Familiar (Original link)

Author: Nashidesei
Rating: K+
Characters: Zuko, Katara
Genre: Angst

When she sat down in class, Katara didn’t notice him. He was sitting four or five seats to her left, closest to the window, facing forward with his chin in his hand. Occasionally as the other students filtered in from the outside he would glance to his left, gold eyes slanting to look out the window, as though struggling to avoid the looks of his classmates.

When the teacher braced her hands on her desk and asked, in Spanish, if this was everyone, Katara still hadn’t noticed. Her own blue eyes darted from the whiteboard at the front of the room to the notebook on the desk in front of her, dark hands already scribbling down notes regarding what was to be done today.

The teacher read through the roll, calling out last names one after the other.

“Hakoda?”

“Here,” a dark hand rose, blue eyes lifting from her paper to meet the soft brown of the teacher. She nodded in reply, made a quick mark, and continued on through the list.

Several names later, “Souzen?”

A pale hand lifted but no voice sounded, and Katara’s eyes widened as she followed the teacher’s gaze to the young man across the room. A familiar profile, albeit a bit hardened since she saw it last, greeted her vision. Pale skin—too pale, when was the last time he was out in the sun?—black hair, gold eyes…

Zuko.

It had been years, so many years, since the fire that sent him away. Her heart thudded almost painfully in her chest and she wanted to shout his name, to make him look at her, to wave and grin and ask in a teasing tone what he would do for a twinkie.

But she didn’t. Couldn’t. It felt too strange. She would wait until later, after class, as the other students meandered out, to rise from her seat and make her slow way over to stand about a yard away on his right.

Her hands were shaking, and she curled them into fists at her side, swallowing thickly before speaking.

“…Zuko?”

And, for the first time all day, he turned to look at her, gave more than that familiar profile view.

Katara couldn’t help the half-step back, the lurch in her stomach, the way her eyes widened.

Because this was not the Zuko she had known, the Zuko she had teased so often in her youth. This young man bore half his face, certainly, features on the right strikingly similar to how she remembered them.

The left, though…

“I thought it was you,” he said quietly, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. His voice was different, too. Not just deeper, smoother, but…different. “Katara Hakoda. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

His gold eyes sparkled, the left trapped in a permanent squint by the dark, curling scar tissue that marred that side of his face from forehead to cheek, plowing up through his hairline, fusing his ear to the side of his head in a twisted mess that was most certainly no good for actually hearing.

She had heard he was hurt in the fire, but hadn’t expected anything like this. The confused eyebrow quirk she had looked back on fondly was gone now, seared off by circumstances she still didn’t understand in full detail.

He was quiet for a moment, then slowly reached up to trace a finger over the bottommost edge of the scar. “I guess you can’t say I look like a wuss now, huh? Hard to have something like this and still be a baby.” He smiled, but it wasn’t the smile she remembered. “So, how’ve you been?”

“F-Fine. Just fine.” She shook her head slowly, silent for a long, awkward moment. Then, “My God, Zuko, what happened?”