Chapter 5

Katara's POV

Later that night, we told everyone about what happened to me the previous night, leaving out some major details of course. Everyone was shocked and started worrying about me, Aang wouldn't leave my side the entire night. It was so annoying. Zuko mostly stood to the side, by himself, so that no one would notice him.

Evil jerk…

Looking over at him, I saw that he had that sly smirk on his face, as if he was laughing at my irritation. When I rolled my eyes at him, he looked down at his feet. I felt happy because he was guilty about how mean he was to me. I could even feel a smirk coming to my own face. Glancing around, no one noticed our little gestures. Suddenly, something was shaking to right in the distance. I looked back and saw Zuko laughing or rather trying to contain his laughter. His body was trembling, and pretty soon his chuckle filled the air, only to be met with silence.

"Do you think that Katara being in pain is funny?"

Zuko's POV

Glancing up, I saw the Avatar glaring at me. His cold, steel eyes held their childish innocence in them along with a small amount of loathing.

"No, not at all. I just think that you, all of you are hilarious at this moment."

The Avatar's eyes lost their loathing and resembled shock. They shifted about the room and finally settled back onto me (yet, they did stare at Katara for a few more seconds than as was necessary). His face had settled down, and he just simply nodded with a small smile on his features.

"He's right you guys, we shouldn't be crowding her like that."

He walked away and Chief Hakoda came up behind him, touching his shoulder.

"Guys, as far as everything goes, I don't think we should be separated for the next couple of days. Who knows? What if this happens again, and not just to Katara I mean, to any one of us? We need to stick together. I think we should all sleep out here, just in case if the Fire Nation find us or some other demon."

Everyone looked at Katara, even I did. Her body had entirely stiffened; probably at the fact that she doesn't think that she needs protection from everybody. Her eyes shifted toward her dad's, looking a little betrayed at the fact that he didn't think she could protect herself. Then she looked over to me, a little sorrow in her eyes from the fact.

Why does she look at me like that?

Katara's POV

Does he think I need saving too? I am not some damsel in distress. I have taken down worse things than Hama. I can take care of myself.

"Zuko, I need to talk to you about something. Will you come with me for a second?"

He merely nodded at my request, and said nothing, following me to the hallway of rooms. We walked only in silence; I knew that Toph could probably tell the others where we were going, but if I went as far as I could without anyone else coming right after, then we were good.

Seeming far enough from the others, I looked up into his bright and curious eyes, and said: "Do you agree that I need protection, more so than the others?"

He looked down, almost bashfully, and then glanced back up again to me, "I would be lying if I said 'no', but I do," I was about to angrily cut him off when he said, "And not for the reason you think. I want to protect you because I love you, not because you are a girl and I think that you can't take care of yourself because I do think you can. In fact, I know you can."

I looked down at my feet, almost ashamed for thinking the exact same things that he just said he would never think of me as. How could I?

He only wants to protect me because he loves me.

"Alright… I will go along with this whole thing, but I don't like it. I don't need to be protected all of the time."

"And I understand that."

"Okay, let's just get some sleep, we never know what may happen…"