(Zutara) Let Me Pretend; Your Soul is Winter Fire

Lake Laogai: So Below

She can't catch him. His forehead slams into her collarbone and they both go down, but she keeps his head from hitting the hard floor. She's the only one who moves to separate them, and when she pulls away her tunic has ugly stains of red across the collar. Katara goes into healer mode before she can question it. She turns Zuko over, being careful to cradle his neck and head, slides a pillow under it, then arranges his body to lie as flat as she can.

When she gets to his right leg she almost vomits. It's obviously shattered, heavy, and so damaged she can't believe he walked on it all the way here.

She wants to start with it, but she has to be smart. A broken leg won't kill him, but a concussion or internal bleeding will. Spirit's, he looks like he tried to win a wrestling match against an eight-legged tiger bear. What did this to him? Who did this to him?

Thankfully, he has no internal bleeding, but one rib is broken and dangerously close to puncturing his lung. She'll have to come back to that, no matter how badly she wants the ugly purple bruising to vanish. His concussion is light, one she doesn't have to spend too much time on. Three deep gouges through his scar, looking suspiciously like fingers, make her want to abandon healing and don her own mask again. She wants to hunt whoever did this to him down.

She breathes until the fire dims to smouldering embers. She won't let it die, but Zuko needs her now.

His leg will take the longest. It's broken in two places and the knee is a mess. It takes hours just to put it back together, hours she should be spending packing for their long journey, but she can't even think about Appa, Aang, leaving the city. Zuko needs her, here.

Somewhere along the way Zuko wakes up, but barely. He gasps, tries to run as her hands work over his leg. "Katara!"

She leaps to cover his mouth. He becomes more frantic, kicking his way backwards, and she feels his pain vibrate through her hands. He'll bring the others down on them if he doesn't stop screaming about running, getting away. They're coming.

She takes one hand and holds it to his heart, finds its terrified beat as she presses her lips to his temple. "It's okay. You're okay. Shh, no one's coming for you." She keeps soothing, with her words, and the beat of his heart. She can feel it, not under her hand, but through it, doing her best to match her pulse to his. She has no idea if it's working. She's never used her healing like this before, going on instinct like a person reaching out in a dark but familiar room.

Sweat coats her brow. Zuko's spent the better part of the last few hours passing in and out of consciousness, but she hasn't stopped. Knitting bone back together is a tough job. Doing it in three places even tougher. But by the time thin light begins to filter through the curtain Zuko's stopped trembling in pain.

Exhausted, Katara sits back with a heavy sigh. It's as far as she gets. A clammy hand grabs for her wrist. Zuko stares at her. "You're here?"

Exhaustion, confusion, terror, frustration. All of it and more that she's been carrying over the last weeks crash down on Katara like a tidal wave. "No, you're here. What are you doing here, Zuko? What happened to you?"

She's never been angry at someone for getting hurt, never felt so betrayed someone could do this to her. It's selfish and foreign. It terrifies her.

Zuko can't comprehend it either, eyes unfocused as they rove her face like it's a mess of stars he can't find the constellation in. "You're leaving... The city is losing... Can't let you go-run! Get away before... You can't go!"

The gibberish comes in waves, each one Zuko fights to keep above as his head lolls to the side. He catches it. His eyes roll back. He goes slack for a few seconds, then stiff as a board. "She's coming!"