Yay! Erika and I have been waiting so long to post this wonderful story! We wrote this through text. xD I hope you enjoy this!

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Disclaimer: We own nothing! Except the idea for this story.

Enjoy!

-Gina

"Thank you, everyone! I hope you are enjoying the party! I am so glad that everyone could make it and know how happy we are to be getting married!" Cheers broke out through the ballroom and Katara clapped as she watched her older brother kiss his fiancée with the utmost sweetness. She smiled and caught her boyfriend watching her across the room. He smiled brightly and waved over Bosco's-a bear?-furry body. The waterbender looked away quickly and decided to escape to the balcony overlooking the Earth Kingdom's upper ring.

Things were so confusing these days. What was going on with her? How could she even feel for him, the man in which she was not in a relationship with? She had been on and off with Aang since the war ended a few years ago, but she had been seeing Zuko for nearly the same amount of time. She told herself that as long as they didn't do anything (they hadn't done anything, but they came frighteningly close), it was perfectly fine.

A knock sounded on the intricately crafted doors and she jumped. Katara turned and found the man in question looking at her with a small smile.

"Are you alright?" You rushed out of there really quickly." Fire Lord Zuko held a goblet in his hand, slowly walking to Katara's side.

"So you have been watching me." She stared as the firebender shrugged ambivalently and took a sip of whatever he had in his glass, her eyes meeting his. The healer woman decided that she was suddenly interested in watching an underage Fire Nation soldier sneak a drink as a blush splashed across her cheeks.

"Look at them," Zuko insisted, nodding toward Sokka and Suki, each one with a glass of some kind of sparkling drink in one hand and their other arms linked together. "They're happy." He reached forward to take her hand in his but stopped short just as his fingertips grazed her knuckles.

"I could give you that. I could give you anything you want. Just…stay with me. Be my Fire Lady."

"You what?" her stunned voice recoiled.

"Think of it…" He trailed off, gently tucking a piece of her brown hair behind her ear. "Servants answering to your every word, fine silks adorning your beautiful body…" Katara shivered as he daringly kissed her ear in the most knee-softening, stomach-flipping way. Closing her eyes, she thought of the future he drew into her mind. Them holding hands in the gardens, him planting searing hot kisses down her neck. Little children with eyes of gold and turquoise running around the room and jumping on the bed.

She took a deep breath…and stepped back. "I'm sorry, Zuko. I'm with Aang right now, and he needs me. I…" She looked at him and saw the small smile on his face, but the pain in those burning amber eyes revealed too much of the truth, too much of the absolute destruction she had caused him. "I…have to go. Goodnight."

"Another time, then," he compromised. "Goodnight."

Katara turned from him and walked back into the ballroom. While sitting next to her airbender, thoughts of Zuko and what her future could be circled in her head.

It was horribly wrong. How could he think she could just leave the boy she was tied to? What would the others say? What would theworld say? It hadn't been like this before, but after the unexpected death of her father, Katara had only responded to Zuko and his comfort. Neither knew why. Throughout her depression, their relationship grew exponentially; but, of course, the time they spent together fostered a whole new field of emotions.

At first, they hated it. Hated themselves for even thinking it. However, the benders had acknowledged their feelings and knew that they wouldn't-couldn't-act on them: it was wrong to. She was with Aang and he had been with Mai, though that relationship was over before it even began when Mai discovered that being Fire Lord was not a life of complete luxury.

But now? Katara was nearing adulthood, and Zuko had already reached it. Perhaps it was time they acted for themselves instead of the world.

Hours later, after the musicians had packed away their instruments and goodbyes were said, the original gang-plus Iroh and most of the Kyoshi Warriors-was shown to their assigned rooms of a ridiculously fancy, five-star Earth Kingdom hotel that the Earth King had arranged for the heroes. There, Katara sat at her window, staring up at the crescent moon.

Personally, she disliked all of the preparations that were always made when she visited a different town. She would rather have everyone there, sleeping around a fire next to her, just like they had during the war. It was way too quite now.

In short? The silence made Katara think.

It made her think of the wasted time and the pang of longing and loneliness-or maybe it was regret and remorse-that settled heavily in the pit of her stomach. Made her think of the future that was currently ahead of her compared to the future she could have if she veered just a little off the path that was already paved for her. Made her think that she shouldn't be thinking but acting on what she wanted.

Katara stuffed her feet into slippers and shuffled along the cool black floor beneath her, drawing her thin robe closer to her. She glanced at the markings carved on the doors of the high-class suites, stopping at Zuko's room and lightly tapping on the door. The candles that flickered in the brass sconces on the walls unnerved her terribly-maybe it was because of the unsteadiness of the flame or how the fire threatened to disappear if she made the wrong move. She counted ten cat-owl screeches and knocked again. When she heard no movement from within, the bronze of her hand reached for the knob on the door.

She could see Zuko's sleeping silhouette beneath the thick weave of sheets and took slow steps toward the bed. His trademark scowl was still very prominent on his face, his brow still furrowed threateningly like he was in the midst of all of those vigorous training he does every day. The mattress sank noticeably as she perched herself on the edge of the bed and the sudden, unwanted shift in his sleep jerked Zuko upright.

Before she could take in the situation at hand, Katara found herself sprawled on the floor with the firebender above her as stars exploded in her vision and the breath flew out of her lungs.

Soon enough, realization sparked into Zuko's eyes and he quickly picked her up and set her on the bed. "Katara?" he asked as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "What in Agni's name are you doing here?"

Glaring in his direction, she collected her breath and bearings. "One, that hurt. Two-" She looked up at him through her lashes and at that moment, Katara realized that the courage that brought her to his room in the first place rushed out of her and was noticeably and inconveniently absent. "Bad dream," she heard herself say.

Quickly, his amused expression disappeared and Zuko brought her into his arms. "Was it about your father?" he asked with concern.

"I…" Katara clearly had no clue what to say. "I don't remember that much of it. It…um…there was water? Yeah. And, uh…fire? Um…mostly fire? And…and my dad. Yeah." Using her father as an excuse for a bad dream was okay, right?

Sorry, daddy, she thought, rolling her eyes discreetly. She was hopeless when it came to lying. It seemed to work on Zuko, though, because he held her tighter and tucked her head beneath his chin.

"It was just a dream. Nothing was real and nothing could happen to him. I promise you that, okay?" With a relieved sigh, she nodded and relaxed further into his embrace.

Sitting on his bed, arms wrapped around each other and hands twined, Katara smiled and slowly became more at ease with the idea of actually being with this man. Maybe it wasn't so wrong after all. It was so...right, and warm, and comfortable.

"So…that's the only reason you came to see me?" A twinge of hope could be heard in his Zuko's voice as he stroked the back of her hand.

And he just had to go and make it all uncomfortable again.

"Um…" Katara cleared her throat. "I…yes. That's the only reason." She quickly untangled herself from his lap and headed for the door.

Zuko sighed heavily. "Why can't you just say it already?" he asked softly. She froze at the foot of his bed.

"Say what, exactly?"

Zuko rose from his seat with a chuckle and walked toward the open window. Leaning on one arm against the frame, he stared at the silver moon. "That you love me.' His voice was no more than a whispered breath, but in the stiff silence of the room, he could have shouted it and it wouldn't have sounded any louder.

Katara gawked at him, trying to find words. "I-I don't-"

"You're so easy to read. I can see everything in those baby blues of yours. There's no point in lying." The moon's light caressed his pale skin as he turned his amber eyes on her.

"Be my Fire Lady," he said once more, on the verge of demanding. "Marry me." He paused briefly and a dark laugh was strangled in his throat. "Why won't you stay with me?" Now he was pacing in a tight circle, clenching and unclenching his fists regularly.

"Zuko." If his whispered name caught his attention, he didn't pay any mind to it.

"I don't understand. Why won't you choose to be with someone that loves you for you and not because you make a good egg custard tart? Oh, wait. Is it because I'm not doing it the traditional way?"

"Zuko," she tried again, but he just pushed past her and rummaged around in one of his bags.

"I carved you a necklace and everything," he declared, kneeling before her and presenting the necklace in his open palms. "I even got your father's blessing," he ended quietly.

Even though tears welled furiously in her eyes, Katara refused to let them spill over. "Get up," she attempted to snap, but the hurt on his face leeched any negative emotion out of her. "We have a problem, Zuko."

"What's wrong? Oh, sages, please tell me you're not marrying Aang."

The traitor smile she had been biting back refused to obey her wishes and wound up on her face. "It's not customary for a waterbender to be Fire Lady," she said eventually.

For a moment, the young Fire Lord simply stared at her in a daze, his gaze locking with hers, until Katara could feel an embarrassing warmth splash across her cheeks.

"Are you going to keep staring, or are you going to say something?" she whispered.

Instead of speaking a word, Zuko stood and his pale hands went up to cradle her face, the necklace swinging like a pendulum from his fingers. She could see the happiness and disbelief on his face, and at that moment, all she could do was more closer to him and press her lips to his.

It was amazing how, no matter how many times she kissed him before, nothing could compare to how she felt as she moved his mouth on hers just then. How his fingers painted warm circles on her cheekbones. How she could feel his pulse thrumming against her skin.

He pulled back slowly, his kiss lingering on her lips, and rested his forehead on hers as they struggled to tame their ragged breaths.

"You have no idea how long I've waited for this," he explained. Katara laughed, though it came out as more of a throaty sigh, and pelted him with a series of quick pecks. She could feels the silk of the necklace brushing against the side of her neck; curiosity got the best of her. His fingers uncurled from their grip on the delicate necklace and she took the jewelry out of his hands.

Even in the dim light of the room, Katara could see the major differences between the rugged necklace around her neck and the streamlined one she now held safely in her palms.

The ribbon was a silky strand of black with threads of amethyst coursing though the material; the violet thread would catch the sun's rays or candlelight and turn it a color akin to the auroras that rarely painted the South Pole's dark horizon.

And the stone…it was so different from anything Katara had ever seen. The carving was the exact pattern as her mother's necklace, so the smooth furrows in the stone were familiar under her fingers, but the flat rock itself was extraordinary. It was a swirl of the purest, brightest white, peppered with glittering flecks, and the deepest, coldest black that seemed to pull her into its inky darkness.

Katara looked up to Zuko's anxious face.

"It's-it's uh, quartz and obsidian," he said, as if it would really matter. "You know. Um, day and night. Sun and moon. Us." The firebender shrugged helplessly, though his amber eyes sparked with hope.

"It's amazing," the healer woman breathed. A moment of still, comfortable silence passed between the two as Katara stared at the necklace in her copper palms. Despite her engagement, she couldn't help but worry about everything that was sure to follow.

Right then, she decided it didn't matter. Katara loved Zuko, and Zuko loved Katara.

"We are going to be in so much trouble for this," she said as she gave him his betrothal necklace back and reached up to carefully unclasp the one she got from her mother, more than ten years ago.

The waterbender drew a shaky breath as she turned away from Zuko and attempted to gather the mass of her unruly hair over her shoulder. Zuko stood still for a moment, just watching her gather her hair into a loose ponytail at her throat. She could feel his eyes on her-possessive and warm and tender all in the same expression-yet a fierce blush didn't flood her face, like she had been expecting.

The aggressive rush of color to he cheeks came when she could feel his chest against her back and as he brought the piece in question up to her throat.

Her fingers found the new stone while she walked hesitantly to large mirror on the wall. She gasped quietly as she took in the reflection. Somehow, she looked rather…different than she did when she last saw herself. Now she had tingling lips and a warm hue on her cheeks. Even her eyes, the familiar eyes that everyone in her family possessed, seemed brighter, or maybe bluer than usual.

Zuko moved to stand behind her, clasping his hands around her and resting his chin on her shoulder. Their eyes met in the mirror, and he smiled. "You look like a Fire Lady," he commented.

Laughing softly, Katara rested her hands on his forearms. "You mean Fire Ladies always have swollen lips and look like a disaster?"

The Fire Lord kissed her cheek lovingly, nuzzling the side of her face. "That's what they're known for," he shrugged, grinning. "It's a fashion for them. You'll get used to it soon enough."

This time, Katara didn't reign in on her giggles; she laughed heartily and leaned into his strong embrace. "I bet I will," she agreed.

Fin.