Thank you so much my good readers—you have convinced me that I'm doing at least one thing right in the world (writing Zutara)!

Which reminds me that I should start preparing for Zutara week :3!

And also...with this chapter, I now have over 300K words written as an author! Yay...and I've been on fanfiction since little more than 7 years ago...ohhh damn, I am old...

"Alright, Zuko, here's where I have to leave you," Aang announced, getting up from his seat, having finished the last of his meal. "I have to leave, so I'll see you in a few days, I guess. Have fun while you're here—you can go ahead and use my car if you need to tour the city and everything. Katara knows all the good places to see and eat at so that shouldn't be a problem either. And I'm sure Sokka and Suki will be excited to know you're in town. Toph and her man, too."

Zuko stood after Aang and the two good friends gave each other a parting hug before Aang walked over to get his briefcase and start to head out the door.

"Ohh, wait," Katara said, and she quickly ran over to the closet by the front door and fetched a beanie from in there. "It must be cold up there in the north part of the country this month. We wouldn't want your bald spot getting chilly, would we? You might lose some more hair!"

"It's just October, Katara," Aang assured, but let his wife place the beanie snug around his head before she patted his ears. He gave her a quick kiss. "Thanks for the delicious meal. Maybe it was just that Zuko was coming over or something, but that curry was much better than this entire week's food."

She snorted softly and elbowed him. "So that you come home quicker for more food," she replied.

"Ah, don't worry, I'll be back." Aang looked down at his daughter. "Bye Kya! I'll see you later, okay?"

His daughter responded with a wave and a high pitched, "Bye Daddy!"

"We'll catch up in a bit, Zuko!" Aang promised, waving to him, but something fell off his wrist, and Aang mumbled a curse. "Ack, my watch," he said, picking it up from the ground. "Well you've served well for the time that you weren't broken."

"Here," and Katara took off her own watch and fastened it onto Aang's wrist. "Don't be late for this flight! We don't want the same thing that happened last time where you were waiting on stand-by while everyone was waiting on you!"

"Alright, bye everyone!" and the door shut behind him.

Katara turned back towards the dining table and Zuko quickly came up with something to do.

"I'll help you clean the dishes," he suggested, rolling up his sleeves and getting up. He had done that a bit too quickly however, and a sudden sharp ache jabbed at his lower spine. He grimaced silently and gripped the end of his chair, waiting for a second before standing at his full height.

Katara was perceptive, however. "Is something wrong? Are you okay?"

"Nah, I'm good. I've just recently developed some back pain," Zuko explained, gently pushing her hand away. He gathered up the dirty plates and utensils, heading over to the sink.

"Well thank you so much for helping. I'll get you something for that pain later."

"No, it's totally fine. Don't worry about it."

"Well how long have you been experiencing that pain?"

…

He had been sitting in this hard wood pew seat forever, but he kept himself occupied by taking a look at everything around him, including all the intricate decorations set up, the rest of the wedding guests, and especially the couple themselves.

He assumed that the two of them had chosen to hold the wedding in this church because it was the larger of the churches that were in Republic City, which was still developing at this time. The wedding had to be here, in Republic City, because this was the very city where they had all met each other, attending Republic City University.

It had been many minutes since she had walked down the aisle, Aang at her side, but Zuko was still amazed at simply how beautiful she looked in that wedding dress.

Zuko needed to stretch a bit, so he arched his back forward a bit, but a sudden ache hit him, and he almost doubled over but kept his groan to himself.

"Hey, you okay?" whispered Sokka, who was to the right of Zuko. Zuko was sitting in the family section of the seating arrangements, which he was honored to be considered part of, even though he had technically only known them since the beginning of their undergraduate years.

Zuko had been a sophomore when he had met Sokka, who came in the year after him at the university, and the two of them had meet as members of the same varsity volleyball team. Becoming close friends, Sokka later introduced his sister, Katara, to Zuko. Katara matriculated into Republic City University when Zuko was a junior but despite their class difference, they all hung out quite a bit, especially after Sokka got into a relationship with Suki, who was one of Katara's best friends. Aang and Toph had gotten to know their friend circle by chance, being freshmen when the rest of them were upperclassmen, but they were soon a regular part of their hangouts and the circle wasn't ever complete without the two included.

Zuko had decided to co-term in computer science after having taken a lot of classes in programming alongside his bioengineering major. This way he was also able to spend more time with his age-diverse friend group before he eventually decided to carry out his own work abroad travels, thinking it was better to get some experience and venture the rest of the world before he settled down and got a permanent job.

He had originally had plans, but since last week, he hadn't had the time to rethink about what he wanted to do in the future. Although he evidently had the time to consider it all now, he was a bit too distracted and thought it disrespectful during Aang and Katara's wedding anyway, an event that would undoubtedly change their futures.

"Yeah, I'm good. Just been sitting in this seat for too long," Zuko replied to Sokka.

"For real, they just had to choose the church with the worst seats!"

Zuko laughed quietly, reaching back behind his black jacket to massage his lower back.

…

"It's only been hurting just a while ago, it's nothing big."

"Sorry for asking," she excused herself. "It's just a habit, being a nurse and all. But seriously, if you need some aspirin or something for that pain, let me know. I have a lot of over the counter things, especially with this one coming up." She paused to rub her hand over her belly.

Zuko didn't look up from the sink. "When are you expecting?"

"Next month, actually."

"That's soon," he replied. "You should go take a rest."

"I'll do that once Kya is down in bed. It's getting harder to get her to sleep nowadays."

He felt a small tug at his pants and glanced down to see the aforementioned child looking up at him with a curious gaze.

"Kya, don't bother him. He's doing the dishes for us."

"What's name?" she asked loudly.

Not able to help the smile that formed on his face, he quickly set the rest of the wet dishes onto the drying rack and got down to the two-year-old's level. "Zuko," he answered, and pointing at her, asked, "What's your name?"

"Kya!" she exclaimed delightfully.

"And how old is Kya?"

She held out two of the smallest fingers he had ever seen.

"Oh? Want to count them? One…two," he said, tapping her two fingers as he did this. "Kya is two years old? Wow, you're growing up so quickly!"

"You call him, Uncle Zuko, okay?" Katara said, bending down slightly, her teeth flashing in her proud smile. "Mommy's known Uncle Zuko for a very long time."

Zuko was taken aback by Katara's smile, and for a moment was frozen, looking at the way her hair, some of it having escaped her hairtie, framed her flushed face. Her cerulean eyes lighted, the reflection of her daughter flashing across those beautifully shaded irises. He averted his momentary gaze and distracted himself.

"Does Kya want to be taller than Mommy?" he asked, a mischievous glint in his eye.

Taking Kya's widened eyes and short nod for a confirmation, Zuko then swiftly picked the girl up and perched her on top of his shoulders. His back complained for a second, a stab at that spot on his lower back, but he ignored it when hearing Kya's tinkling laughter right above his head, her hands tugging at his hair to hold on.

"Come on, to your room we go!" he declared, making dramatically large and swooping steps out of the kitchen to elicit more laughter out of the girl. He looked back at Katara, who was covering her smiling mouth and pointing in the direction that he should go. He intuitively figured out the rest of it and then sat down on Kya's bed. Kya lightly slapped his face, cheering for "Uncle Zuko" to keep going. Seeing Katara at the door, he gave her a hand motion that told her that he'd take care of all the rest for the night.

She gave him a warm smile and then disappeared.

Zuko plucked Kya off his shoulders and plopped her onto her mattress, where she immediately put her head on the pillow and snuggled herself up under the covers. Zuko got up from her bed and squatted at her bedside, placing his face close to Kya's.

"You know, you didn't brush your teeth yet," he accused the girl, who put a finger to her mouth in a silent shush.

"Tell me story," she insisted instead.

"Hm," he mused as he looked behind him for inspiration. "What about…ah, The Legend of Korra?"

"That one long."

"Yeah, I agree," Zuko said, re-shelving the book. "What about—"

"Your story!"

"My story?"

"Your story!"

"My story's boring."

"Your story!"

He smiled. "Okay, I have a mother, a father, and a younger sister. And one day, we went to the beach together. Just the four of us."

And shit, I'm already running out of things to say, he thought. He wasn't sure why he picked his family as a topic. Ah well, he'd make the rest of it up.

"My sister and I wanted to build sand castles. My sister wanted to make the biggest strongest one and she had a huge pail and a shovel to make her castle. She wanted to race with me to make a castle. My father counted down 'three, two , one!' and off we went to make our castles. I didn't have a pail, so I just used my slushie cup that I had just finished drinking—"

"What kind slushie!"

Zuko ran a list of fruits through his head. "A mango pineapple one," he came up with.

"And strawberry?"

"Yes."

"And apple?"

"Yes."

"Wow! I want that slushie!"

"It does sound delicious, doesn't it," he remarked. "And then we finished making our castles when time was up. My dad said that my sister's castle was better and then my sister called herself the Fire Lord of the castle. Okay, the end. Time to go to sleep."

"But I no want to go to sleep," she pouted, her lower lip sticking out.

"Do you love Mommy? If you love Mommy, you should go to sleep."

"I love Mommy," she affirmed. "Do you love Mommy?"

He paused for a moment but returned a silent laugh. "Yeah, I love her, too."

"Then you go sleep too!"

"I will, I will," he promised. "Good night, Kya."

"Good night, Uncle Zu…zu…?"

He smiled to himself. He had thought he was done with that nickname when he moved away from his family for good after graduating from college.

Zuko stepped over to where he had previously left his suitcase, and quickly dragged it over by the couch, where he assumed he was going to be sleeping for the night, since the only other bedroom was the master room. Taking off his jacket, he stepped over to the coat rack, but right before hanging his jacket, he thought it was better if he just left it together with his suitcase. He wasn't going to be intrusive in their home.

Leaning over and sitting down on the sofa, he reached his aching back with his arm and slowly straightened his back, feeling the stiff tension in his muscles at the lower part of his spine. He then got up and cracked his back before settling back into the cushions.

"That was a record time to get her down to sleep. What's your secret?"

He looked up to see Katara entering the living room. She took a seat down slowly next to him, holding her belly.

"I told her about my life," he replied. "That gets everyone asleep."

She laughed. "That's not true. It's just in the way you present it."

"Oh well, thanks."

Their laughter slowly faded into quiet. They let the silence take over for a moment, before Katara remarked, "You know, Zuko, you haven't contacted us after all this time except for that one call last month when Aang suggested you come by to visit. Been too busy?"

"You could say that."

"We all thought you fell off the face of the planet or something. We tried calling you, but you had changed your number or something."

"Yeah, I just changed phone plans and decided to switch numbers too. I, um, guess I didn't tell you guys."

"We were worried about you; I was worried you. Thought we'd never ever hear from you again, especially after you moved all the way to the Fire Nation! Everyone else is here in Republic City—we were surprised that you went back to the Fire Nation, especially since it was so fun here during undergrad."

Zuko didn't respond immediately. "I thought it'd be better for me," he said when he finally sorted out his thoughts. "I can barely handle the cold up here."

"Well, I've missed you for sure. I thought we were going to have time to hang out after you decided to go off and venture through the world and what not, but right after our wedding, you told us you were going to be moving!"

…

He woke up to the sound of his shrieking cell phone.

What the hell…he thought when he abruptly got up, his eyes squinting at the bright sunset that peeked through his windows. He concluded that he must have fallen asleep and had been passed out for nearly an hour. Hearing that his phone was still unanswered, he got back on his feet and groaned upon feeling an ache in his lower back.

That damn pain was still there from yesterday at the wedding? But he dismissed it and headed over across his studio apartment to reach his phone, which had been deposited on his kitchen counter. He didn't recognize the number flashing on the caller ID screen.

"Hello," he said, rather unenthusiastically.

"Hi, is this Zuko Kaji?"

"Yes, who is this?"

"Oh, I'm Yin Long. I'm the real estate agent for the house on Orchard Street. You had mentioned you were interested in a two or three bedroom house—"

"Ah, right," he said. "Actually, I'm no longer looking for a place that size. Perhaps smaller is more suited for me right now."

"I see. Well, I actually don't have any smaller homes in my listings…"

"That's okay. Thanks so much for your business."

…

"Yeah, sorry about that," he apologized. He was looking down at the carpet, but could see from the corner of his eye that her face suddenly turned directly towards him.

"Hey Zuko?" she asked softly, placing a hand on his shoulder. He turned to face her, his shoulder retracting from her touch. Her eyebrows furrowed as she tried to make eye contact with him. "You haven't seemed yourself. Is it your back pain? Or maybe you're tired?" She studied his eyes again, and this time around, she caught his gaze once. "You look dreadfully exhausted."

"Must be the jet lag."

"How about you take the bed tonight? I know your back still hurts because you're horrible at lying," she suggested, smiling.

Zuko looked at her, not quite believing what she had just said. "But you definitely need it because…" and he motioned towards her stomach.

"Oh…well then we'll just share the bed." Still seeing his unbelieving, and perhaps slightly horrified, look, she continued, "It's not a big deal. We both need a good place to rest tonight and Kya's bed is much too short and small to be shared with anyone our size." She got up and motioned him to do the same.

"I'll be fine on the couch. I really don't need the bed."

"Ay, don't be stubborn," Katara argued. "I know what's better for your back than you do. Besides, we've shared beds before, and I can trust you not to kick me off. It'll be nostalgic."

…

A soft knock on his door.

"What's up?" he answered in a raised voice, not bothering to lower the volume of his music. He already knew who it was.

The door opened—he normally kept his room unlocked now these days—and in came a familiar face.

"Hey Zuko, what's up?"

"Nothing, just chilling. What about you?" he stopped typing for a second to face his visitor.

"Was hanging out with Suki before Sokka interrupted us."

"Out so late? Again?" he asked sarcastically. "It's like two in the morning."

"Yeah again," Katara said, joining him on his mattress. "And as always, I always end up here. The only other person in this dorm that I know is Suki, and their room is off-limits because Sokka's there with her. So…of course, I'd end up here. Don't act so surprised."

"Your dorm is really not that far from here," he replied.

"It's snowing out there, Zuko."

"Be a man."

"That's impossible for me," she retorted. "And you never seem to mind whenever I come by."

"Which happens to be practically every night. Your roommate probably wonders where the hell you sleep. I mean, fuck, your toothpaste and toothbrush has been in this room since the beginning of the year when you first decided to exploit me."

"Well, what's the big problem tonight?"Katara asked. "What's all the fuss about for today?"

Zuko let the argument go. "Nothing—I just hope you don't mind since I'll be up for a while writing my senior thesis. I'm on a roll here. Wrote five legit pages so far."

"Nah, I can sleep with the light on," she said. There came a lapse in their conversation.

He knew that through her silence, she was demanding that he get off his bed so that she could sleep on it, but he didn't do it, waiting for her to ask in voice.

She waited for a whole minute, while he typed away another paragraph for his paper. After a while, however, she started to push him slowly, but he didn't budge. Finally, after a few more minutes, she commanded, "Get off the bed. I need to sleep."

"You're pushing me off my own bed?" he asked, but it came out more like a statement.

"Yes."

He faked an exasperated sigh and rolled over to his desk, where he continued to pump out more words onto his Word document.

She curled up under his blanket and rested her head on one side of his pillow, placing her body towards the side of his bed closer to the wall. By this point, it was practically normal to have an extra body on his bed, and they had nonverbally determined that she would sleep on the inside of the bed, since he was usually the one to sleep later, and the one to wake up earlier too.

Following a few minutes, she added, "Actually, just one thing. Can you tune down the music?"

"Wait for the drum solo to finish," he replied, and then air-drummed along in beat to the drummer rifting over the speakers. When finished, he closed his eyes in the conclusive beauty of the measure. "Awww, yeah, that was epic. Gets me every single time I play this song."

"Alright, it's over. Now let me sleep."

"Okay, okay, geez."

After a few hours, he heard a soft snore emerge from her direction. He couldn't help but smile.

That was too precious.

…

"Why don't you make yourself comfortable, hm?"

"What do you mean?"

She made a hand motion that made him look at himself. "You're practically completely dressed. You can sleep in jeans?"

"Yeah, I'm good. Sorta too tired to change," he excused, trying to rationalize this decision that he was making. It felt too wrong to be taking what seemed like Aang's rightful place. Zuko wasn't part of this family's picture, why the hell was he up here?

But since he was already in the situation, he calmed himself down. It was just going to be eight hours of sleeping at most. Probably less because he'd wake up after four or five hours because of the uncomfortable situation. Also, for those hours, he'd be unconscious. It'd be okay. And Katara invited him. He didn't invite himself. Aang wouldn't mind. Aang trusted him.

"Alright," she said, choosing not to bother him again. She sat down on the mattress before slowly lowering herself onto her bed so that she was sleeping on her side.

He got onto the bed on the opposite side of the bed. Her back faced him, and while he waited for himself to fall asleep he asked himself over and over why the hell he ever let her persuade him to sleep on the same bed as her. He really didn't need it and if anything…it was just worse for him to be doing so.

Under the moonlight, he couldn't help but notice her untied hair splayed out across her pillow…

What the hell am I thinking? I shouldn't be thinking about this, he scolded himself, turning over to face the other direction. At least this mattress was considerably larger than the ones in the college dormitories. He closed his eyes, pressing his face into the pillow to rid himself of any thoughts besides those of sleep.

Shit. The pillows were covered with her scent. Her sweet sweet fragrance.

The last time he had smelled this—breathed her in—was that time that she had escaped from his arms forever.

I hope everything still makes sense! I keep adding more and more random AU details in! -_- And oh, yes, their last names are essentially their elements but in other Asian languages, namely Chinese and Japanese. I just didn't see the possibility of a foreign sounding name with an English one: Aang Wind? Zuko Fire? Nah. Asian-fying makes lots of things better.

Drop a delightful review for me? They keep me writing! (And feel free to skip the next part)

Random Author Rant—though who gives about what the author has to say besides the story, right?

So I've suddenly realized in a good amount of the anime things that I watch, that there are some commonalities in the male characters that I favor:

Zuko (who doesn't love this kid!)

Mako (well okay, I have a soft spot because he's named in honor of the original voice actor of Iroh before he passed, but in addition to that, out of the first few characters in Legend of Korra that I've encountered, he's pretty chill—except that he's totally playing Asami, I mean, what the hell, that poor girl!)

Mustang (from FullMetal Alchemist; well for one thing, I just love Riza—therefore I love her other half xD, insert shameless Royai plug! And Mustang's pretty awesome as himself too, I must admit)

Sasuke (from Naruto; haters gon' hate and as much as that kid was—still, is—angsty, he was cool and stuff. And he's sorta annoying right now because he just increases the amount of hatred he has each time he gets poked by a splinter or something, but I'm still nostalgic for those good old times when Team Kakashi was all together—and Kakashi is plain awesome, no debate about that)

Hei (from Darker than Black; you probably don't know this show, but you should. It's that mature, dark, noir, alternate mindfuck universe that when you're done with the total of 40 episodes, you just are knocked out for two days in the beauty of the plot and just WANT MORE but the show is no longer in running, wtf! Give this show a chance! And if you decide to watch it, LET ME KNOW I love to talk about this show! Anyway, Hei is just amazing, there's no way that you can hate him)

So there are the five—what's the commonality? Well there's two:

One, they have black hair.

Two, they are all fire/lightning related. (What are the odds?)

In conclusion, I should find my soulmate in a black-haired flamethrower. I don't know if this is upsetting or not…

Alright, rant over—thir13enth out. Review? :3 Review for the cat-face?