Background on this story: Everything that happened in the Season 2 finale has no effect on this story. Its like it never happened. Which means, Zuko is not with Azula, Ba Sing Se is still under Earth Kingdom control, and that Aang is still the Avatar.
Anyway, in this story, Aang, Katara, Sokka, Iroh, and Zuko are at the Fire Nation Palace, since they had overthrown Ozai, and Zuko refuses to be Fire Lord until he thinks he is ready, which Katara believes is never, so Iroh has taken the Fire Lord's place for now. Zuko wonders all around the palace visiting all the places that he and his mother had spent time.
After the battle, Toph receives a letter telling her that her parents wanted to speak with her about her actions, so Aang convinced her to go home, and she was stay home for a year to "catch up with her parents" which is where she is in this story. Aang is 13, Sokka is 16, Katara is 15, Zuko is 17, and Iroh is 67 (that is a guess..lol).
Disclaimer: I so do not own any of the Avatar characters and places that are mentions in this oneshot. I also do not own the awesome Lion King song, "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" which I think is written by Elton John and Tim Rice…but that might be the Broadway edition.
Katara stepped out into the private Fire Lord gardens (which Iroh insisted she use for Waterbending training) and glanced around. She had seen this garden many times, since she passed it on the way to the infirmary, where she took care of wounded soldiers, but had never set foot into it. She noticed that there were two ponds, one for turtle ducks, that looked like it was taken right out of the wild with its weeds and such, while the other was much more beautiful. There was a tree leaning over it and, on the left and right sides of the ponds, there were beautiful flowers planted. She didn't want to take all the water from beautiful pond, so she decided to do small moves.
She took of her shoes off and stepped into the pond. The moonlight from the nearly full moon cast a silvery look across the pond. She bended the water around her ankles, and took deep breaths in and out, using her healing powers to take the pain off her tired feet. She had spent her day running back and forth between the war room and the hall where she was supposed to spend time with the noblemen's wives. It seemed every time she returned to the hall, she was called back. Multiple times she had cursed the previous Fire Lords for building the war rooms on one side of the palace and the halls on the other.
She drew a small stream of water from the pond and started shaping it into little orbs of snow and ice. She was so focused on her bending, she did not hear a certain firebender creep into the garden and sit down on the other side of the pond to practice his firebending.
Zuko glanced up at Katara, who was forming a snow storm in her hands. Zuko mimicked her move, making fire rain down from his hands. But since he did not have a hand to catch the fire like Katara did, the fire fell down onto his legs, which caused him to yell out, which caused Katara to lose concentration, making her fall back into the pond. She glanced up at Zuko, who's face was scrunched up in pain. She ran over to him. As she knelt beside him she asked, "What did you do?" Zuko lifted his hands from his legs. With the aid of the light from the moon, she was able to see burnt holes in his pants, mainly in the upper thigh area. Under the holes in the pants, were burn marks were already turning red. She noticed he looked away, embarrassed.
"I was umm…mimicking your move.." He explained, with pink cheeks. She grinned at him.
"You made it rain fire?"
"Yes.."
Katara glanced down at Zuko's burnt pants and blushed.
"You're going to have to take them off for me to heal you." She said, her cheeks rosy and avoiding eye contact with Zuko.
"Oh.." He stood up and wiggled his pants off, exposing red shorts. Katara blocked her eyes with her hand.
"Couldn't you have done that behind a tree or something?" Zuko sat back down and looked at her.
"What? You've never seen a pant less guy before?"
"Of course I have! I have an older brother and I traveled with two boys, might I remind you."
"Yeah yeah, so are you going to heal me before the burns start to blister?"
Katara sighed as she drew some water from the pond.
"Patience is a sign of a great leader. That's what Iroh tells my brother whenever he's upset about food not coming fast enough."
Katara made the water form a healing glove and put her hand on Zuko's thigh. She looked away, breathing in and out, letting the water do the healing.
"I've heard that many times over my travels." Zuko stated, looking at the water while it mended the burnt flesh.
"So, I haven't seen you around the palace so much. Where have you been?" Katara asked, trying to spark a conversation while she healed the other leg.
"I've been in my mother's room. I was surprised Ozai didn't burn her things."
"So that's what that room is. I stumbled upon it once when I was hiding from Sokka a few days ago. I saw her jewelry and clothes. She must have been a beautiful woman to have such nice clothing."
"She was…dark black hair, pale white skin, the gold on her always reflected off the sun, making her shine."
Both Zuko and Katara were too focused on the conversation, they didn't hear Sokka and Aang pass by garden and notice them there. Sokka stopped at the railing and noticed that Katara was smiling. Then he noticed the look in her eyes, it was the same look that Aang had often used when looking at Katara when they first started out on their adventure.
"I can see what's happening.." Sokka said softly.
"What?" Aang said surprised.
"And they don't have a clue.."
"Who?"
"They'll fall in love and here's the bottom line, our trio's down to two."
"Oh."
"The sweet caress of twilight, there's magic in the air, and with all this romantic atmosphere, disaster's in the air." Sokka said, reciting a poem Suki had shown him on their last trip to Koyshi Island, "Can you feel the love tonight? The peace the evening brings, the world, for once, in perfect harmony ,with all its living things."
Zuko looked away from Katara's smile and whispered softly to himself,
"So many things to tell her, but how to make her see, the truth about my past? Impossible! She'd turn away from me."
Katara noticed how he turned away and whispered to herself,
"He's holding back, he's hiding. But what, I can't decide. Why won't he be the king I know he is, The king I see inside?"
From outside the garden, Sokka recited more of the poem.
"Can you feel the love tonight?, The peace the evening brings, The world, for once, in perfect harmony , With all its living things. Can you feel the love tonight? You needn't look too far, Stealing through the night's uncertainties, Love is where they are."
Both Aang and Sokka looked away as they saw Katara and Zuko leaning in to kiss.
And if he feels the love tonight, in the way I do…Katara thought.
Its enough for this restless wonderer…Zuko said to himself.
"Just to be with you." They both said softly.
Sokka turned away sadly and spoke.
"And if she falls in love tonight, It can be assumed…"
Aang turned and started walking down the hallway, while saying softly to Sokka,
"Her carefree days with us are history."
As they left the area near the garden, they both said, "In short, our pal is doomed."
Just as the two of them left, Zuko and Katara pulled away and started laughing.
"You think that got Sokka paranoid enough?" Katara said between laughs.
"It should have! And he should speak softer. That poem he was saying was quite loud!" Zuko said, his body shaking with laughter.
Katara stopped laughing, "But this does mean that my brother thinks we're in love…"
Zuko froze in place and frowned, "…Why didn't we think of that before we pulled this prank on him?"
Katara stood up, hands on her hips, with an angry look on her face. "What's so bad about being in love with me?"
"Um…uh.." Zuko stuttered, attempting unsuccessfully to think of something.
"Ugh…" Katara said before stomping away muttering something about stupid princes.
Then it dawned on Zuko and he ran up to Katara, grabbed her by the shoulders, turned her around, and crashed his lips with hers.
When they pulled apart, Zuko leaned his forehead against Katara's and whispered on word to her.
"Nothing."
Happy New Year everyone!! I hope this year will bring peace, love, harmony and…AN AWESOME SEASON OF AVATATR!! WHOO!! I hope it has as many twists as Season 2 had! I also hopes it has as much Zutara as there was Kataang in Season 2.
Anyway, this story is the product of listening to Can You Feel The Love Tonight? Over and over again. I had recently found my Lion King Broadway CD which I lost when I was 9 and listened to it over and over. This is also the product of me trying not to write a Kataang oneshot to the song Keep Holding On by Avril Lavigne, which is from the awesome move, Eragon!! But be on the look out for that Kataang oneshot, I feel that as a Zutara writer, you need to write about other ships to understand how your ship is the more dominant ship. :D Though it won't be out for a little while because I still have to figure out how to get my new laptop (which I'm on now) to have Microsoft Word on it forever, instead of a 60 day trial, and for the fact that I have to go back to school tomorrow.
May Zutara Shine Through In The New Year,
Waterbender-Katara