Metronome

By Chibi Ra Chan

Part of GreenifyMe's Zutarian Week Challenge

Theme 1 of 7; Denim

Notes; Not much to say, this is modern Day AU. Which is a first for me to be writing. I hope you enjoy it!

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When he was six, his mother forced him to go to kindergarten.

In his childlike mind, she was doing it just to be mean and wanted to get rid of him. He cried harder then he had ever remembered crying. He cried even though he knew that it got on his father's nerves, and that according to his stupid little sister only babies cried, but Zuko didn't care, he just wanted to stay home.

Ultimately his father literally pried him from his mother's arms and dropped him off in front of the school telling him to meet him at the same spot at noon

He remembered standing in the empty playground, waiting for something to happen, for his mother to come, or for a teacher to see him in the storm and bring him into the warm classroom. But it didn't happen. For nearly an hour, Zuko sat on the monkey bars alone, waiting for something.

The only something that occurred was thunder and lightning crashing.

He did the only thing he could think of, he ran.

He ran behind the school into the woods that his mother had always told him to never go into. 'Not like she cares.' he thought as another flashing of lighting lit up the gray blue sky.

He ran until his legs felt like jell-o and he couldn't run anymore. Just when he though that he wouldn't be able to take another step he heard a cry.

It wasn't an angry cry like the one's Azula gave him when he went into her room, and it wasn't the sad cry like the one's he'd been shedding earlier, it was a frustrated one?

Using the last of his strength, Zuko walked toward the yelling. Soon enough, he came to a clearing, with a big tree laying on the forest floor. Though, that wasn't what caught his attention. Facing away from him was a little girl, who looked about Azula's age.

She was much tanner then he was, and her brown hair was falling out of it's pony tail ant stuck to the back of her blue tank top. She shivered slightly from the cold rain and was pulling on something under the tree, talking to herself.

Was she crazy? It was fall, it was waaaaaaaay to cold to be still wearing tanks tops. Pushing his wet hair out of his face, Zuko called out, the sound was raspy and dry, from his earlier tears. "What are you doing?"

The girl squealed in surprise and turned around. At once Zuko noticed how blue her eyes were, they were bluer then any crayon he had ever seen. "My jacket got stuck. Who are you?" she yelled out. He now saw the small denim jacket that lay under the tree.

"Zuko. How did your jacket get under there?" The little girl gave him a look that made him feel like the question was silly, and not completely justified.

"What kind of name is Zuko?" she asked sitting on the tree trunk, her little arms folded in front of her.

Zuko glared at her. He happened to like his name. And told her as much. "Zuko is a good name. It's better then yours."

She gave him a strange look, still very much uneasy around him. "Stupid, I didn't tell you my name. How can yours better if you don't even know mine?" She grinned darkly and it reminded him of his 5 year old sister.

Zuko blushed, a deep contrast from his pale skin, made even paler by the cold rain. "I..Uh…" He couldn't think of anything to say that didn't sound stupid. The girl broke into his embarrassment by laughing.

He liked the sound of it. It reminded him of wind chimes on a windy day. It was weird. He usually didn't like the sound of girls laughing. Better yet, he usually didn't like girls at all.

"My names' Katara. Nice to meet you." She smiled prettily.

His cousin Lu Ten had told him that all girls had cooties. Lu Ten was usually right about everything, but he couldn't imagine Katara having cooties.

"You're turning really red are you okay?"

"I'm fine! You ask stupid questions!" He yelled, but the sound was drowned out by the pouring rain. He didn't like the way his stomach was fluttering like he had eaten a bunch of butterflies. It was her fault, he didn't know how he knew it, but he did.

If Katara had heard him yelling then she didn't let on. "My jacket got stuck I was running away from the pirates and then this tree fell and it got my jacket." She said as if it was completely obvious.

Zuko blinked it surprise. "Pirates?" there were not pirates anymore. His mother had said that they were only in movies. Not real.

She glared at him, well she tried glaring but it kind of hard to glare at age five. "Yeah, They were after me because they want this!" She pulled out a ribbon from her pocket and showed it to him. The ribbon had a paper circle taped to it and was colored sloppily with blue markers. She grinned at him "It's treasure, and their after it!"

Zuko was a smart boy, he knew that there weren't really pirates, that she was playing make believe, that he was too old to play baby games (He was the very wise age of six, you know), but the way she smiled at him made him want to play along.

"Oh, well uh, we have to get your jacket from under the tree. So you can get away."

"But they'll find me! They'll stop at nothing to get the treasure!!" Clearly she had been exposed to too many pirate movies in her lifetime.

Zuko nodded and squatted next to the tree his earlier fatigue forgotten completely, and tugged on the denim jacket. "That's-" tug "Okay-" a few more tugs and a groan was heard and Katara raised an eyebrow.

Channeling all of his strength Zuko pulled with all of his strength and the jacket came free, sending him flying on his butt into the wet forest floor.

Katara quickly ran to him asking is he was okay. He smiled at her and handed her the jacket. "It's okay-" He lied, his butt would hurt for a few more days "Here. Now you can escape."

She shook her head, and the last of her hair fell out of ponytail. "No I already told you, they won't stop until-" Zuko grabbed her shoulders, to stop her hair from hitting him in the face anymore.

Katara watched him with confusion. "Don't worry." His voice was strangely serious for a six year old boy. "I'll save you from the pirates."

Somewhere in the back of her five year old mind, something felt familiar about this, but the thought drifted away as quickly as it came. She nodded once resolutely. "Okay, but you better-"

"Katara!"

The voice boomed over the rain, and said girl whipped around toward the voice so quickly that her hair hit Zuko in the face, again.

"That's my dad." She looked back at him and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, I have to go." She ran toward the voice, but stopped after a few steps and went back to Zuko.

"What are you-" His sentence was cut off as Katara kissed him the check. He blushed even more then before.

"That's for protecting me. Bye Zuko!" This time she really did leave. Zuko watch until he couldn't see here anymore, completely shocked by her kiss.

Dazed, he made his way through the woods, back to school, where the students were being let out to go home. Had he really been with Katara that long?

When his father's car showed up, Zuko was happily shocked to see that, it was not his father, but his uncle Iroh.

"My favorite nephew, how was your first day of school?"

"Okay." Was the only answer he gave as he put on his seatbelt. "Do girls really have cooties?"

Iroh laughed. "No they don't Zuko. Why would you ask such a thing?"

"Girls are weird Uncle." Iroh merely chuckled to himself and kept driving.

Zuko though, came to the conclusion that the girl, Katara, he kept telling himself, was defiantly weird. She had too many mood swings, watched too many pirate movies, and was younger then him. But he liked her laugh and her pretty crayon blue eyes.

Yes, Zuko decided that he like Katara very much, even if she really did have cootie.

Closing Notes: Baby Zuko equal Win. Thats really all there is to it. If all goes well then I"ll have a new chapter up everyday. That may require some serious work on my part considering I'm the laziest person alive, but I vow to try my hardest. Please enjoy!!

Forever and Eternally,

-Ra