ZW15- Good Evening No. 2

VIGIL

(based on the movie Rear Window)

"You know, in most cultures, this would be considered stalking."

Zuko ignored Toph's voice for the umpteenth time that day.  He had already decided that if she wasn't going to be helpful, she might as well not be there at all. Convincing her to go find something else to do was the hard part, and he was still working on a way to not seem rude about it.  

He raised his binoculars- a relatively new and invariably useful invention- to his eyes and viewed the lush, vibrant colors of his neighbor's garden.  The flowers were just coming into bloom, coaxed out of hiding after a long Winter.  This part of the Earth Kingdom, farther up north and isolated, was known for it's harsh winter months, second only to the North and South Poles.  That was why the dawn of Spring was such a joyous occasion for those who made their home here.  When the warm winds came to melt away the snow, everyone threw open their windows to embrace the season.  That was the sight that greeted Zuko every morning, when he wheeled himself out onto the balcony for another day of pointless, yet oddly compelling people-watching.  

But maybe that wasn't fair of him.  His great-grandfather's refurbished summer home was a perfectly good place for him to recover from a broken leg.  While Uncle handled affairs back home, the Fire Lord enjoyed a month of peace and serenity and mind-numbing boredom.  Were it not for Katara's presence and Toph's frequent barging in, all he would have to keep his mind active would be the gardener who practiced pick-up lines on his rake, the middle aged couple in the house across the way who were finding new and creative ways to reinvent interpretive dance, and, of course, the man in the house next door who went out every morning at quarter after three with heavy sacks over his shoulder.  The man whose bedridden wife, Zuko last saw through her bedroom window over a week ago.

"What I don't get," Toph said, breaking the silence, "is if you really think this guy killed his wife, why don't you just get a bunch of your guys together and go arrest him?"

Zuko glanced at Katara, who offered him a helpless smile before going back to watching the neighbor go through a box of jewelry in his kitchen.  

"Toph, for the last time, I don't have that kind of authority here," he said.  

"Now that's a damn shame," she answered, stepping into view.  "It's too bad you're not the Fire Lord or anything like that.  Oh, wait..."

She turned her head sharply in his direction, a look of mock surprise dripping from her sightless eyes.

"Just because I'm the Fire Lord doesn't mean I can go around arresting people without evidence.  That would be a serious abuse of power."

"So instead, you're gonna stalk the guy."

"It's not stalking!"

"Shhhh!" Katara waved a hand in Zuko's face, nearly smacking the lens in her haste.  "He's on the move."

Zuko snapped to attention.  Disregarding Toph's disapproving sighs and comments of 'this could be over so fast if it's wasn't for Mr. Noble here,' he watched his neighbor exit the modernized bungalow that Zuko's mansion-like home dwarfed by an order of a magnitude. He was carrying the sack, as large and overloaded as ever.  The neighbor struggled under it's weight, his knobby knees banging together like they would snap in half with one wrong move.

"Do you see that?" 

"Yeah, wow, it's all so clear," said Toph with a grin.

"He has something important in that bag," Zuko said, looking once more, hoping and dreading in equal measure that red blood would drip from the open top.  "Look at how he keeps checking to make sure nobody can see him."

"Maybe it's his wife's things," said Katara.

"Maybe it's his wife," said Toph, earning stares that even in her blindness she knew she was getting.  "Don't act like I'm the only one thinking it.  It makes total sense that if he killed his wife, he wouldn't just drag a body out in the open even if it is in the dead of night."

"So what are you thinking?" asked Zuko.

She shrugged.  "Eh, I'm just saying that there's probably a little bit of her all over the place by now.  You know, a finger bone in the birdbath, a rib or two in the flowerbed-"

"Toph!  We're going to eat dinner soon!"

"Don't bother me, Sugar Queen.  If you didn't want my input, you shouldn't have invited me."

With a sigh, Katara placed a hand on Zuko's shoulder.  The touch of her skin, even through cloth, was soothing to Zuko's rapidly fraying nerves. He had to have a laugh at himself, thinking back to the days when being a policeman or a detective seemed like the coolest thing in the world.  If only he'd known then what he knew now.  So much for resting off that injury in a peaceful environment.  The last three days and nights had been emotionally and mentally tasking in a way only learning to lightning bend could ever compare to.  

That was why he thanked Agni ever day that Katara was here.  This wonderful, beautiful woman he would soon call his wife.  He didn't know what he'd do without her.

"You know" she said, lowering her binoculars as the neighbor disappeared through the gate, "if he's out of the house, and there's no one else around, that means the place is empty."

She wore a smile that Zuko didn't return.  He knew far too well exactly what she was getting at.

As did Toph.

"Yeah, it is, isn't it?"  She stepped out further onto the balcony  There was no need to keep to the shadows now that their subject was away.  "Last time he went off, he was gone for how long, Sparky?  About an hour?  That's plenty of time to do a little snooping."

"You two can't possibly be talking about breaking into his house."

"Don't tell me you're going to play the rule card on this one, too," Toph said.  "I thiought you wanted to prove he's a murderer."

"Of course I want to prove it.  That's not what I'm trying to say," Zuko lifted himself as much as the pain would allow him out of his wheelchair.  "If you go in there and he happens to come home early, you'll be in serious trouble.  What if he did to you guys what he did to his wife?"

Toph gave him a flat look.  "Zuko... I'm an earthbending master.  She's a waterbending master.  This guy's got nothing on us."

Zuko didn't bother turning to Katara for help.  This was her idea to start with and he knew from experience that when Katara set her mind to something- be it defying him to protect the Avatar or making sure the court officials understood that they couldn't stop her from marrying him- nothing was going to stand in her way, come hell or high water.

(It was one of the many things he loved about her.)

Before their stone faced expressions, Zuko heaved a sigh of defeat.

"Just... just keep your eye so n the windows," he said.  "If I see him coming back, I'll light the lantern.  It's starting to get dark, so it won't look suspicious."

Toph was already out the door.  "Read you loud and clear, Chief!  See you on the other side."

Zuko held Katara's hand before she went.  He didn't know what was making him so nervous when he knew Toph was right.  Just one of them alone could probably kill a scrawny non-bender like the one they were targeting.  With the two of them together, just about the only legitimate concern he should have would be that they'd scare the man too much to get a confession out of him  Perhaps it was simply as Uncle said.  Love really did do strange things to a man.

"Be careful," he told her, imploring her while he cursed his bum leg that prevented him from joining her.

"It'll be fine, Zuko, I promise."  She pressed a kiss to his forehead, and then another to his lips.  She lingered there for one delightful moment before pulling away.  "Now let's get this guy, okay?"

Zuko nodded and saw her off.  Wheeling himself forward, he picked up binoculars and followed Toph and Katara's path along the pond's smooth stepping stone bridge all the way to the other end of the garden.  Most of it was still on his property, but near the end, they stepped over the boundary onto foreign territory.  The neighbor had been digging up his side of the soil (yet another factor that pointed to his guilt; what could he be burying there?) and so the ground all around them was loose.  They both carefully avoided stepping in dirt and leaving footprints, Toph as agile as ever and Katara meticulous with each and every fall of her feet.  

They made it into the house without a problem.  The lock on the door was child's play for an earthbender.  They vanished from view into the house, down a hallway lit by a single dying lamp.  Zuko gripped his binoculars tightly, alternating between the large open windows where Katara and Toph had just reappeared, to the gates his neighbor had gone through, swinging in the wind.  He kept the lantern close.  He had no matches, but a flame would be easy for him, if not exactly inconspicuous.  There was no helping it.  Call him a worrywart, but he wouldn't risk wheeling himself back inside across the spacious bedroom to the dresser where the matches were buried under some robes, while Katara was going through drawers and cabinets on enemy grounds.  She didn't even know what she was looking for, and judging from the smirk Toph wore and the glares Katara threw at her every few minutes, she wasn't getting much help either.  

For now, he kept steady his vigil, wave the all clear sign whenever Katara looked up.  She paused in her search at one point to pace around the living space.  It was nice to look at with it's clean, modern furnishings and fine decorations, but all Zuko could see was the blood that might have been splattered on those walls, or the holes that could be hidden behind those paintings.  He focused on Katara.  She had picked up something from the end table, examining it on all sides with a puzzled expression, muttering words Zuko couldn't make out.  

Zuko turned to the gates for one second.  Looked back at Katara.  Snapped back to the gates which were closed where they had moments ago been open.

The neighbor was coming back.

His sack hung at his side, empty and limp.  He walked slowly along the path, eyes shifting back and forth at the homes on his side of the block.  They were silent and still, their residents unaware of what lurked next door to them.  

Zuko fumbled with the binoculars, saved from dropping them only by the strap tangled around his wrist.  He punched a flame into the lantern.  The neighbor either didn't see it or didn't think anything of it.  He never once looked Zuko's way as he started across the bridge.

"Come on, Katara, look up," Zuko said through grit teeth.  "Look up."

She did.  Her face was bright as if a major revelation had come to her.  She only faltered a little at the glowing lamplight, turning to Toph to let her know that it was time to go.  As one, the two of them ran.  Toph for the door... Katara for the bedroom.

Wait, what the hell did she think she was doing?

Toph reached the door and ran around the corner.  The neighbor wasn't there yet, having stopped to check the flowers in his garden and stomp down some risen mounds of soil.  Toph pressed her body flat against the side of the house out of sight, waiting for him to turn his back before she took off, never once looking back.  And Katara was still inside.

Katara was still inside.

"Why did you leave her like that?" Zuko shouted when Toph slid onto the balcony on her always bare feet.  "He's going back inside right now!"

"Hey, don't blame me, Sparky," she snapped back.  "I told Sugar Queen we had to go, but she said she had an idea and she needed to find something first."

"Find something?  Find what?  What could be so important that she'd risk getting caught?"

"How should I know?  She just told me to go on without her and she'd be back soon."

Unable to argue further, Zuko grabbed his binoculars.  The neighbor had just reentered his home.  The sack had been deposited in a refuse bin and as the door closed behind him, Zuko felt as though he was right there, hearing the slam and the click of the lock echo endlessly in his ears.  Any second now, that man would go into his bedroom, and if Katara was in there, there would be no way out.

'No, don't think like that,' Zuko told himself furiously.  'She's a waterbender.  She took down Azula, she can take this guy.  It's just the fear talking.  It's just the fear talking.  It's just the fear talking.'

"Do you see anything?"

Toph's voice jolted Zuko back to reality, and he pressed the lens so hard into his eyes that it hurt.  His acute hearing had yet to pick up any sounds, be it a voice or a thud or a scream.  The neighbor seemed to just be walking around his house like nothing was wrong.  He moved across the living room without a clue of how it had been searched moments ago.

"She's not there," Zuko said, and once again, he felt the fear and the dark thoughts start to take over.  "I can't see her.  What if he catches her?"

"Come on, Zuko, you have to have more faith in me than that."

Zuko spun the chair around, so fast that it made him dizzy.  Katara leaned against the door, arms crossed with an easy smile.  Something blue in color was clutched to her chest, and she seemed to be taking care not to crush it.  She went to his side and looked out at the neighbor, lounging on his couch none the wiser.  

"Sorry for making you wait for me," she said.

"But how did you get out without him seeing you?"

"Well, he has a back door."

Katara sunk to her knees to meet his eyes.  Whatever she had taken was balled up in her hand and she seemed to dance in place with excitement.

"I realized as I was looking around his house that there were a lot of recreations of water tribe artwork, and I couldn't believe I never noticed that him and his wife were obviously water tribesmen."

"So what does that mean?" asked Toph.

"It means," Katara said without looking away from Zuko, "that if there's one thing I know about my people, it's that no self-respecting married woman would ever go anywhere... without her betrothal necklace."

Katara opened her hand, letting a small pendent on a blue ribbon hang from her ring finger before Zuko's eyes.  He took in the carvings and the tiny flecks of red that peppered the string, and he thought he could've kissed Katara.

So he did.