AtLA fic: Affairs of the Heart
Title: Affairs of the Heart
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: Owning nothing . . . not even one of the obscene Batman waterguns.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Their marriage is falling apart and it’s Katara’s fault. She has reasons okay?
Notes: I’m depressed, tired, I don’t want to think and this bunny has been chewing my socks. I know I should be working on Airbender’s Child, but that requires too much of an eye for detail right now, and I need to write the sort of fic that I justify only by saying, “Just go with it, would you?” It’s kind of a headlong collision of angst and . . . je ne sais quoi.
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Zuko felt so many emotions swirling around inside him, he couldn’t have told anyone what he was feeling. One was guilt. He’d nearly slept with a woman who was not his wife, and his wife had walked in on them. He felt terrible, even more so after he saw the expression on her face. It had smoothed away though, so quickly he could have imagined it. What she’d said, though, “Sorry. I wish you’d warned me about it, I wouldn’t have just walked in. We should probably set up a schedule,” had him furious.
It was like she’d expected him to cheat on her.
Which led to more anger on his part. She’d pushed him away. The whole time they’d been married she’d pushed him away. They’d once been friends, but it was like once they were married, she was entirely unwilling to be anything other than that. He’d spent the year chasing her, hoping she’d at least try. He was lonely and just wanted comfort. The more he’d chased, the less willing she was to be his friend.
That hurt. He didn’t have so many friends he felt like he could lose one. So mixed in with the anger and guilt was a lot of sadness that she didn’t seem to care about him any more.
Then there was the confusion. Why didn’t she like him? Why did she think his cheating was inevitable? How could she not know that pushing him like that was going to have consequences? Because she had pushed him into Mai’s arms. Leaving them alone all the time, that crack before they married about giving him and Mai time together. Insisting that he take Mai on all those official trips away from the palace - it was like Katara wanted him to cheat on her.
All those feelings and more were bubbling just below the surface like magma in a volcano.
He stormed into her bedroom, slamming the door behind him. “What was that?” He snapped.
“What was what?” she asked. She had the gall to look confused. “All I was saying was that you should really let me know about when you and Mai want to schedule time together so we don’t have any more accidents like that.”
Zuko sputtered a moment, then said, “Don’t stand there and act like I didn’t hurt you or like this is all routine! It’s not!”
“Of course it hurt,” she said, slowly. “But that’s just because I don’t like having it shoved in my face. I knew it was happening.”
It all boiled over for a moment, and Zuko whipped around and slammed out a flame fist into a vase in the corner of the room. After it shattered with a satisfying smash, he turned back. “It only happened because you pushed me away. You won’t even try,” he told her. “You’re carrying my child because you used some crazy waterbending trick to get yourself pregnant.” The grief and confusion came to predominance. “Why Katara?” He reached out and grabbed her hand. “Why won’t you even try? I know this was political. I know you married me for the sake of . . . but we’re friends. I’m in l . . . attracted to you. Why not try?”
“You want Mai,” she told him. “I’m not getting in the way of that.”
Zuko sighed. “Mai hadn’t been my girlfriend for a long time,” he said. “There wasn’t anyone for a long time.”
“All the more reason for me to make sure you have time with someone,” she said, sounding again, like she thought this was reasonable.
Fury swept through him again. “So it’s just that inevitable that I’ll cheat on you?” he demanded. “You think so little of me as that?”
Katara stared. “Of course not,” she told him. “It’s that it’s inevitable that I’ll be cheated on,” she said.
That didn’t really make sense.
“What?” he said, trying to figure out what that meant.
Katara sighed, sounding put-upon. “Look. The first guy I ever met who was attracted to me was Jet. Only he wasn’t attracted to me, he just wanted to use me to drown a village. Then there was Aang, who really only wanted a mother. So when he got tired of me, he didn’t break up with me, he just . . . snuck around with that girl, Kita, behind my back.”
Zuko reared back at that. “He didn’t want to hurt you, so he cheated on you?”
She sighed. “He thought I was so in love with him that it would break my heart or something. I don’t know.” A shrug. “Then Sangok came around. It turns out he just wanted to use a betrothal to make sure he could make the move from the North Pole to the South. I walked in on him with Oogala. He said he was going to tell me that evening. I broke off the engagement, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Zuko echoed. He had a bad feeling where this was going.
“Dad eventually introduced me to Oolaguk. He told me he’d married me for the position when I found him in bed with that Earth Kingdom girl, whatever her name was.” Katara sniffed a little. “I really liked him, but Dad . . . I didn’t want to have the trouble that would happen if I told Dad what really happened.”
Zuko shook his head. “You mean, you told everyone it was your fault because you didn’t want him beaten up?” He made a mental note to send a letter to Sokka with the contents of the conversation in it. Then he sat on the bed, gesturing for her to join him. She did, and let him take her hand and play with her fingers absently. “Anything else?”
She nodded. “I decided to leave the South Pole, and I travelled for a while, by myself. Every time I thought I found someone, he didn’t want me, he just wanted . . . well . . . not me.” Another sniffle. “I was at the end of my rope when I met Luzan. He needed to marry and get an heir by the time he turned twenty-five or he wouldn’t inherit from his parents. He didn’t like women that way at all. I helped him find a nice girl willing to carry a baby, and I used my bending to get her with child. They married and had a nice arrangement about how he would be able to be with his lover, and she’d get a nice payment when he turned twenty-six, and they’d annul the marriage.”
Katara smiled at him. “So I knew, when you asked me to do this, that I’d do the same thing.” Something in his facial expression made her smile falter. She added, “You see, I know it’s just me that’s the problem, so I . . . just . . .” She trailed off. “Zuko? What did I say?”
Zuko was no longer feeling conflicted. He didn’t even feel the guilt he’d once felt about effectively making her marry him. He’d been in love with the waterbender for a long time, so when he was told he’d have to marry outside the Fire Nation or risk losing his throne, he’d known exactly who he wanted. He’d written her, explaining his situation and telling her that, while he’d thought she was happy, there was no one else he could think of he wanted to marry more. It seemed she’d misunderstood him. He hadn’t been thinking of her as the perfect political match, he’d been thinking he was in love with her and this was the perfect chance to take her back from the world that had snatched her away from him.
Maybe he’d been a little heavy-handed.
“If I’d known all this time you were being bothered by men like that, I would have been courting you the whole time,” Zuko said. “There is nothing wrong with you besides this stupid idea you have that you’re undesirable.”
“But-“
“Mai snuck up on me, and the next thing I knew she had me pinned with her knives and was taking my clothes off,” Zuko told her. “You know what you saw. I was tied up.” He hung his head a little as he admitted, “Yes, we were getting very . . . intimate . . . but it wasn’t because I wanted to.”
Katara’s head came up and she stared, looking disbelieving. “Right. Didn’t want to. Zuko, I told you before we were married-“
“I thought that was just a joke in poor taste,” Zuko told her honestly. “Right now though,” he said, dramatically pulling her against him, “I’m going to prove to you that I want you, not Mai, not anyone else.” Before she could do or say anything else, he kissed her.
She started crying, curling into him and saying between sobs, “I think I love you, Zuko. I thought I could stand it when I saw you with someone else, but it hurt so much. Don’t do this unless you can promise me you don’t want me just as a cover for something else.”
“Shh. I promise,” he said. “I promise that I want you, Katara, and no one else. I want to be with you. I don’t want to use you for any gain, I don’t want another woman, I don’t want you as a cover for something,” he grinned a little at her as she looked up. “And I definitely don’t want you to be my mother.”
“Really?” she asked as she blinked away the last tears.
“Really,” Zuko assured her, kissing her gently.
The kiss rapidly deepened, at Katara’s insistence, and Zuko found himself being dragged onto her bed. “Then get your clothes off,” she ordered him, sounding much like her old, bossy self. “I’m pregnant and I haven’t tried the goods yet. I want to do something before I’m too big to do anything really fun.”
Zuko let her push him around, promising himself that he’d do what he had to in order to convince her she was wanted. A few hours later, with a still-insatiable waterbender cavorting in his bed, he knew the sacrifices would be totally worth it.
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