The Return - A Zutara Fanfiction

Convergence

6 years ago

The Critiques of Modern Humanitarian Aid professor was already five minutes late when Zuko saw the girl in the doorway at the bottom of the lecture hall. Brown hair in tangles around her face, wide eyes he could see catching the light even from his seat, a backpack slung off one shoulder and the opposite arm cradling a plethora of books, folders, notepads. He watched her follow the ritual of every latecomer to a lecture: the hesitation in the doorway as eyes scanned the unfamiliar faces, praying for an empty seat at the end of a row. Zuko knew he was in the dead centre of the middle row – his preferred location in every lecture hall – but he also knew that the spare seat beside him may have been one of the few left at six minutes past the hour. And he knew that when he raised his hand and caught the attention of the girl in the doorway, she would likely be equal parts confused and grateful.

He chanced a wave as her eyes swept his row, and at first he thought she may ignore him, assuming this boy she had never met before was obviously beckoning someone behind her. But his growing insistence gently coaxed her from the front of the room, up the stairs, clumsily over the feet and bags and legs filling the row, into the seat to his right.

"Um, hi." She flashed him a half-smile as she deposited her belongings into her lap. He waited for her eyes to flicker across the left side of his face, to widen and dart anywhere else as she processed the horror he wore every day. But no. Katara did not do that. She took him in like he was any other stranger who had offered her a seat, rather than an ugly, maimed monstrosity.

"I just thought you looked like you needed someone to sit with." His mind blurred through the need to reciprocate her greeting. "I'm Zuko, by the way." He almost offered his hand for her to shake.

Her smile settled into something a little more comfortable. "Katara." She met his eyes. "And thanks."

She turned to attend to the pile of educational materials in her lap but there was still no professor and suddenly he was speaking again. Initiating a conversation.

"Are you doing Development Studies, then?" He thought she looked like the kind of person who would want to save the world. Like him.

She pulled a laptop from her bag, decorated with a case depicting some kind of oceanscape. "No, nursing actually." He didn't even try to look away as she opened the lid. Stole a glimpse of her face sandwiched between two others on her background – two girls, one older, one younger, and a boy who shared her olive complexion and saltwater eyes. It was the kind of selfie in which everyone attempts to make the most hideous face possible, and yet her features were still moulded into something exquisite. "This is just one of my electives." She looked over. Caught him staring. Said nothing. "And what about you? Off to erase the world's injustices when you get out of here?" There was nothing in her unwavering gaze or slightly tilted mouth that made him think she was mocking him, but he still felt the back of his neck heating, still proceeded with caution.

"Uh, yeah, actually." He glanced down at the backpack at her feet. Back up to her face. The eyes that were following him, the smile that was encouraging him. "Well, that's the idea anyway."

"That's really cool." She simultaneously opened a new document on her laptop and softened her face into the warm medium between a grin and stoic stillness. "We need more people like you in the world, Zuko."

He liked this girl he had just met. Katara.

"You'd be the first to think so."

"I'm certain I won't be the last."

The ceaseless rumble of hundreds of voices atop one another dipped suddenly into silence, and Zuko turned to see the professor arriving. Twelve minutes late. But when he glanced at Katara as she busied herself rummaging through her backpack, he couldn't find a single part of himself that was irritated. And when he felt the delicate press of her elbow in his bicep and looked over to see her offering him a packet of Red Vines, he couldn't find a single part of himself that wasn't completely enamoured. Charmed. Dazzled.