Katara rose from her bed, her legs a bit unsteady.
"What just happened?" she breathed. She held up her tangled mass of brown waves away from her neck, the heat almost suffocating her. She looked at the sleeping figures around her. Aang, Sokka, Toph... and Zuko. Something about seeing his sleeping form made her cheeks flush. She watched silently as his bare chest rose and fell with his steady breathing, mesmerized by his sculpted physique.
She looked away and scowled to herself.
'Have some self-control', she told herself stubbornly. She sighed and put a hand over her eyes, trying to recall her dream.
'We were arguing… and the he… and then I…' she paused her thoughts for a moment, pinching the bridge of her nose as she paced back and forth across the cold stone floor of the temple.
'Maybe I should trust him' she thought, the memory of his hot fingertips, soft on her bare skin, flitting across her mind.
Her eyes again found his sleeping figure. Katara knew she was being unfair to him. He had lied and been deceitful. He had betrayed them. But she could clearly discern the pain in his eyes. She knew he had suffered in his past life. His mother had disappeared. His father, the ruthless Firelord, had banished him from the only home he had ever known. The pain of such experiences was unreal to her.
"What is going on in that head of yours Zuko?" she whispered.
All of a sudden, it came to her. The dream. The kiss.
Her hand flew to her lips. She touched them softly, her warm breath drifting over her fingertips.
She wandered over to where Zuko was sleeping and knelt beside him. Up close, he looked so much like the boy he was instead of the man he was forced to be. At such a distance, Katara could look at nothing else but his soft lips, unmoving with slumber. She put her hand gently on his chest, feeling his heart flutter against her fingers.
That's when she felt it. The fire in her.
She wanted to feel those lips moving against hers again. She wanted to taste his breath, have his hands caress her skin once more. It was only a dream, she knew. But why was it so veryreal?
'There's only one way to find out' she thought nervously.
Her hand still rested on his chest, rising and falling. She felt the heat from his body run through her fingertips. It was like a hot cup of tea on a cold winter day, creating a warm puddle in her stomach and causing her to breathe out with delight. It was something about the roguish fire within him and the calm, soothing water within her. The two contrasted in such a way that caused Katara, as well as Zuko, pleasure. His face visibly softened under her touch.
They were connected in some way.
'But how?' Her mind seemed to be at a standstill. She had to do this. It was the only way to find out.
Was this real?
Slowly she bent her head, eyes still half open, to hover over Zuko's lips. She smelled his breath, like cinnamon, and her senses began to scramble. She brought the hand that was lying on his chest up to his jaw and laid it there, tilting his head back.
And that's when she kissed him. Gently, carefully, she laid her lips onto his.
It was as if they were a perfect fit, two statues molded into one another. Katara closed her eyes as that warmth that had been building in her stomach spread through every part of her body. She did not ever want to move from where she knelt, beside the fire Prince and kissing his soft, warm lips.
Suddenly, Zuko stirred.
At first, he thought he was dreaming.
But as he lay there, becoming more coherent, it took everything in him not to bolt upright in shock.
Katarawas kissing him. The person who supposedly hated him most in this world had planted her lips on his and did not seem as though she wanted to be moved.
'Did she think I was Aang?' he wondered for a moment. But it was a rather difficult mistake to make.
'Besides' he thought as he closed his eyes and breathed into her 'I don't really mind.'
Indeed he didn't. Ever since Ba Sing Se Zuko had created a soft spot in his heart for Katara. But he never imagined that she might have one for him too. Now it seemed that she was beginning to consume his whole heart, not simply a small part of it.
He had to move, had to react, had to do something.
'Well' he thought, 'Here goes nothing.'
