Katara quickly shook her head, rising to her feet as well. "Zuko, don't apologize," she said firmly, shoving aside her own thoughts in order to focus on stopping the retreat he seemed determined to make. "And don't leave. Please."
She'd asked him the very same thing, once before. When they had first arrived and were staying in the teen centre. Following the awkwardness of that first morning, after waking up in his arms. She had asked him to not leave then, too, but he had.
Somehow, she held onto the hope that he'd listen to her, this time around.
"It isn't..." she stopped, sighing, not sure quite what to say or what she'd been about to say. Yet Katara wanted to make him realize that, as far as mistakes went, this one wasn't horrible. Ultimately, though, she decided on another course entirely.
"I think you should talk to Mikaela." Oh but how it hurt Katara to utter that sentence. Mikaela didn't know him, couldn't know him, not really. But it seemed like the right thing for him to do. Mikaela, after all, was his girlfriend. Katara... simply wasn't.
"And you need to get rid of that mask," she added with a little more firmness in her tone. "You can't keep hiding who you are, Zuko, and you'll never become the man you want to be if you do."