Truce

Now

Katara nurses a cup of instant coffee and wishes it was tea instead, perhaps for the first time in her life. The ghost of hazelnut and cocoa lingers on her tongue. Zuko lingers in her head. The way he hugged her when she left the café, the way he didn't feel or smell anything like she remembered. The way he was simultaneously exactly the same.

She shifts and the plastic breakroom chair squeaks beneath her indignantly. She should just go home, really. A glance at her watch tells her that her shift has already been over for ten minutes, and yet she cannot remove herself from the least comfortable chair she's recently sat in. She still has half her coffee left, anyway. Her apartment will be just as cold and empty as when she left it this morning no matter when she gets there. No matter if she is there to occupy it or not.

There is a soft tap at the doorway, despite the breakroom being available to all hospital staff. Katara lifts her head. Smiles when she sees Ty Lee. Shrinks a little when she realises Ty Lee is smirking in a way that can foreshadow only trouble for her and thrilling entertainment for everyone else.

"Katara? There's someone at main reception for you."

"For me?" She sips her coffee, doesn't move. Tries not to consider for a single moment who her surprise visitor may be – or, more accurately, who she hopes it may be.

"I'd get a move on if I were you." The mischievous excitement is positively oozing from Ty Lee's entire person. "He's already become quite popular with the admin girls."

As if she were searching for yet another reason to loathe herself, Katara feels her pulse kick up, feels the hot stab of adrenaline spiking along her neck and into her cheeks. She sets down her cup with a hand that trembles.

"Thanks, Ty Lee. I'll be right down."

And Ty Lee winks as she slips back out the doorway.

There is a veritable crowd of hospital staff to greet Katara at reception. Certainly a superfluous amount for this time in the late afternoon. The first thing she has the capacity to notice is the enormous bunch of flowers crowding the front desk, which would appear to be the nexus of this spontaneous congregation. And then her eyes flick upward to the dark knot of hair above a pale neck, the jacket spanning narrow shoulders, and she doesn't know what to do or think or say or feel.

"Zuko?"

He turns with a grin already in place, lazily, like he had forgotten her presence was what had precipitated his own. The thought has her crossing her arms to contain the newest surge of adrenaline it inspires.

"Hey." With his eyes on hers his grin softens and for a millisecond she wants him to pull her close again and fold her into his arms. She wants to rest her head on his shoulder. She wants to breathe in that spot beneath his jaw that smells so unmistakeably like him.

"What's going on? What are you doing here?" She cannot think of a single reason why Zuko would be here, aside from a mission to deliver inexpressibly bad news, but the somewhat lethargic curling of the corners of his mouth has her discounting that as a possibility.

"Well, I heard congratulations were in order, so I come bearing gifts." And he gestures with a sweeping hand to the flowers that first caught her eye. Not a single gaze in the room misses the movement. Katara is suddenly aware of all the other beating hearts in the vicinity, all the other witnesses to this most puzzling – and likely soon-to-be painful – occurrence.

She doesn't have to excuse herself as she crosses the room – the loitering staff members shuffle aside for her, and try as she might, she cannot ignore the way each of their expressions is set in an impressive imitation of Ty Lee's triumphant smirk.

Katara can barely acknowledge the flowers in front of her beyond the fact that they exist because of Zuko, that Zuko thought of her and selected them and took it upon himself to place them where they now reside.

"You really didn't have to, Zuko." She says only what she is obliged to say in such a situation.

"Of course I did." As he is required to respond. "What kind of friend would I be if I didn't celebrate your promotion?" But the way he catches her eye on the word 'friend' carries a heat, incongruous and fierce, that renders her self-conscious and momentarily paralysed.

"Thank you." She doesn't know what else to say under the watchful eyes of her colleagues; she supposes she wouldn't know what to say even if they were alone. Perhaps that would have been even worse.

He steps closer to rest a hand on the desk beside her. She stiffens at the way he angles himself toward her to avoid betraying any of the myriad reactions she experiences simultaneously.

"Now, I have it on good authority that your shift ended fifteen minutes ago, which means I am now free to whisk you away to further celebratory activities."

She cannot mistake the glee lightening his voice, his stance, his very being. She cannot remember the last time she saw him like this, rendered an entirely different person by the lessening of the weight he seems to trudge through life bearing. She cannot stop the smile she feels building on her own lips in answer to his. It feels good, to stand here and smile at Zuko, to be so close to the circle of his arms. And yet the gap between them feels as permanent and insurmountable as the space between here and the moon.

"I can't." There is not an ounce of truth in those two syllables. There is not even really a part of her that wants them to be true. But she reacts as she has taught herself to react to Zuko – she withdraws and recoils and reminds herself that he does not love her, that he never did, and to get too close is to offer her heart as a sacrifice.

But he remains undeterred. "I also have it on good authority that you have no plans this evening that don't involve Netflix and copious amounts of ice-cream, so I'm disinclined to believe you." His particular brand of confidence is distressingly attractive. She wishes he would wear it more often.

She rolls her eyes so she has something to do. "Do I need to remind Sokka what the words 'private and confidential' mean?"

"I have no idea what you could possibly be referring to." A statement decorated with a wink. A wink that hits her right between the eyes.

Shit.

"Fine." Her attempt at a reluctant tone is severely undermined by the smile she cannot rid herself of. She turns her attention to the flowers looming at her side. "Um, I'll just leave these here. You know, so everyone can... enjoy them." She stares at the reception desk so she doesn't have to make eye contact with anyone. The accumulated weight of their combined gazes feels like a physical apparatus she has donned. She cannot even entertain the thought of inviting such stares carting this floral monstrosity back to her apartment.

"You don't want to take them home?" She doesn't think she imagines the flash of hurt that deadens Zuko's smile just a fraction. She thinks about taking the flowers home, arranging them on her kitchen counter, looking at them and remembering and smiling before she cries.

"Uh..." Katara looks at Zuko and some of her armour is missing. "No, I do. I just thought–"

"Take them, Katara," one of the women behind her prompts. "They're yours to enjoy."

"Okay." Katara pats her pockets, accounts for the presence of wallet, phone and keys. "Um, I guess I'm taking them then." It is a significant struggle to manoeuvre her arms around the bouquet without welcoming several items of flora into her eyes. Then: a gentle pressure on her arm.

"May I?" Zuko, peering around the flowers she is attempting to gently cradle, one eyebrow and a corner of his mouth raised. He is so endearing, the next breath she takes is a gasp.

She pulls back to let him scoop up the arrangement he bought for her. The arrangement he delivered personally to her workplace so everyone she works with could get a good enough look at him to tease her mercilessly for the foreseeable future. She's already perfected her responding eyeroll, but only to herself can she admit that she cannot wait to be teased about Zuko. To have their names associated – Katara and Zuko. To have people refer to them together, even if it's just these fellow nurses who may never see him again.

"See you tomorrow, Katara," someone else announces. Her cue to exit, she supposes. She moves toward the hospital's front doors with Zuko at her side. Too many eyes at her back.

They begin walking in silence, but she needs to thank him. She has no idea where or how to begin. "Zuko..." She stares at her feet and promptly loses the ability to speak.

He leaps into the void she created. "I'm sorry if that was embarrassing. I just wanted to surprise you. I didn't think there'd be so many staff around this time of day."

She shakes her head. Allows herself a small grin. "Normally there wouldn't be, but a personal delivery of a very large bouquet of flowers is something of an event around here." She finds his face amongst the foliage he carries. "Zuko, it's way too much and you really, really shouldn't have. But thank you."

He shrugs. "It's not every day you get promoted to Nurse-in-Charge."

"But you seriously didn't have to do anything."

His gaze intensifies until she feels herself blush. "It's what friends are for, Katara."

"Right." She nods with the hesitancy of disbelief. "Friends." She wonders why she cannot just accept this label on its face. Why it feels like struggling to do the button up on her favourite skinny jeans from five years ago. Why it doesn't fit.

"So, I really do have plans for you tonight."

"And I really do have a date with Netflix and ice-cream." Withdraw. Recoil.

He plants himself in front of her, forcing her to a stop. "Katara. You can do that any night of the week. What I have planned is something of a... unique experience."

She shakes her head and avoids his eyes. "You shouldn't have anything planned at all."

"But I did, and since it's a Friday night, you are contractually obligated to engage in an activity that occurs externally to your place of residence."

"I don't recall signing that contract."

"And yet it remains legally binding. Do you really want to break a legally binding document, Katara?"

He is being utterly ridiculous, staring her down with a cocked eyebrow and both arms clutching a bouquet so big she is beginning to wonder if it will actually fit in her tiny apartment. But he wants to spend time with her – Katara and Zuko – and all parts of her still able to feel are yearning to eagerly accept his invitation. And while the more logical parts of her are still there, still prepped and ready for such occasions with a looping slideshow of times Zuko hurt her – of The Time Zuko Hurt Her – there is something about him standing in front of her right now that makes it easier to ignore this routine display. She can say yes. The word is right there, well within her grasp, and the longer she has to see herself reflected in his irises, the easier it feels to say it.

"Alright. Fine." She throws up her hands as though she has been coerced. As though her pulse isn't reverberating through her entire body. "But I'm assuming scrubs aren't the dress code?" For the first time, she feels self-conscious about her current attire, but there is nothing in Zuko's gaze to suggest he finds her physically repulsive. She cannot meet his eye long enough to see that perhaps he even finds her quite the opposite.

"Indeed. So, costume change, then fun outing planned by yours truly."

She moves to relieve him of the flowers. "I should really–"

He jerks them out of her reach. "All you need to do is make it back to your apartment."

She drops her gaze. She can't help it. Did he just invite himself over? "And you're going to walk the whole way, carrying that monstrosity?"

"Yep."

And he does. He keeps pace with her the entire ten minutes it takes to walk from the hospital to her building, refusing to divulge any information about the evening prematurely. She can certainly admit that she enjoys the company. She can appreciate the way low-stakes conversation makes the time pass in bounds rather than its usual crawl. And she definitely notices the way the climb up the stairs to her door is not nearly as tiresome as it usually is after working a double. But there is absolutely no way in hell that she will admit the reasons for these developments. Not even to herself, not even when she is alone and it is dark and there is no-one else to listen for the hitches in her breathing.

She feels awkward the moment she closes the door behind them and has to process the frighteningly real tableau of Zuko standing in her kitchen. He lies the bouquet gently onto the kitchen counter, settling himself onto a stool, openly observing and evaluating every part of the space she occupies most frequently that he can see. She is looking at more of his back than his face, and standing by the door with his gaze currently on her instant coffee machine, she lets the tears burn in the back of her throat. She has missed him more than she has missed anything else in her life and now he is here. Perhaps the potency of her longing conjured him like an apparition. Perhaps she is hallucinating, her broken heart leaking poison into her blood. He lets the silence linger and she drowns in it, drowns in the sight of him, nearly drowns in her aching.

"Uh, just give me two seconds to get changed."

The words stick to her throat. She catches him nod and smile as she flees to her bedroom and slams the door with too much force. Her hands immediately go for the navy sweater she wore to the Jasmine Dragon the first time because she knows she looks decent in it and Zuko told her he liked it five years ago, the first day she ever wore it. She wonders if he will remember. Hates herself for testing him. Tells herself he will only disappoint her because without hope there can be no heartbreak.

She leaves her hair in the functionally messy bun she always throws it in for work, tosses her valuables into her purse and scoops up her coat on her way back to the kitchen. Notices the flowers again and remembers that living things need water to survive. She knows Zuko watches her cross to the cabinet and pull down a large glass jar she uses in lieu of a proper vase, since the last person to buy her flowers was Sokka when she graduated.

"No vase?" He noticed.

"No-one to buy me flowers," she responds quickly.

"Not if I have anything to do with it." He leans across the counter toward her. His signature move.

She cocks an eyebrow at him as she fills the jar with water. "And you won't."

"I can't buy you flowers?"

"Aside from these, no, you can't." She makes as much noise as possible removing the arrangement from its wrappings so he doesn't have to respond, but he continues anyway.

"I don't remember signing that contract."

She sighs. "You're impossible."

He grins. "And you love me for it."

"I have loved you for a great many things, Zuko, but that was never one of them."

The flowers settle in the jar and her words settle in the air. For a moment she thinks she may be in some kind of waking nightmare, but then she feels a single wave of nausea as every muscle she possesses seizes. She shouldn't look at him but she does, she can't help it, and he just looks and blinks and she realises she is going to have to be the one to say something.

"Uh, I just meant that–"

"That my incredible sense of humour is really my most impressive quality?" He recovers faster than she does and she forces herself to breathe. If she had the presence of mind to pay attention, she would have noticed the flush dotting his neck, the stiffness in his smile, but all she can see is Zuko Zuko Zuko in my apartment, every proceeding thought rendered obsolete.

"Mmhmm, that's exactly what I meant." She forces a smile, too, forces the light-hearted sarcasm she used to employ so liberally with him. There is nothing left to be done with the flowers so she turns to face him. "So, where are we going?"

"How many times, Katara? It's a sur-prise." He rolls his eyes almost violently. "But if you're ready to go, then you'll find out soon enough."

"Fine."

She rounds the counter to join him on the other side, and when he offers her his elbow like she's the lady of the manor she takes it before she can tell herself not to. It is far too easy to settle into his side, to feel him and smell him and enjoy those two inches of height he has over her. She has grown so used to the ache residing in her chest that she almost stops when it intensifies, squeezing and squeezing and squeezing.

She wants to force herself into his embrace and stand with her head on his shoulder for the rest of her life. She wants to look at him without the accompanying stab of pain. She wants to trust him with her feelings.

She can do none of these things.

Instead, she locks her front door and says, "Thank you."

She looks at the ground when he looks at her. "For what?"

There is only one thing she can bring herself to say truthfully. "For making the effort. For not leaving me alone in my apartment."

He squeezes the hand she has curled around his bicep. "Of course."

"No, not 'of course'." She makes herself meet his eye for a moment as they descend the stairs to the ground floor. "You didn't have to do any of this. But you did it anyway."

"I did it for you."

Like it's something simple. Like it's obvious. Like she should have expected it. But it's not simple or obvious or expected. It's strange and painful and completely disorienting.

"Well. Thanks."

"Any time."

A frigid breeze assaults the back of her neck and when she shivers he pulls her toward him. She likes to think it was an instinct, an automatic reaction to her discomfort. She likes to imagine impossible things sometimes.

"Do you remember that time at BSSU when we got stuck in the pouring rain waiting for the bus?"

She smiles and nods. "Yeah." She remembers him holding his jacket over both their heads, feeling her skin react to his proximity despite this being a regular occurrence by now, looking up to find his eyes through his dripping mop of hair and sharing a smile that felt heavier than usual. A smile laden with something that wasn't there before.

"You were wearing the same sweater you are now. It looks good on you."

She doesn't know how to feel that he passed her test. Elated. Delighted to be proven wrong. But she draws the line at hopeful. That word is no longer in her vocabulary, although she finds she is reminding herself of that more and more frequently the longer Zuko's warmth is pressed against her left side.

The bar is warm and brown and dimly lit, tables scattered across the worn floorboards and lights seemingly hanging from the ceiling at random. The air is heavy. The interior feels like it is pressing in on her like her favourite relative at a family dinner, asking after her welfare and pulling her in for a lingering embrace. Everything is soft, everything is safe. The gentle tones of a muted piano and acoustic guitar weave between the silences in the room, between the creaking chairs and dusty footsteps and lulls in patron chatter. She wonders how she has never come here once in the last four years.

"The band's pretty decent on a Friday night," Zuko explains, leading her to a circular table against a booth running the entire length of the wall. He tugs her down next to him and his arm finds her shoulders, but she leans against the booth instead of into his shoulder and tries to ignore the thudding of her jugular. "They do an awesome burger, too."

"Zuko." She leans toward the table. Away from him. Out from under his arm, the one place she would really like to be. "What are we doing?"

He looks at her and blinks. She sees his jaw tighten with his understanding of exactly what she means. "We're about to order dinner." His voice is clipped, strained. An imitation of geniality.

She shakes her head across his attempt at deflection. "You know what I mean." And she catches his gaze and cannot bring herself to say the words aloud.

He takes two breaths before he answers. "We're friends."

"So why is it that every time you say that I find it increasingly difficult to believe you?" She fiddles with her ring. Stares at the scratches in the tabletop visible only if she tilts her head just slightly to the left.

"Is that such a bad thing?" His uncertainty softens his tone and steals her breath.

"Yes." She speaks before she can think of a lie. "It is."

And suddenly it feels entirely appropriate to stand, to push away from the table, to angle herself toward the door she's already lost to her emotions and generally absent sense of direction.

"Katara." Zuko is immediately following after her. She doesn't stop but she certainly slows. "Katara. Kit."

When she turns to him there are too many tears to swallow before he can see them.

"Spirits, Kit. What have I done?"

She tries to shrug away her rising distress. "Nothing you had any control over." Even she can hear how pathetic she sounds.

He eradicates the distance between them in a single stride. Lingers a fingertip away and doesn't touch her. Sets every one of her nerves on fire. "Talk to me." Just a whisper she almost loses in the sweeping piano melody that flutters lazily across the room.

"I don't know how." This, at least, is the truth.

"I can see I'm hurting you." His eyes touch every part of her face. "And I want to fix it. I just... I wish I knew what to do."

"And I wish I didn't feel this way." Her voice cracks and she moves to cover her face with her hand, but there is Zuko to stop her, to intercept the motion and cover one of her hands with both of his own. "I'm sorry." A sudden gasp tells her she can expect a decent sob in the near future.

"Don't you dare." His hands settle on her shoulders. His warmth seeps into her skin. "Just talk to me."

She closes her eyes because how else can she say these words to him? "I can't do this with you. I can't do the flowers and the hand-holding and the surprise outings to great bars with amazing music." She holds herself together with both arms around her waist. "When you left, it nearly killed me. And I know it's been four years, but every time I look at you, I see you at the airport and I remember what it was like to love you knowing that–" She stumbles to a halt. Squeezes her eyes tighter against the words she will not be able to snatch back. "Knowing that you never felt the same."

There. There it is. At last. The horrid, ugly, painful truth of the feelings she has carried for the wrong person for too many years. Her best friend. Her favourite human being in the entire world. Her own unceasing source of agony.

"Where did you get that idea?" She opens her eyes to find his face arranged not in an expression of disgust, but confusion.

"What?"

"Who told you I wasn't tragically in love with you in college?"

"Azula." All at once she feels very small and very tired.

Zuko's mouth lifts into the kind of tragic smile that makes her heart feel too big for her chest.

"Oh, Kit. What have I always told you? Azula always lies."

Azula always lies.

Her brain slowly processes those words in that order. In relation to a statement she has come to regard as a foundational truth in her life.

The information she's worn for four years like a cilice is a lie.

She'd thought he hadn't loved her then. She'd thought the traumatic injuries of her past had tainted every future interaction with Zuko she'd ever have. She'd thought she was damaged goods. Unwanted.

Azula always lies.

Without asking or waiting or thinking, he gently takes her right hand in his left. His skin burns where it touches hers, a trail of flame following his thumb across her knuckles. He doesn't smile so neither does she. The air is warm and heavy and when he tugs her closer she can smell cologne and leather and Zuko. She knows he doesn't have any idea how to dance, and, really, neither does she, but it doesn't feel strange to sway with him to the soft pulse of the piano that sits just below his breath in her ear. It doesn't feel strange at all. It feels exactly like she assumes it should. It feels good.

He pulls her tighter against his chest with a gentle arm around her waist, a hand wide against the small of her back, a squeeze of his other hand wrapped around her own. Her head finds his shoulder – at last – and she closes her eyes. Forgets that every part of her hurts to be this close to him, that every part of her longs for this to be where she forever remains, that every part of her is deathly afraid of what will happen when this song ends.

"I'm sorry." His breath is warm and his voice is low. "I'm so sorry, Kit." He brings their clasped hands to his chest, cradles them there. "I've never been much good at saying how I'm feeling, and it's never been more important than with you, and I've never failed so hard at anything in my whole life." His next breath moves her chest, too. "I'm an idiot. I know that. I'm just an idiot who doesn't deserve you in any way–"

"If you keep talking nonsense, I'm leaving," she mutters into his shirt. But she thinks it might take more than a little force to get her to leave now. She breathes deeply and inhales the smell of him.

"I just – you're just really important to me, and I feel like we wasted so much time because I was an idiot."

She squeezes his hand. "This doesn't feel like wasting time to me."

"No." He rests his cheek in her hair. "It doesn't."

They sway to an arrangement of songs that blurs into something fluid in her memory. They stand and breath and say little, while the rest of the bar's patrons shift and talk and move into the spaces where they are not. They never end up ordering any dinner, but she can't seem to feel her stomach on the walk home. He doesn't try to hold her hand. He doesn't offer his elbow again; he just keeps his arm close enough to hers that it brushes her sleeve more often that it does not. It is cold, the night decorated with a soft drizzling of rain, and she can hardly feel her face by the time they reach her building.

She turns to him outside and he smiles, accepting her hint. She will ascend the stairs alone tonight. But the darkness won't be so hard to bear this time. Maybe for the first time.

"Goodnight," she whispers. "And thank you."

He spreads his hands around her shoulders once more and steps forward to press his lips to her forehead. She closes her eyes. He doesn't move for several long moments. "Goodnight."