Here's chapter 3, kind of short but its kind of just here to bridge Zuko arriving and the main story, enjoy. Read and Review please!
Zuko sat confused on the folding chair in front of his new locker. All he was wearing was his hockey pants and skates, there were boys wearing far less and yet despite this, the girl was advancing into the locker room. He began to notice that his was the only expression of confusion and mild annoyance, everyone else was extremely afraid. His gaze came back to the floor between him and the young girl, then up her jeans over her black hooded sweater and finally to a very unhappy face punctuated with two striking blue eyes.
"Can I help you?" Zuko asked very condescendingly, the other boys made hushed pained noises as if they themselves were the ones being glared at.
"Excuse me?" Came her seething reply.
"Can I help you? Are you lost?" Zuko was sticking to his earlier tone and again the boys around the room winced and cried out as if they were being mercilessly tortured. Zuko could see that Katara was about to explode on him so he cut her off. "You do know that you're in the boy's locker room and everyone in here is in the middle of changing, right?" Katara halted her retort and out of her peripheral vision began to notice the half naked and completely naked young men surrounding her and blushed furiously but would not be silenced, she had come this far.
"You do know that was just practice, right?" Zuko gave her a raised eyebrow as a response. She grew even more furious. "You knocked Aang to the ice for no good reason!" Aang's pleas from the background for her to calm down went unheeded. "What if he got hurt? I don't know how they do it in the BIG CITY, but here you don't hurt you're teammates! Who do you think you are? And how dare you talk to me like that? Of course I'm not lost, this is MY town!" As she ranted Zuko just let out an exasperated sigh and began to notice his new team beginning to change and leave as quickly and quietly as they could. Sokka was also leaving, dragging a worried Aang with him. Zuko looked back to Katara still in mid-rant, but it had gone off on some tangent about rich and poor or something of that nature. So Zuko did the only thing he could think of, he continued to undress.
Katara was soon speechless, he was loosening his pants and skates right in front of her. She was suddenly aware of his physique, he had broad shoulders and abs and biceps and those lines on the side of his hips that led down to his- She jolted back to the moment extremely flustered with a very amused Zuko sitting in front of her. She was about to launch herself into another tirade when he very gingerly took his left skate off, and she saw the blood.
"Oh my god what the hell happened to your foot!" She screamed, completely forgetting her earlier rage.
"Well, first practice on new skates and the blisters must have popped and-" Zuko was cut off when Katara took his hand and wrenched him upright, balancing his right skate on the rubber padding that covered the locker room floor. "Wha- What are you doing!" He yelped as she dragged him to the room with the word Trainer stenciled on the door. She flung the door open revealing an examination table against one wall and a bunch of cabinets across from it with an office chair in the middle.
"Sit" Katara commanded and Zuko hoisted himself up on the padded table, He never understood why these things were always so tall in doctor's offices. He leaned his back against the cool wall behind him and let his legs dangle over the side to the table. Katara took a seat in the chair and rolled over to the cabinets and retrieving medical supplies form them. "Why would you go all out on new skates, stupid." She commented while still facing away from him, preparing what she took out of the cabinets. Zuko looked up to the ceiling with a lop-sided grin.
"I guess I never do anything half-assed, and I rarely give up." He began to remember when his never say die attitude had gotten him in all sorts of trouble back home. Then he began to notice Katara removing his remaining skate and then he came fully out his short daydream when she unceremoniously ripped it from his tender foot.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
On the other side of the Trainers room door the rest of the team was eavesdropping, they had snuck back into the locker room when they saw the coast was clear. When they heard Zuko's blood curdling cry of pain, they bowed their heads in solace and left, for he was surely dead.
"Baby" Katara curtly stated and placed the skate on the floor. That would teach him to talk down to her. Zuko didn't even reply, he was too busy inspecting his foot and whimpering to himself. She took his foot back from his grasp and began to apply ointment and bandage it. "You know you really didn't have to hit Aang like that." She stated, not once looking up from her work. Zuko was surprised at how good his foot began to feel and at how civil she had become. He sighed.
"I know." Came his reply, soft and sincere. Katara froze for a split second at his husky voice, gone was the cocky, brash tone from earlier. It was replaced with wistfulness, full of regret, but not just from his actions on the ice, something more. "My anger and pride usually get the better of me." He gave a light chuckle. Katara finally looked up at him. His golden eyes were deep in thought, a thousand miles away from the room they shared this moment. She finished the foot she was working on and moved to the other, it was in worse shape than the first. They continued to sit in silence as she finished healing his feet.
Zuko slowly waked out to the parking lot, bracing himself with one hand against a wall as he carefully walked on his sore feet. Katara had stood up and left the moment she had finished on his feet. There was a definite awkwardness as she worked on him, she had been so tender and caring that he didn't quite know what to say when she was walking out. The solemn "Thank you" he gave her would have to suffice he decided. When he got to the parking lot he found it quite empty, of course it was he took a while to finish changing and the walk out alone took up a fair amount of time. Then screeching down the street came the blue jeep he had ridden in to the rink. Sokka pulled up and he saw Aang in the passenger seat.
"We figured you needed a ride!" came Sokka's up-beat greeting.
"Well, duh Sokka, we kind of dragged him here" Aang said while chuckling and ribbing the back of his neck. Zuko then opened the back seat door and climbed in. Aang turned in his seat to look at Zuko. "Katara sent us back for you, Sokka kind of forgot we brought you." Aang apologized.
"You forgot too!" Sokka protested, "Geez, I'm always the fall guy!" Zuko smiled tiredly and leaned back into his seat.
"Just take me home please." Was all Zuko said and Sokka obliged. As the music got turned up and Aang and Sokka fell into a conversation, Zuko noticed he just referred to his Uncles house as "home". He leaned over and looked out the window at the sleepy little town, yes, he decided, home...
"Hey!" Sokka looked over his shoulder at Zuko, "Where do you live?"
