A Small Thing
---
She had almost healed him.
She been so close-- oh, La, so close, with her fingertips on the edge of that horrible burn and her thumb lightly brushing the bottom of his lip-- to healing him, to helping him.
To helping the enemy.
Of course, he hadn't seemed like the enemy at the time. Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation had completely changed since their last close encounter (when he had tied her to a tree and held her mother's necklace close to her throat, his breath warm against her skin). He had been only Zuko, a boy who needed help, a boy without his mother, a boy whose dreams had crumbled to dust, a boy who was trying to rebuild from the rubble. He was not dangerous. He was only Zuko. Only a person who needed her.
And what was it that she had told Sokka just the other day?
"I will never, EVER turn my back on people who need me!"
Nevertheless.
She had almost healed him.
And-- here was the scary part-- she had actually wanted to do it. She'd felt pity and sympathy for her companion in the Crystal Catacombs. She'd felt a… a familiarity, if she dared to go that far, for a fellow motherless warrior. She felt a desperate, aching need to heal this person with the ghosts of his past so cruelly and permanently etched onto that otherwise handsome face.
But if she had healed him, Aang wouldn't be alive right now.
On the other hand, if Zuko hadn't betrayed them in the first place, Azula could have been defeated right then and there. Katara had had the little bitch in her grasp, after all. The princess had been thoroughly trounced, outnumbered and outskilled, when Zuko had arrived to even the odds.
Damn him.
How could she have even thought of helping him? What kind of a fool was she? A little persuasion, a little kindness, and she had completely melted. Just as she'd done with Jet.
Too trusting, Sokka had said she was. How true. How disgustingly true.
…but she couldn't help remembering just how warm his breath had been that night with the pirates surrounding her; just how lovely it had been to put her hand on his face, to feel the throb of life at his temple and the radiant warmth of his skin and the surprising softness of his bottom lip against the pad of her finger.
And she wondered how close 'almost' really was.
---
Word Count: 421
Author's Note: I've never really written an A:TLA fic, but I watch the show (albeit erratically) and I'm totally in love with Zutara. I couldn't help but make this for my little drabbles or oneshots that pop up. I hope you enjoyed this one!