A/N: I love this pairing. So, so much. I'll be sorely disappointed when it (officially) dies next season.
Don't take the last two lines literally, 'kay?
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He stood there, soaked to the bone, with water drip drip dripping on the floor in front of her.
He stood there, a confused look on his face, although why he was confused, Katara didn't know. She had every right to be puzzled – it was the middle of the night, raining, and there was a young man standing in the doorframe – but him? His expression (and very presence) unnerved her, and the aggressive tone of her question died before leaving her lips.
"Why are you here?"
He ran a pale, slender hand through his mess of black hair and averted his gaze.
"I… I don't know."
Well, that certainly wasn't the answer Katara had been hoping to hear.
"If you don't know, then you're wasting my time. I had been asleep, you know. I'd like for you to leave now." She had meant to sound strong and only slightly condescending, but her voice wavered between the truth and the lies she had just told him.
Because he wasn't wasting her time.
He hadn't woken her.
And she didn't want him to leave.
But Zuko was still Zuko, and the world didn't work that way. Fire Nation royalty and common folk from the Water Tribe were at two opposite ends of the spectrum. It just didn't work that way.
She realized that she had been watching him, and their eyes locked together, as if pulled by some force far beyond their control.
Fire met water.
Boy met girl.
It was the start of one story, and the end of another.
She could suddenly feel his arm slip around her waist, and was startled. She didn't know he had moved from his spot at the door.
He was close. Too close. Much too close.
And Katara was still undecided.
So as his eyes (gold, like the sun) slid shut and her eyes (blue, like the moon) widened, she did the only thing that came to mind.
She punched him square in the nose.
The waterbender was pretty sure she heard bones crack – his or hers, she couldn't tell – but did nothing to heal them. She ran into the pouring rain, the droplets cool against her face, and cried. She cried and she laughed all at once.
She didn't know why or how she was reacting this way, and didn't hear the shouts of "Katara!" or "You broke my nose, you little waterbending peasant!" and she could've sworn she heard "Oma!" but it might have been the wind.
A strange feeling settled in the pit of her stomach, a feeling much like what she had felt when Jet first kissed her, only a million times stronger.
The feeling intensified as the sun came out;
It was still raining.
If the sun and the rain could work together, why couldn't fire and water?
Zuko and Katara?
She didn't have the answer, but she knew that it wasn't time for the solar eclipse.
Not yet, anyway.