Well! This is very drabble-ish...and kinda wierd...but I think that I did an okay job, at least, of capturing a (possible) aspect of Zuko and Katara's relationship. If you don't like anit-Zutara, and anti-Zuko in general, then this fic probably isn't for you. Well...enjoy!

-metamorphosis-

"Forever yours."

Yeah, right.

Sometimes, in the dead of night, when Katara knew for sure that the world wasn't watching, she would try to understand him.

It wouldn't be much; just a flicker of wistfulness, of wanting to know what he hid. To know what was under that mask of hatred and bitterness. To find out what, exactly, had caused that scar that marred his otherwise perfect face. To pretend that there is indeed a way to succeed in defying the sands of time; to convince herself that the past does not, in fact, foretell the future.

Now, Katara lays thinking about him at night, but for a different reason.

Or so she tells herself.

Katara tries to convince herself that whatever insult she spat out today was true; that there's even the slightest possibility that she would go through with her threat and actually kill him.

There, she'll say to herself, that's all our relationships built on. Walls of (blissful) lies and hordes of (empty) threats.

But sometimes, in the dead of night, when Katara knows for sure that the world isn't watching, she'll still try to understand him.

Katara will watch him and obsess over each little detail, and wonder why all that has come between them had to be there in the first place.

One day, maybe, Katara will trust him. She'll throw away the past for the present and love him like he deserves.

The wonderful feeling of safety, and faith, will return, and truly, infinitely, trust him.

Trust him.

In the end, though—and this is what Katara will constantly, eternally try to deny—Zuko will betray her, like he did before. But this time, Katara will be broken forever and ever and ever and ever, because she wasn't smart enough to fall in love with the grey-eyed, bubbly airbender, like she knows she should, or keep that memory of glowing green crystals and broken promises burned into her mind just quite long enough to make it stick.

After all, sometimes, in the dead of night, when she knows for sure the world isn't watching, she'll still try to understand him.

Katara laughs bitterly and clutches the empty necklace in her hand all the tighter, defying the will of the Spirits--and failing--even now; even now when no one is watching

She was caught in the cycle from the very beginning, wasn't she?

Katara rolls over and tries to pretend that the sands of time can ever be broken.

There are some things you just can't change.

Hope you liked it! It's kind of wierd, I know...Um...please tell me what you though (please)!