Katara didn't know that you could instantly become best friends with someone. But that's how it was with Suki. They immediately bonded over Disney, cookies, and a mutual hatred for boys.

Right there on the swing set, Katara invites Suki to go trick or treating with her, her brother, and evil Zuko.

This Halloween could potentially be awesome.

Suki wants to, Katara can tell.

"I don't know," the other girl says, shrugging her shoulders. "I've never gone trick or treating before."

Katara is so horrified by this that it takes her a moment to find her voice. "Why not?"

"My mom doesn't let me. She's scared I might run into devil worshippers and that I'll eat too much candy and get sick." Suki pauses. "But mostly the devil worshippers."

"You can never eat too much candy," Katara reassures her new best friend. "And the devil worshippers don't come out until midnight and they stay away from our neighborhood because they don't like to eat little kids. That's what my brother Sokka says."

"I don't know. My mom is kind of strict…" Suki trails off.

The girls exchange phone numbers anyway, both vowing to call as soon as they get home from school.

Katara calls first. Suki answers the phone, and both girls talk and giggle over silly things until they both put their mothers on the phone in hopes that Suki can come over for Halloween.

She can't, but Mom says that a play date has been set up for the two of them next weekend.

This is wonderful news. Except now Katara is stuck with her brother and Zuko for Halloween.

Wearing her magical princess costume is making Katara feel a little bit better. Her costume has sparkly wings, and Mom has let her put on a little bit of lipstick.

She and Sokka now stand by the front door, waiting for Mr. Iroh to bring over Zuko. It's almost dark outside.

Sokka is dressed as Obi Wan Kenobi, padawan style. He has the braid and everything. Katara has already told him that he looks stupid. Twice.

There's a knock on the door and seconds later Sokka is opening it, revealing Mr. Iroh and his nephew. Zuko is dressed as Han Solo. He quickly hands Sokka his toy lightsaber. Sokka presses the button and watches it light up with awe.

"You can't be Obi Wan without a lightsaber," Zuko says. He and Sokka grin, both ridiculously excited.

Katara stands there with her arms crossed over her chest, glaring at them.

Mom and Dad come out of the living room and greet Mr. Iroh and Zuko before beginning to lay down the ground rules.

Don't ring the doorbell of a house that doesn't have any lights on. Don't get in a car with anyone. Don't accept candy that's been taken out of its packaging, or anything homemade, aside from popcorn. Don't stay out past nine. No exceptions. Be careful.

Then each kid is handed a pillow case and sent out the door into the bustling neighborhood.

Katara has a great haul.

She swings her pillow case full of candy over her shoulder and moves into a light jog in order to keep up with her brother and Zuko. They're slowly moving in a circle around the neighborhood, and so far Katara feels as if her costume is a hit. She's been called 'adorable' so many times that she's lost count.

They're walking towards the end of a street. Zuko and Sokka are moving in front of her in some kind of stupid mock battle thing where Sokka swings around his lightsaber and Zuko shoots his blaster.

Katara just rolls her eyes.

That's when she notices it.

Up ahead someone has turned their entire garage into a haunted house. When Sokka and Zuko notice it they start jumping up and down and both boys break out into a run.

Katara warily follows.

Katara doesn't like scary things. When she was really little she would always hide behind the couch whenever the evil queen turned into the hag in Snow White, or whenever Dr. Jekyll turned into Mr. Hyde in The Pagemaster. Sokka always relentlessly teased her for it.

She still balks at people dressed up in full body character costumes at parades or at the local theme park. They're just terrifying.

They move into the driveway that hosts the haunted garage. There's some lady dressed as a witch beckoning trick or treaters inside.

"Sokka," Katara calls out nervously.

Her brother turns around and raises an eyebrow at her. "Come on, Katara. Don't be a scardy cat."

Katara definitely doesn't want to be one of those. But at the same time, there's mist coming out of the garage, and scary noises!

She'd rather stay outside.

"Come on, Katara," Sokka calls out. "There's gonna be a whole basket of candy in there!"

Katara isn't even remotely tempted. She has a whole pillow case of candy right here. She shakes her head at her brother.

"Fine," her brother snaps. "Stay out here, then. Scardy cat."

Both boys wander into the garage. Katara glances around. There really aren't many kids around, since this is the end of a street, so right now she's left alone with the creepy witch lady.

Then Katara has a thought. What if there are devil worshippers around?

Katara has two choices. She could either follow her brother and his friend into the haunted garage, where at least there will be safety in numbers even if it is dark.

Or she could stay out here and get eaten by the creepy witch lady and some devil worshipper.

Katara chooses the garage.

It's not so bad.

Katara really can't see all that well because of the fog, and there are creepy noises and it's dark, but she's doing okay. She weaves through the haunted décor set up in the garage, growing closer and closer to the exit.

That's when she sees the basket of candy. Its decent candy too, full bars and bags, not just fun sizes!

She makes a dash for a bag of Skittles.

That's when the devil worshipper pops out.

If Katara had stopped and studied the man she would have realized that it was just a teenager dressed up like a demon.

But Katara is six-and-three-fours, and is prone to terror.

The devil worshipper starts to move forward, so Katara reverts to her only defense mechanism: she bursts into tears and runs screaming toward the exit. Sokka and Zuko stare at her when she finally comes back out on the driveway.

"What happened?" Sokka asks sternly. By the look on his face he's clearly starting to shift into Big Brother Mode.

"The devil worshipper…tried to…eat me!" Katara hiccups through her tears.

The creepy witch lady has gone into the garage and has pulled out the demon dressed teenager. She gestures to Katara and then pats his shoulder. He turns and begins to move toward her, pulling off his demon mask.

Katara panics.

Sokka, in all his just-turned-eight year old glory, steps in front of his sister and proceeds to bark at the teenager on why it's not very nice to scare little girls.

Katara watches in awe.

Then there's a comforting hand on her shoulder. She looks over and sees Zuko.

"Come on," he says, jerking his head toward the street. "Let's go back to your house and eat some candy." He gives her a tiny smile.

Katara decides that perhaps Zuko isn't evil. A meanie, yes, but not evil.

Sokka and Zuko are playing video games in the living room when Suki comes over the next weekend.

Katara lets her in, and both girls smile and giggle together as Katara shows her upstairs to her bedroom.

Zuko doesn't bother to glance away from the television screen, but Sokka watches Suki out of the corner of his eye.

Katara's seventh birthday is in February, and the day of her party is a glorious event.

She's currently sitting at the head of the table, her candle lit birthday cake in front of her, with all of her friends surrounding her.

She feels like a princess.

In fact, that's how the cake is decorated. It has white frosting and it says "Happy Birthday Princess Katara" in pink letters. It tastes good, too. Katara knows because she's already subtlety swiped her finger along the corner of the cake and eaten some of it.

Suki is on her right and Ty Lee is on her left. Katara became friends with Ty Lee through Suki, since Suki and Ty Lee take gymnastics together.

"Let's blow out your candles!" Ty Lee suggests, throwing her hands up in the air.

"Wait!" Mom calls out, and everyone in the room goes quiet. Mom holds up her camera. "I want a picture of Katara with her cake."

Katara pouts at this, causing Dad to laugh.

Mom spends the next two minutes taking Katara's picture. In some shots it's just Katara, in some of the other's Mom has made her friends gather around her.

"Say cheese!"

"Cheeeeeeeese!" all the girls say, smiling wide. Finally Mom puts away her camera.

Then everyone bursts into a chorus of "Happy Birthday". After Katara blows out her candles and makes her wish (she wishes that she could be a mermaid), everyone is served a slice.

Katara finds herself grinning. It's good to be seven.

Zuko is turning an interesting shade of red.

"What's this?" Katara asks, inspecting the hastily wrapped gift in her hands.

"My mom made me get you a present," Zuko grumbles.

Katara's birthday party is pretty much over; only Suki and Ty Lee remain, and they're spending the night. Since it's the weekend, that means Zuko is over as well.

Katara has already opened all of her presents. She pretty much got everything she asked for; with the exception of the lumpy hat that Gran-Gran knitted her. Katara has no idea what she's supposed to do with that.

"Er, thanks." She holds the gift to her chest and frowns down at the floor. She has come to the conclusion that Zuko is not, in fact, evil. But he still kicked her in the head with a soccer ball.

Plus she's pretty sure that he has cooties.

"Yeah. Okay. Happy Birthday." Zuko turns to walk back into the living room where Sokka is.

"Wait," Katara calls out. "Aren't you going to watch me open it? Everyone is supposed to watch the birthday girl open her presents."

Zuko rolls his eyes. "No."

"Why not?"

The older boy shoots her a funny look before muttering something under his breath and then disappearing into the living room.

With a humf, Katara prances up the stairs and proceeds to shove Zuko's gift underneath her bed without bothering to open it.

Mom's car gets hit by a semi in May, a week before the start of summer vacation.

They have to keep her casket closed at the funeral.

Katara has never particularly liked to wear black, most especially not on a day like today.

Katara barely remembers the funeral, even though it was just hours ago. She knows she cried, though. She knows that Sokka held her hand the whole time.

Right now she's back at home, but she can't bring herself to go into the house. It feels empty without Mom.

She does know Dad, Gran-Gran and Mr. Iroh are in the kitchen, and Zuko is over. He and Mr. Iroh brought over food.

Suddenly the front door opens behind her. Katara glances over her shoulder and isn't surprised to see Zuko standing there.

She is surprised when he doesn't leave once he spots that she's by herself.

"Do you want to be alone?" he asks softly.

She thinks on this for a moment before shaking her head. He sits down next to her on the front steps. There's about three feet of space between them, but at least he's there.

They watch the sun set and listen to the thrum of the cicadas.

A/N:

Yeah, not so much of a happy ending for this chapter, but Kaya dying is a really important canon event that significantly helps shape Katara's character. It's one of those events that's kind of unavoidable.

Thank you for all the reviews and encouragement on the last chapter! You guys are just downright awesome. :D

Hope everyone enjoyed this chapter as well, and make sure to review and leave me your thoughts!