"Quit doing that. You're distracting me."

Jet, who has been drumming his fingers against the table, freezes and quirks an eyebrow at his girlfriend. "Yes, princess Katara." He then proceeds to peer around her shoulder and peek at her computer screen. "How's the book report coming?"

"Good," Katara answers vaguely, not missing a beat in her typing. She could technically work on this at home, since she and Sokka share a computer, but she'd rather get as much work done in the library as she possibly can.

"I forgot what happens in the Great Gatsby." Jet refocuses on his own computer. He's been goofing around on iMDB for the past half hour. "Didn't the dude kill himself or something?"

"No." Katara shakes her head and eyes her boyfriend. "Not at all."

Jet frowns. "Oh. Well, I do remember something about a green light. But, whatever." He smiles at Katara. "I'm sure you'll get an 'A'. You always do."

Katara smiles back.

Some girl that Katara has never seen before makes her way through their computer aisle. As she passes Katara and Jet, she runs her hand along Jet's arm and squeezes his shoulder. Then she says 'hi', but Katara's cheeks are already burning in anger. The strange girl pretends not to notice her glare.

Jet nods briefly at the girl before turning his gaze back to Katara. He only seems to have eyes for her.

But for some reason that doesn't really make her feel any better.


"I think Jet is cheating on me."

Katara is currently shopping for a Halloween costume with Suki. She just doesn't have the time to hand-make a costume this year.

Suki stares at her with big eyes. "Are you serious? What's making you think that?"

Katara shrugs, feeling downcast. "It's just a vibe. I know that sounds stupid, but the way he acts around other girls…and the way that other girls act around him… It makes me uncomfortable and he doesn't even seem to care."

Suki frowns, brown eyes briefly scanning the costume accessories aisle. "Well, Jet is a flirtatious guy, Katara. He always has been."

Katara shakes her head and studies a glittery set of fairy wings. "He wasn't back in the summer."

Suki rolls her eyes and puts on a pair of devil horns. "Yeah, when it was always just you two. So you wouldn't have known how he was with other girls back then, would you?"

"I guess not."

"You know, if the way he is around other girls makes you feel uncomfortable then maybe you should tell him about it."

Katara glances at the price tag on the wings and winces. They're way too expensive. She'll have to go with a cheaper pair, if she can find one. "I'm scared of what he'll say."

"Better then you getting more and more paranoid. It's your relationship too, Katara."

"I know that."

"Then act like it. Oh my god, Katara, look at this Wonder Woman costume. Look at it. I know who I'm going to be."


Yue, Sokka's girlfriend, has a super huge house on the other side of town. Her dad is almost never home, which is why, the Saturday before Halloween, Yue throws an absolutely massive Halloween party.

Katara and Suki show up together. Sokka and Zuko (and Jin) are already here.

Katara readjusts her fairy wings and scans the crowd for her brother. "Do you see anyone we know?" she asks Suki.

The other girl, dressed as Wonder Woman but also wearing devil horns, shakes her head. "Um, no. Just a bunch of older kids who probably go to your school."

Katara sighs and walks across the room to the refreshment table. She takes a dainty sip of the fruit punch before deeming it safe and non alcohol injected. Offering a cup to Suki, she says, "Jet texted me and told me that he'd be a little late."

Suki frowns and looks down into her cup. "I still think it's weird that he didn't ride over with us."

Katara smirks. "I think he's just scared of your driving."

Suki rolls her eyes. "Whatever, I'm a great driver. And he should be grateful that I'm offering him free rides around town."

Before Katara can reply, Sokka and Zuko walk up to them. And they're dressed as Han Solo and Obi Wan. Again.

"Can't you guys come up with anything more original?" Katara states, shaking her head.

Sokka gives his sister a pitying look. "Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Besides, I have a new lightsabor this year—"

That's when Sokka notices the fact that Suki is wearing a skin tight Wonder Woman costume. His blue eyes nearly bug out of his head.

Katara promptly coughs in order to hide her laughter. She can see the way Suki is blushing and straightening her back a little. Katara almost wants to give her friend an encouraging pat on the shoulder. She likes Yue, she does, but Suki has had a crush on Sokka forever, and Katara cares about Suki's feelings more than Yue's.

But instead, Katara takes a couple of steps back and takes a few sips from her cup. Zuko follows.

"Nice wings," he says, smiling.

"Nice haircut."

Zuko's golden eyes flick up toward his hairline self-consciously. His hair used to be shaggy, but he must've gotten a couple of inches cut off recently, since now his bangs are barely brushing his forehead.

"It was Jin's idea," he explains sheepishly.

"It's nice," Katara compliments.

"You think so? I hate it. I kind of miss the length."

Katara reaches up her hand and tugs on a couple of his locks affectionately. "Seriously, it's nice. You look more…polished."

"Polished," Zuko repeats, taking an unconscious step closer to her.

Katara feels her heart rate speed up. He's so close that she can smell him. He smells good, like Axe or Old Spice or something along those lines. She feels dizzy for a moment.

And then someone is tugging on her elbow.

Katara turns around and what she sees nearly makes her eyes pop out of her skull.

Jet looks like he's just stepped out of the 20's. His brown hair is slicked back stylishly, but Katara has no idea how he managed to get his hands on this kind of old fashioned suit.

"Jet—"

"I'm supposed to be Jay Gatsby," he interrupts, looking a little nervous. "You've been obsessing over that book all semester, so I thought that I'd surprise you." He gestures toward her wings and glittery make up. "You look cute, Tinkerbell."

Katara can't stop the grin that spreads across her face. "You look amazing!" At a loss for words, she pulls her boyfriend into a hug and rests her chin on her shoulder. After a moment she pulls away, but keeps an arm wrapped around his waist.

"Zuko," Jet greets from her side.

Zuko nods back, winks at Katara, and disappears into the crowd.


The pain pulsates through her chest and leaves her feeling numb. It's not fair, she thinks, to have to see this.

And it's not his fault. That's what makes it worse.

She'd lost Jet about an hour ago and had gone to look for him. That's when she'd seen him hanging out with another girl in a secluded corner of the party. In his defense, he hadn't looked that enraptured in the conversation. The girl, however, was all over him.

What is it about her boyfriend? Why couldn't other girls just leave him be?

She'd been about to step up to the two of them and interrupt when the other girl had kissed Jet. She saw his old body stiffen, saw his brown eyes widen in shock, but she didn't see him pull away.

And Katara, being the impulsive creature that she is, turns and walks away before she sees her boyfriend shove the other girl away from him with more force than necessary.


She's grabbing onto Suki's cape and viciously yanking. "I need to get out of here." She's in hysterics. Her breaths are shallow and she's feeling fuzzy headed.

Suki is gripping her shoulders and steadying her. "Katara? Katara, are you okay?"

Katara rapidly shakes her head. "I saw…"

Suki looks deeply concerned. "Saw what? Where's Jet?"

Sokka appears over Suki's shoulder, and Katara briefly wonders if she had interrupted a conversation between the two of them.

"Suki, I was right. About Jet. I was right."

Suki's face darkens and she looks angrier then Katara has seen her in a very long time. "It's going to be okay, Katara. We're going to deal with him."

Katara nods, swaying a bit on her feet.

And then someone is by her shoulder. "What the hell is going on?" A hot hand is on the small of her back, making sure she doesn't tip over. She knows it's Zuko. She knows.

And then she's being steered out of the house and into a car.

It hurts. She's surprised by how much it does.


She ignores his texts. Won't look at him during school. It takes her two weeks to summon up the courage to talk to him.

She walks up to him after her English class. She's carrying her books in her hands, and they work as a sort of shield.

Jet looks irritated as soon as he sees her. "Finally talking to me?" he says, brown eyes a hurricane. But just like that the storm quiets. "Katara, I don't even know what I did to make you so angry with me."

She notices for the first time how tired he looks. That there are bags underneath his eyes and that he's lost a little bit of weight.

She can't help but feel a little guilty.

"You kissed another girl behind my back," she says, and nearly winces at the words. They sound awful, no matter how she says them.

Jet watches her for a long moment. Then he sighs. "If you really think I'd do that to you, then maybe we shouldn't be together."

Then he walks away.


"More cryptic and non-informative bullshit, huh."

"Suki, you're not being helpful."

"Look Katara, as someone who has never been in a relationship, I don't know why you're still coming to me for advice. I clearly know nothing."

"Because you're my best friend."

"I don't know. I guess you should talk to him. Hear him out? You never did get his side of the story. You just sort of freaked out."

"Hey, you freaked out with me."

"Um, yeah. I'm your best friend. I'm supposed to freak out along with you. Duh."


Jet's aunt glares at her back as Katara walks up the stairs and towards Jet's bedroom.

She supposes that maybe she deserves it. A little bit.

She knocks quietly, but doesn't wait for a 'come in'.

He doesn't look all that surprised to see her. "Hey," he calls out from his makeshift desk. He puts down a pen and turns his chair so that he's facing her. Then he waits.

And Katara waits too, because she's still at a loss for things to say.

"What you said earlier…" she trails off and then sucks in a deep breath. "About us not being together—"

"You don't trust me." He's stating the obvious, but Katara didn't realize it was the obvious until right now. "If you did then you would have talked to me instead of ignoring me for two entire weeks. Two entire weeks that sucked, by the way."

Katara frowns. "It sucked to see you kiss another girl."

"It sucked to be kissed by a girl who tasted like stale booze. Also, she was stupid. I mentioned the Triforce and she asked me if I learned about that in my chemistry class." He raises an expectant eyebrow at Katara, and she can't help but giggle.

Jet's face relaxes into an easy smile. "See, my girlfriend actually knows when I'm talking about Zelda." His smile melts into hesitation. "If she's still my girlfriend, that is."

Katara sits down on the edge of Jet's bed. "I just… When I see other girl's talking to you it…upsets me, I guess."

And then Jet laughs. He laughs. "And whenever I see another guy looking at you, which happens all the time, I want to punch him in the face." He sighs, shaking his head. "I care about you a lot, Katara. A lot," he repeats earnestly.

Katara feels her cheeks start to burn. Jet's gaze is intense. She suddenly she feels very small. Or very big. She's not sure.

Jet leans behind his chair and pulls out an old guitar that has done nothing but sit in the corner of his bedroom since Katara has known him. "Well, I hope you are still my girlfriend, because I totally wrote a song about you."

Katara melts like butter on hot toast. "Oh?"

"Yeah. It goes like this. I have this really awesome girlfriend/her name is Kataraaaaaaa/and she's got super awesome eyes/and a nice rack/even though right now she's not calling me back/but that's okay because/she's still awesome/and her name is Kataraaaaaa."

"Grammy winning."

"I know."

The guitar sits in his lap and Jet stares at her, waiting.

"I'm sorry," Katara finally says, voice soft. "Do you think, do you think we could start over, or something? I'm bad at being a girlfriend."

"Nah." Jet shrugs. "You're perfect."


A/N:

A few things:

First things first, this chapter was supposed to be a drabble chapter that was going to set up the next chapter. Because, uh, Katara loses a couple of important things in the next chapter. *ahem*

But I got more than one person mentioning the fact that they thought Jet was a cheater, or that he was cheating on Katara. So I decided to use this chapter to squash those thoughts, because as flawed as Jet is, a cheater he is not. His character does not strike me as someone who would do that. Jet will never ever ever cheat in this story.

I cannot say the same about Katara or Zuko. *blink*

Second, I'm afraid I have to stick this story on a temporary hiatus.

Fear not, for it is not forever! I suspect that this story will be back sometime in January, perhaps a little earlier, perhaps a little later. The problem is that my two other multi-chaptered stories are a lot closer to being finished then this one is, and I'd really like to finish them before the end of the year. Plus, the closer I get to finishing the other stories, the more distracting they became, which means that updating Wake Up becomes more of a chore, and not a joy. I don't think that's fair to you guys, nor the story, do you?

I hope everyone understands, and I do apologize. But this way I think we'll end up with a better story in the long run, and that's what's most important.

You guys are awesome, stay classy, Happy Halloween, Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and drop a review and let me know your thoughts if you feel so inclined. :D