appa soared, and the Fire Nation disappeared into the night.  Suddenly Zuko was falling into a deep circular pool of water, bathed in open moonlight shining off glaciers, with a waterbender beside him, still holding his hand.

The Fire Prince shot for the surface, lungs already burning.  Katara surfaced next to him, no longer wearing the Painted Lady costume, but dressed only in her underclothes.  She smiled brightly at him, her blue eyes shimmering with the reflection of the twin koi fish that swam lazily around them, and she swam up close to him, her hands sliding behind his neck.  

“You’re perfect,” she whispered, giving him a quick kiss on the left side of his face.  Zuko’s fingers rose to his scarred cheek in shock, and he almost forgot to swim when his hand rested there.  It… it was gone.

Suddenly, Zuko heard a splash and water connected with his face.  Katara laughed loudly, and before the firebender knew it they were chasing each other through the water, splashing each other and laughing and crying and kissing.  Kissing.  The fish didn’t seem to mind the intrusion on their pool.


“Get up!”

A splash of water hit Zuko hard in the face.  His eyes popped open to take in the irritated waterbender standing before him.  She scowled even more when she spotted the look of surprise on his face.

“Aang’s waiting for firebending practice, idiot,” the waterbender informed him tensely.  “Don’t be late.”

And she stormed away.  Zuko, though he knew with a leaden heart what he would feel there, put his fingers to the left side of his face.

It was still there.  And she was not.