A/N: Happy Zutara week!
I'm putting Katara at about twenty-two and Zuko at twenty-four.
Prompt: Calor (Spanish for "heat")
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Much Needed Heat
Katara, having finished the meeting in the North Pole's palace, headed back to the house in the snowy city that she and her husband were staying in.
Zuko had been supposed to go to the meeting too, but he had felt ill that morning and had been unable to come, so Katara, being a skilled diplomat herself, went alone. As she had expected, it had gone well, and she couldn't wait to tell Zuko.
Upon arriving in the house, she deposited the scrolls she had been carrying on a shelf, and went into the bedroom to check on Zuko, where she had left him bundled and curled in layers of furs this morning, only to find he wasn't there.
"Zuko?" She called, turning around.
"I'm in the bathroom." Came his warm voice, sounding much better than the chattering whimper she'd heard coming from him before she left, making her smile to hear him sounding normal.
She made her way into the bathroom, and raised an eyebrow at what she saw. Her husband was lying almost completely submerged in steaming water in the stone tub in the center of the room, probably naked, and he looked absolutely content, when this morning he had been shivering, red faced, and barely able to move. "Zuko?"
"Yes?"
"What are you doing? You couldn't even get out of bed when I left." Katara said, moving closer.
"Well, I decided to try something."
"And?"
"Well, it was the damned cold making me sick. Once I got nice and warm I was fine." Zuko replied, a perfectly blissful smile gracing his features.
"You were that miserable because you were cold?"
Zuko shrugged. "You grew up in this climate, where it's cold and everything's snow for hundreds of miles. I didn't, so I'm at a disadvantage here."
Katara sighed, wondering why she hadn't thought of that. Maybe it had to do with what Zuko had just said, that she was at home in the cold. "All right sweetheart, from now on you can stay home and I'll go on diplomatic trips."
"Only here. I like going to the Earth Kingdom."
"Fine, only here."
"Besides, when we're traveling is really the only time we get a lot of time completely to ourselves." Zuko's smirk made Katara smirk as well. "Now how about you take off those furs and join me?"
Katara smiled seductively, and lowered her eyelids. She'd become quite good at this sort of thing in the four years that she'd been married to Zuko. "Well, if you insist, my lord." Katara got undressed, and slid into the hot water beside him.
He snaked an arm around her shoulders, and drew her closer to his side, his golden eyes looking her over.
"Feel better, dearest?" Katara asked in a teasing tone.
"Hmm, yes, I very much needed some heat."
Katara gave a smile. "I suppose I did too."
End