Summary: In a world where evil defeats good all these two have is one another and everyone else is against them. All they want is their destinies, but their true fates will be the ones to decide for them if they will be able to have them or not…

Zutara fic! If you don't understand my way of reading words in the punctuations here's what they mean:

'blah blah blah…' means that the person saying this is actually thinking it.

"Blah Blah Blah" means that the person saying this is actually whispering something out loud

"Blab blah blah" means that the person saying this IS saying it out loud in normal voice. And if there are capital words that means someone is screaming or raising his voice/her voice to someone else. The same goes with bold words.

I know this guide wasn't necessary but I did it just in case. I don't want people misinterpreting what I mean just by some punctuation marks and style of words (bold, italics, etc)

One other thing: ENJOY!

Their true fate. One that was supposed to happen and one that wasn't at the same time. They were meant to be together but his father was not supposed to return victorious in the end. The comet has already left by the time the Phoenix King returned to his homeland, a smug grin on his features. His son was not expecting his return, and neither was the Water Tribe Maiden with him, who was the Avatar's waterbending master. It wasn't until he saw his daughters limp body near the sewers, with her arms tied behind her back in chains, did his mouth turn into a scowl. He has failed to burn the whole entire Earth Kingdom to the ground, and now he sees this. His once powerful daughter defeated and mentally scarred, his only chance of having an heir suitable to his liking to take the Fire Nation's Throne was on the ground, beaten.

He noticed the Fire Sages that dwell the palace were staring at him in fear, terrified of what consequences he would put upon them. "What happened to my daughter?! How could you let my traitorous son do this to her?!" The sages slightly jumped at the sound of his booming, angry voice that scared them to no end.

"W-well m-my Lord, Prince Zuko, h-he challenged her to an agni k-kai. H-he would've lost but he h-had help from a Water Tribe girl…" The Head Fire Sage, the one who was about to make Azula Fire Lord right before the Agni Kai spoke, his voice wavering and his fear evident. The Phoenix King's eyes narrowed dangerously at the Head Sage. He was furious now, screaming demands at the palace's firebending imperial guards to bring him his traitorous son and the waterbending wench. He wanted to punish his son the likes of which he has never dreamed of before. He was furious that his son, the one he despised out of his two children the most, was the one to come out of this battle victorious. The one out of his two spawns who he thought was weaker than the other was fucking victorious for once in his weak, miserable existence. He let out a roar towards the sky, large amounts of fire and smoke escaping his mouth, larger if the comet were still above the skies. Oh, what he will do to punish his son for betraying him…

5 hours ago…

They both thought the worst was over. Boy, were they ever wrong. They decided to take a nap, to relax after their stressful battle with Azula. The servants set up the bed in the Fire Lord's chambers with new sheets, ridding the ones Azula slept in.

He plopped down on the bed groggily, as if he weighed a ton. He put both his hands on his face, one on each of the sides. He chuckled with relief, relief he has never felt before in his whole entire life as big as this. His destiny to take the thrown from his sister was done, and now he could finally relax in peace, without anyone endangering his life again. Or so he thought.

It was nightfall and he felt really sleepy, especially after the exhausting battle with his crazy sister. A couple of healers, followed by Katara, entered the room. He smiled as they entered the room, mainly to Katara the most. She returned the expression and sat down next to him on his bed. He tried getting up from his laying position, only to feel pain shoot up from all over his body; the source of his pain was from his chest where he got the scar just a few hours ago.

"Mphh…" He winced in pain while clutching his chest, with his eyes clenched tight and a grimace replacing his smile. Katara, looking at him in pained understanding, removed his hand from his chest and laid him back down in bed.

"Zuko, just lie down and stay still. I need to heal you more." Zuko grunted in disapproval.

"I'm fine, I just need some re—Oww!" He groaned as the pain from his chest came back again. She smiled at his stubbornness.

"Sorry Zuko but it seems this waterbender needs another healing session with you." Water suddenly moved towards her hands at her command, glowing once she touched his chest scar. "You know Aang had the same exact looking scar on his back? Weird right?"

He nodded. "I know…" He thought about what she said. It was very uncanny, even though they did get struck by a lightning bolt from the same person. He felt the cooling sensation from his chest withdraw and he winced in displeasure of not having that feeling on him anymore. He wanted to tell her to keep going but thought it weird to tell her that. "That's all?" He asked in slight pleading. She chuckled at his needy tone.

"Aww, does the almighty Fire Lord like water tribe peasants touching his scars? It seems you haven't changed much from the little talk we had in the catacombs underneath Ba Sing Se." She laughed making him look at her with shock. Then he laughed as well. "But of course you betrayed me and the others afterwards…" He instantly stopped his laughter and looked away in regret. He was about to apologize but then she cut him off. She knew he was about to apologize and felt bad for making him. "I'll heal you some more." She motioned the two healers in the room to give her more water and cloth bandages to cover his wound. They bowed and both left. Once she sat on his bed she repeated the healing session on him a little longer than the previous one. She felt all nerves and muscles underneath the scar all twisted around. Good thing it was only the small ones and not the functionally important ones.

Zuko lay there with his eyes closed, trying hard not to wince from all the rearranging she was doing to the flesh underneath his scar. The thing she said before didn't help to ease his painful situation. He never did apologize directly to her for things he's done against her in the past. He knew she didn't hate him anymore, or hoped she didn't, and plans to talk about all the bad things the old him did to her and apologize for them. She hit a painful spot, the source of his pain, underneath the scar and opened his eyes wide. "R…right there…". He closed his eyes again as he felt her literally mending all the loose ends in his chest. He cringed. 'Why does it hurt so much?'. Then after a while he began feeling the pain disappear, little by little. Then, it just stopped. He still felt tense around that area, but no more pain was there to wince about. She drew her hands away and stood, looking at her handiwork.

"That should do it. How do you feel?"

He sat on his bed and touched his scar. "A lot…better. Thanks a lot Katara…for everything…". He looked away and blushed a light tint of red. Unfortunately for him she noticed a little reddening on his face.

'Is he…blushing?' There was a temporary silence between the two. 'I should just go, he seems embarrassed for some reason…'.She turned around and headed for the door. She stopped at the entrance. "So umm…I should go get some rest now…. Good night Zuko." She waited for a response from him, or anything to know that he was feeling okay.

"Goodnight." He almost choked out but controlled his voice. He heard her leave. "Goodnight Katara…" He whispered to himself. 'And…I am very sorry for what I've done…'. A single tear escaped from his good eye. He wiped it off with his hand and lay back down on the bed. He positioned himself on his side, not bothering to cover himself with the blankets. It was summer in the Fire Nation after all. He tried falling asleep but whenever he moved his body around in bed his healing scar made him feel weird. It wasn't the first time he has ever felt like that. He dealt with that kind of problem after getting the scar on his face healed. He sighed. 'Stupid scar…stupid crazy sister…' He thought. Then he scolded himself for sounding like a child. It's not his fault his childhood was taken away from him and he knew that. And he won't be able to gain it back, ever. Not that he wanted to anyways.

Katara's room was right next to the Fire Lord's chambers, where Zuko was staying in. She entered it and felt goosebumps forming on her skin. She knew something was not right, not only with how Zuko was acting but how everything in the palace seemed so eerily quiet. Everything about this place so far disturbed her but she didn't want to mention it to Zuko or he might think that she's overreacting. She hugged herself to take away the chills. She plopped down on her bed and looked around her. She shrugged off her paranoia and slowly entered sleep.

He was running, running like there was no tomorrow, looking for the one thing that was important to him the most.

'Whatever you love I will take it away from you in an instant boy! You can't escape from me!' A booming voice called in the distance.

'C'mon, she has to be here somewhere!' He thought

'Come on out coward! I have a little someone you might be looking for…" His eyes widened when he saw who his father was holding and how he was holding that person, by her neck.

'Zuko, please help!" He ran to where the two were but they just kept moving farther away from him. Then in an instant he saw flames coming out of the man's free hand and move it towards her face. She was screaming her lungs out as he burned her whole entire face with his hand. Zuko fell to his knees and cried while he watched with eyes wide open. He couldn't do anything because he felt trapped somehow. He saw chains over his wrists behind him, which weren't there before. He let out a mad, frustrated yell and tried getting out of the chains.

'NO! KATARA!' He yelled as his father dropped her body down ungracefully.

'Pity I had to kill someone so beautiful. Now, it's your turn! Let's put another scar on that ugly face of your son.' Then he felt fire on his face and went black.

2 hours before Ozai's arrival…

She was woken up by a loud yell from someone next door. She remembered who was in the room next door and her eyes widened. She immediately came off the bed and rushed towards Zuko room. She saw him moving around violently in bed. She realized then that he was having a nightmare. She ran to him and sat by him on the bed. He didn't stir from his sleep.

"Zuko," She shook him lightly. "ZUKO!" She shook with greater force, which woke him up. He panted hard but relaxed a bit when seeing Katara there at his side. "You just had a nightmare, are you okay?" She asked as she bended the sweat off his forehead.

He was almost about to cry when he saw that Katara was okay but didn't allow himself to get all sappy over a nightmare. He chuckled in his mind over the effect the nightmare had on him. 'It felt so real though…'. He turned away. "I'm fine." He said, with gruffness in his voice to hide any of his true feelings. "You can go back to sleep, I'm sorry for disturbing you."

She felt slightly annoyed by him trying to push her away from what he really felt. She didn't want to force him to tell her what happened but she did want to know what he saw. She's not a big believer of what are seen in dreams but it seemed that this one was serious and needed to be talked out. She mentally chuckled at this part of her personality. 'It's funny how I don't believe in dreams but I believe in fortunetelling…' She thought as she remembered the time she spent with Aunt Woo, who told her her fortune. "You don't want to talk about the nightmare at least? You looked like you had a really bad one…" He shook his head.

"Don't worry, I'm fine Katara…"

"You sure? Maybe you want me to stay here with you and prevent you from having another one."

"I'm fine,why don't you get that?!" He rolled his eyes at her persistence. 'What's with her?! Does she not believe me?'. He looked at her slightly hurt expression and winced mentally. He sighed in frustration, thinking of what else to say to make her stop insisting. "You need your rest too, you can't risk your health for me."

"Yes I do! You're the Fire Nation's hope for restoring it to peace with the rest of the world. You need medical attention more than I do at this moment. I don't want you dying on me or have weird dreams that will have you feeling all frustrated." She argued back.

He knew he wasn't going to win this argument. Whatever he had said she said something even more convincing to counter him. 'Right now it's you giving me the frustration…' He thought, annoyed. "Okay fine! But where will you be sleeping?" He realized what he said was stupid but stayed silent and waited for an answer.

Katara didn't see that coming from him and mentally slapped herself for not thinking things through. 'Great, there's only one bed in this room, and I can't sleep on the floor because it's made out of cold marble.' Unless there were sleeping bags in this place, her only option would be to actually sleep with him in his bed! She blushed at the thought of this without realizing it.

Zuko watched her intently, waiting for her answer until he realized that while she was in deep thought she blushed a mad shade of red. He really started to wonder what she was thinking about…and then it hit him. There was no other place in this room that she could sleep on comfortable enough besides the bed. He looked at her incredulously. 'She can't be serious…'.

She noticed his surprised stare and had an idea he knew what she was thinking about. 'How does he know?' She looked down and shifted on one foot nervously.

He saw this little action and found it to be somewhat cute, coming from Katara. He might have been slightly nervous about letting her sleep in his bed with him at first but seeing Katara more nervous than him made him calm down immensely. He decided to allow her himself, since she was suddenly acting too shy to ask him herself. "You can sleep on one side and I on the other, I don't bite you know." He chuckled

She flinched at his sudden, amused tone of voice. She blushed even more and felt slightly irritated at him for being so teasy about this. 'Why is he so smug about this all of the sudden? Uggh, is this how men from the Fire Nation are?' She wasn't going to take his attitude quietly. "And just what is so funny to you?!" He smirked at her irritation.

"Oh nothing, just the idea of us sleeping together." He changed his expression back to his regular stoic one, noticing she was becoming slightly intimidated of his smug state.

She didn't know what to say. She was slightly nervous of his sudden change of attitude and his current smug expression. 'Oh, why did I decide to do this…' She complained mentally in a childlike tone. She walked toward the other side of the bed, where Zuko left it completely empty for her. She bit her lip in agitation before laying her body on the bed. She knew Zuko would never do anything to her without her permission. She then remembered Aang and how committed to her he was. Was she Aang's girlfriend? She did not know for certain, but that doesn't mean she belonged to any man. She was her own free person, regardless of her gender. She is a strong individual who's old enough to decide what she wants in her life. What she is doing right now isn't technically cheating on her 'lover' per say, it was looking out for a friend, a guy friend in this case and her guy friend happens to be Zuko.

Zuko felt weight behind him on the other side of his bed and knew she finally laid down. He sighed and went into a sleeping position as well. At this moment he didn't want to think about any radical thoughts about Katara, he just wanted to sleep. 'She is just here to watch you Zuko, no more than that.' He thought to himself. Right when he was about to fall asleep Katara shuffled in the bed.

She turned towards his direction. "Zuko, do you think Aang made it? Do you think he defeated your father?"

That question alone made him cringe. The thought of his father coming home and doing the horrible things he did in his dreams would make him shake. He cursed himself for being so vulnerable to one lousy, but terrifying nightmare. He stood up to his father before, he can do it again if he did come back. He forgot all about his new scar that moment.

"Zuko?" She didn't hear any response and started to worry for him, for Aang, for her brother, for her friends and everyone else she cared about.

"I…I don't know…" He responded honestly. 'Only time will tell…'. After that, they fell into a peaceful sleep.

This is my first Zutara fic. Please review and tell me what you think.

Keywords: Avatar the last airbender Zutara story Zuko Katara Ozai Aang Azula Fire Nation evil defeats good

Summary for dA: My first Zutara story. I also released it on . Oh and the preview pic is just temporary until I actually draw a Zutara pic for the story