Author's Note: This became a monster. I'm not sure where those 3000 words came from. Completely un-beta'd, so pardon the errors. This is my first real multi-chap fic and we're nearing the end, so I hope you've enjoyed yourself!
Katara was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling of her room when a knock sounded at the door. Being in no mood to talk to anyone, she simply decided to ignore it, hoping that whoever it was would assume she was asleep. A moment later, Toph stepped into her room.
"Alright Sugar Queen, spill it." Toph demanded.
"What do you mean?" Katara replied, though she couldn't keep guilt from creeping into her voice.
Toph looked at her impatiently. "Are we really going to do this again?" Katara remained silent. Toph huffed loudly and continued, "What happened with you and Sparky? It felt like your hearts were going to burst out of your chest every time you looked at each other."
"Nothing happened." she said slowly.
Toph made a noise of disbelief, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor.
"I mean it!" she insisted. When Toph continued to just stare at her, waiting, Katara got off her bed and started to pace. "Well...something almost happened. We had...a moment."
Toph nearly screamed in frustration. "What does that even mean?" she cried out loud.
"Well, we were arguing about, I don't know, something stupid I'm sure. And I froze his shoes and he burned my dress. Then the whole thing was so ridiculous that we both started laughing and called a truce and then...I kissed him on the cheek." she finished in a rush.
Toph looked at her, confused. "Well, a kiss on the cheek really is nothing..."
"I know. But after the kiss on the cheek... We almost actually did kiss. But then..."
"The greatest earthbender in the world decided to show up at an incredibly inconvenient time."
Katara shot her an amused look. "Essentially, yes."
Katara was quiet for a moment and then asked her, "Do you ever wonder what our lives would've been like if we'd grown up normally?"
Toph looked at her, puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, if we were just people from some nowhere town, growing up like anyone else. Do you ever wonder what that might be like?"
"No, because it sounds absolutely terrible." She replied, dryly. "But what does it have to do with you and Sparky?"
"Because the past few weeks that I've been here, it was almost like Zuko and I were just two normal people who were becoming...something." She sat down on her bed and chuckled mirthlessly. It was truly a laughable idea, really. Even if they weren't war heroes, and even if she wasn't the ex of the Avatar and he one of his best friends, they weren't, wouldn't ever be normal. He was the Fire Lord, trying to move a nation forward, and she was a Southern Water Tribe Waterbending master and diplomat, trying to hold the world together. The fact that she had been on vacation while the fire nation was in a particularly peaceful and prosperous period had made her forget all that, almost made her feel as though they were the only two people in the world. But it couldn't, wouldn't last. The world was forever in conflict and Aang would forever be a part of their lives.
"But we aren't just two normal people, living out their lives. We have duties. Responsibilities. To our nations, to the world...to other people we care about." She finished up quietly.
Toph cocked her head to one side and said, "That's all very well and good." She paused, then nudged Katara with her shoulder. "But, for what it's worth, I think you both have a responsibility to yourselves to at least try and find happiness. Otherwise, what'd we even win the war for?"
It was the night of the 7 year anniversary party and Toph was bored to tears. Suddenly she tilted her head sharply towards Zuko, certain that he had actually had a heart attack. She smirked once she heard his heart leap up, beating twice as fast as it had before. She'd heard enough about Katara's looks over the years to know that her friend must be beautiful. Lately though, it seemed as though Zuko was always seeing her for the first time.
"So much for subtlety, Lord Jerkbender," she heard a voice comment quietly next to her. The observation would've passed unnoticed, lost in the general noise of the ballroom, had the listener been anyone but a blind earthbender with almost supernatural hearing. She jerked in surprise, ready to turn and ask Suki what it was, exactly, that she knew, when she felt the Kyoshi warrior's strong hands on her shoulder, steering her out of the main ballroom and into a more secluded corner of one of the many adjacent rooms.
"I didn't think anyone would hear me." She said quietly to Toph. "But I guess that's what I get for voicing my thoughts out loud next to you. So, while we're here, mind telling me what's going on with the two of them?" She asked. "Katara spends half her energy finding ways to make sure she isn't standing next to him and Zuko barely bothers to hide the way he looks at her any more. The one time they actually brushed up against each other, I thought that the building was going to explode from all the tension."
Toph sighed in relief, grateful to have another observer to discuss the plight of her two ridiculous friends. "They got pretty close the past month or so that she's been here. Then they almost kissed and her royal sweetness freaked out and decided to worry more about Aang's happiness than her own. "
Suki groaned. "I thought Zuko's fixation on honor would be the problem. But apparently Katara has been spending a little too much time picking up the wrong habits from him."
Toph nodded her head, then leaned against a wall. "At least this party is interesting, for once."
Two weeks after the celebration, Zuko looked around at the table with a satisfied smile on his face. It was the last night all of his friends would be here together and he wanted to make the most of it. His uncle was pouring tea for Suki, heavy in a discussion with her and Sokka about the Lei Tai tournaments in the Earth Kingdom, which had just recently allowed waterbenders to join the frey. Toph and Aang were in an animated discussion, with Toph laughing loudly and Aang looking at her, exasperated. Zuko studied Aang for a moment, taking in his old friend's appearance. Although he was a little more subdued than usual, he was still more light-hearted and exuberant than most people ever were. Him and Katara had managed to be around one another with only minimal awkwardness, though it certainly didn't help that the rest of the group was not so subtly watching their interactions.
His smile faded slightly as his gaze landed on Katara, calmly sipping her tea and listening to the conversation between Toph and Aang, only occasionally adding her input. She had been distant ever since that day in his study, making sure never to be alone with him. It had been agonizing to be so close yet met with a wall of polite redirection every time he tried to speak with her. The past month had shown him a glimpse of what it might be like to just be with her without worrying about the rest of the world intruding. He had been shocked coldly back into reality with the arrival of Toph and with each passing day, it seemed as though the easy, affectionate interactions of the past month were a quickly receding possibility.
He sighed heavily, the jovial mood of the previous moments gone. He got up and excused himself from the table, citing the mounds of paperwork dealing with the Fire Nation on his desk. He turned and walked quickly to his study, feeling two sets of eyes follow him out of the room.
After dinner, Toph burst into Katara's room after a quick rap of her knuckles on the door.
"You know, most people wait until they're invited in before they enter the room." Katara chided.
"I'm not most people." Toph declared.
"That is very true." Katara waited patiently, sure that Toph wouldn't hold in what she had to say for long.
"What," she said evenly, "are you doing?"
"I'm…making sure to take things slowly." Katara explained.
Toph snorted, though she was glad that Katara had finally stopped pretending not to know what she was talking about every time she brought up Zuko. "More like at a glacial place, Sweetness. I think you're overthinking things, as usual. You know Twinkletoes does have other things to do besides worry about what is going on with his ex-girlfriend."
"I'm not overthinking things. It is complicated." She insisted. She twisted her hands in her lap, picking at the imaginary lint on her sheets. "I just don't want to hurt him more than I already have." She said finally.
Toph sighed. "Listen Katara, Aang is a big boy," she said. "And you've gotta let him grow up someday."
A quiet knock sounded at his door. A moment later, Suki slipped in quietly.
Zuko sat slumped in his chair, turning over one of Kataras old letters in his hand.
"Making good headway in that pile of paperwork?" she said teasingly.
He made a noise between a grunt and a groan.
"So," she said bluntly. "What's your next move?"
"My next move," he replied, "is to wait for her next move."
"Really." She said, disbelievingly. "The guy who spent an entire year doggedly chasing the Avatar around the entire world, fought everyone and everything to regain your honor, took on your terrifying sister in an Agni Kai and your next move is to wait it out?"
"I don't...I don't want to force her into anything that she doesn't want to do."
"Believe me, Zuko. You'd be doing the both of you a favor by making a move. You've been in love with her for two years. She's been out of love with Aang for almost as long. What are you waiting for?" She said plaintively.
"You know that it's not that simple." He finally said. "Even if I was sure she wanted..."
"She does." Suki said firmly.
"Still. It isn't simple." He said quietly. "Aang is one of my best friends and he loved her for a very long time."
Suki gave him a long look. "But you can't always let your happiness depend on the Avatar." she said gently.
Later that night, Zuko cornered her in the palace gardens. "You're avoiding me." he accused.
"I'm -" she began defensively, ready to deny. Then she saw the hurt look of vulnerability on Zuko's face. "I am," she admitted. "Was?" She said hopefully.
The expression on his face didn't change. "Why?" He inquired.
"Because..." she looked upwards to the sky, hoping to find the answer in the stars. "Because it's not just the two of us." She finished with a sigh.
Zuko tilted his head towards her and furrowed his brow, obviously confused. "In the palace…?"
Katara found his expression and obvious puzzlement so endearing that she couldn't help but laugh suddenly, throwing her arms around him and squeezing him tightly.
"I'm sorry for avoiding you. I needed some time to think. But I should've just told you that instead of avoiding you all week." She conceded, apologetically. Now that she was here, in his arms, she felt foolish for not just saying she needed some time to think. Zuko had always valued honesty and directness, which was one of the things she liked most about him. But two years of habitual evasive maneuvering died hard.
"Yes," he replied grumpily, although his arms snaked around her lower back and pulled her closer to him. "You should've."
"I'll make it up to you by letting you win our next pai sho game." She teased, happy to feel a small chuckle run through him.
He harrumphed and then was silent. "So," he began carefully, "what have you been thinking about?"
"That I've really liked being here with you for the past month." She confessed. She looked up at him and smiled. "Before everyone showed up, I had no major responsibilities, no gossip and for once your hot-blooded citizens aren't calling for your blood every other week. It's been just the two of us. Getting to do…whatever we want."
"But it's not just the two of us," He echoed, thinking to the swatch of rooms currently occupied by his Uncle, her father, Sokka and Suki and Aang.
She nodded. "No, it isn't." She agreed. "If we were two different people…if we were the only people in the world…" She began, then cut herself off abruptly.
"...Then things would be different." he finished for, looking at her sadly and beginning to pull away.
She shook her head firmly, locking her arms around him. "Things would be easier." She corrected him.
She tried to collect her thoughts from the past three weeks. Truthfully, there had been many times over the past year where she had thought about what her life might've been like if she had never found that lost little boy frozen in the iceberg; if Zuko had never been a banished prince forced to restore his honor and she hadn't been the last waterbender of the Southern Tribe; if they'd never fought one another as enemies or defeated his sister as fast allies.
But after the past week, she had firmly, decisively, shut off her mind from going down that winding road of fruitless speculation. Because as twisted, terrifying, bumpy and confusing as the road that had brought them to this point had been, it – and the people they shared it with – had shaped the both of them, allowed them to grow up, grow older and grow together.
"But things have never been easy for us." She finished. "And we've always managed to figure it out."
He looked at her closely, eyes locked on her face. Her eyes flicked down to his lips and then back up to his eyes.
He took a sharp intake of breath, hands clenching slightly at his side, eyes never leaving hers. They burned brightly with long held desire and love. He took a long, slow step towards her, gently grabbing her arm as though to steady himself. He looked down at her face, her eyes questioning, deep blue pools of kindness and strength that he never wanted to stop losing himself in.
He closed his own and leaned down to kiss her gently on the lips, feeling her hesitation and quashing his panic to keep his lips firmly on hers.
A moment passed between the two of them.
And then she kissed him back.
She grabbed him by the shoulder to bring them closer together as her mouth opened beneath his.
It's all worth it for this moment, he thought in a daze. Even if she pushes me off in the next moment, even if she stops me and calls it a mistake or a stupid decision. It's all worth it for this one moment, this one memory that eclipses all the half imagined day dreams and wishes.
But she did none of those things. Instead, she pressed herself closer to him. He stifled a groan and brought his hands up to cup her face, angling his head to claim her mouth completely. He poured two years of withheld passion and love into the kiss, reaching back to tangle one of his hands in her hair. She met him with every movement, challenging him, teasing him, making him dizzy with want. He wanted to imprint the feeling of her hands in his hair, on his chest, gripping him closer; the sound of her gasp when he gently sucked on her bottom lip; the sensation of her skin beneath his fingertips, silky and warm, pulsing with desire.
Finally, they broke apart, panting lightly but still wrapped up in one another.
He kept his eyes closed, breathing her in, wanting to freeze this moment in his mind forever.
"Zuko." She said gently, her voice a plea.
He opened his eyes, looking straight into hers, overwhelmed by the love that he knew was reflected in his own.
"I love you," he said, the words bursting out, washing over him. "I love you so much. I..."
Her eyes burned brightly as she crashed her mouth onto his, breaking away a moment later to murmur against his lips, "I love you, too."
He brought his mouth down on hers once more, breaking away only at the sound of a whoop and clapping. He and Katara looked over into the smiling faces of Toph and Suki, who gave them both a thumbs up.
"Looks like it really isn't just the two of us," He said breathily.
She laughed and pulled him down for another kiss, throwing a rude hand signal to their two friends simultaneously.
"You and Katara were looking pretty close last night." Suki's voice rang out with amusement behind him.
Zuko opened his eyes and turned around, feeling too elated to really focus on his morning meditation anyway. "You know, it isn't proper to spy or sneak up on the Fire Lord like that."
Suki rolled her eyes at him. "Don't be mad just because you couldn't hear me coming up to you. Looks like you're getting soft in your old age, Lord Jerkbender." She sat down next to him. "So what's next?"
"Whatever we want." He said, smiling slowly, barely able to contain the joy blooming in his chest.
Katara was not generally an early riser, by any definition of the word. Indeed, after the stress of the week-long festivities of the seventh annual celebration of the end of the war combined with the excitement of the previous night, she thought she would've been in bed until well past noon. But it seemed as though her restless body had other ideas for her.
She stood leaning against a pillar with a cup of tea in her hands, observing Zuko's morning firebending routine in the pre-dawn light.
"That good, huh?" An amused voice drawled out next to her.
Katara kept her voice calm. "I'm sure that I don't know what you're talking about."
Toph snorted. "I can tell he's doing his morning routine, which means his shirt is off - and I've heard enough about his chest to actually sometimes wish I could see."
She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at Katara, which caused her to chuckle quietly. They stood in amicable silence for a moment before Toph grinned wickedly at her and said,
"Honestly, Sugar Queen, you really might wanna stop yourself from gawking at Sparky there. Don't want anyone to get wrong idea. Unless…" she paused dramatically, "that's the exact idea you want people to get."
"Not yet," she said, beaming in the direction of Zuko, "but soon."
Toph smiled at her. "About time."
A/N: Awww. I know there are quite a few holes to fill in there and the build up could've been better. But I wanted to get this out sooner rather than later. I was originally planning on having a lot more Aangst (see what I did there) but figured I could save that for another story that I have brewing in my head. ;)
