H-Thank you all who have stayed faithful and held out the doldrums. This chapter should have been up months ago, but somehow... Well, you get the point. My birthday is coming up soon, so until then, I'll try to have at least to chapter 15 up. Don't get your hopes up just yet - this is just a goal. I repeat.

I will not be held accountable for anything.

DISCLAIMER: We do not own any characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor do we own the show. We're simply writers manipulating them for our own twisted, fictitious use.

That morning, a certain tattooed airbender woke up to light streaming in from the large, glass doors. Huh, guess he forgot to close the blinds last night. Yawning, Aang stretched out his arms, nearly rolling onto the floor until he let himself be cushioned by a puff of air. He kept face down on the carpeted floor for a few moments, still drowsy, until deciding to get up. Last night, or rather, this morning he stayed up watching Inuyasha reruns until he fell asleep. The next thing he knew, everything was dark and quite, he was on the couch, locked out of his bedroom, and Kat still wasn't home.

The older waterbender had a tendency to disappear at random times, so he ignored it, trying to make himself comfortable on the leather couch they had since college. The tattooed airbender stole a pillow from Katara's closet and a blanket she rarely used as he tried to fall asleep. Going to the kitchen, he opened up the small fridge. There, on the top shelf, was a lone jar of Smucker's jelly. No bread, no peanut butter, no other food. Great. Where'd Kat usually go to get groceries? The only place Aang got food from was the poorly stocked corner store and various fast food places. He slammed the fridge door a bit too hard. He was well aware of the vegetables in the pantry, but even at his age, he still was as lazy as any guy with cooking. He wasn't just that hungry yet. When he normally got hungry, he ordered vegetarian pizza from a local pizza pallor. But more times than not, it was Katara who supplied him with his meals. And man, could she cook.

Just then, Toph walked out of his bedroom dressed in his orange button up shirt. At least the yellow shorts were hers. What's mine is yours, he thought, and what's yours is yours. Nothing like family... Well, that's Toph for ya.

"Hey, airhead, lookin' for something?"

"Yeah, what'd you do with the food?" He asked, a tiny bit angry. His stomach was growling in complaint.

"Ate it, of course. What, did you think I was the only one eating? I'm human. You're part of that species, too. Or at least the lesser half. You helped make it disappear. There's soup cans in the pantry," she shrugged. "Oh, and Kat's at some guy's house. She said she shouldn't be long."

"What?" Aang said. His sudden anger at Toph disappeared, and his grey eyes widened as the petite girl nearly shrugged, as if it were nothing worth really talking about. He tensed, his spine completely rigid.

"I dunno, he needed help with renovation plans or something. Nothing big. What was his name... Zeke... Zack... Zoo..."

"Zuko?!" Aang cried, outraged.

"Oh, sure. What's your problem?" She asked him, furrowing her eyebrows. His tense, shaking posture was all too clear for her to feel. Wasn't he hungry a few seconds ago? Talk about multiple personalities...

"She stayed over at Zuko's house?!" He was yelling now, and he acted as if the name were a curse. A taboo that wasn't to be spoken of in light terms. Eesh. Grouchy, Toph smirked knowingly.

"Well, apparently, since she didn't make it home. Why are you so heated about it? It's not like their planning a wedding, anytime soon. Besides, it's healthy for her to be hanging around some guys."

"Well, Katara hangs around me, doesn't she?" Aang put a strong emphasis on the 'me' part.

Toph frowned, her voice rising now as well. "Yeah, just look at how interesting she finds you! Kat's gone half of the time, anyway! You're just mad because you know she likes him and not you!" The girl spat at him. Never in a million years would she admit to the slight sting of jealousy she felt right then. He'd always cared so much about Katara. Katara this, Katara that, look at Katara, Katara's so beautiful… did you know Katara could...? Ah! She couldn't take it anymore.

Katara was…well, Katara. She was independent and motherly, overbearing but compassionate. Like the big sister Toph never had. It was annoying at times, but come on. Aang was her foster brother for crying out loud! Wasn't that just… wrong? For the blind earthbender, it was the equivalent of the waterbender and…Sokka. And that was sick and wrong on so many levels. At that, she sneered in disgust and stomped her foot in a very unladylike way, stomping only a fraction of an inch away from his bare feet.

Aang's fists were shaking, his silver eyes glaring daggers at her. Too bad it was wasted on someone who could nether see nor care about his murderous expression. If looks could kill, they both would've been gone a long time ago.

"That's. Not. True." The airbender had his teeth clenched, and he was white knuckled. Toph could feel his whole body shaking with anger now, his vibrations getting dangerously erratic. Her glossy green eyes, although they couldn't see, glared just as angrily back towards him as he was to her.

"Sorry to say, Twinkle Toes, it is! You're in love with her! Like she's not our family. You can't hide that from me, no matter how hard you pull the wool over Sokka or Katara. I'm starting to wonder who's really blind." She stepped closer, her nose almost touching his chest. "How long has this been going on? Are you Sokka and Katara's adopted brother or not? Get it through your thick head that you and Katara aren't meant to be! She's free to choose any person she wants. And she chose Zuko!"

"Then why hasn't she said anything? I should have heard about this before, say I don't know…YOU!" he snapped furiously, an unusual, uncharacteristic snarl marring his normally cheerful face. His abrupt, pained expression lost to his blind counterpart. "Why not me?"

"Just because she doesn't tell you every little thing means she doesn't have her own life to live. I've never seen her so happy—doesn't she deserve this?"

"And I don't?!"

"Katara needs this more than you could ever comprehend, Twinkle toes. As much as you don't want her happy with anyone else but you, she needs someone who can handle her. And you, you dense idiot, need to see that she's your sister! And I don't care if you don't share blood; she took care of you! She gave up so many things for you! For once in your life, can't you let Katara have something she'd been denying for years?"

You could've cut the tension in the air with a knife and promptly gotten the blade stuck firm in the thickness. Ah. There went the good cleaver.

"She doesn't deserve him. Katara needs more then he can give her, I can give her that and more." He retorted quickly, angrily glaring at his earth bending teacher, the truth of her side hurting him severely.

She hit his chest with a bruising thump and twisted her hand into his shirt sleeve. This close, she could hear his heart louder than her own, which was indistinctly starting to beat against her rib cage. With a snort, she replied bluntly, recalling who her water bending friend's happiness was caused by.

"Hot head is everything Katara needs. He's more than capable—hell, I know him! Princey boy and I go back as far as you and I do! Met him in high school the day after I met you; you remember our first shout fest? His uncle and him let me in for tea." Toph thoughtfully muttered a curse after her sentence; and kept her frenzied rigorousness up. "And from what I've seen then and now, she's changed Zuko. Let her go already. Or you too childish and selfish to let her love someone else?"

In her unseeing darkness, she felt her long, ebony hair lift suddenly and whip against the nape of her neck. In the room, a strong gust of wind circulated and became visible to the naked eye. Just not to Toph, the blind woman who was standing up for her closest female friend. No matter how good of a friend the airbender was, she was on Katara's side for this fight.

The airbender was past obsessive of his adopted sister. It wasn't right or sensible. With a hostile, unsympathetic satisfaction, she crossed her arms over her chest and spat a deliberate friction to the already opulent argument. "Frankly, I hope she marries him if that's saying anything!"

Anyone else would've been able to see the air bender's tattoos beginning to glow...

--

Work that night was a bit different than usual. Only vaguely did Katara realize how close she had gotten with a certain firebender in a small amount of time. For months, they had been bordering on the line between friend and acquaintance, but now, now she knew that there was something more. Even Jet seemed to be quite aware of a change. When a certain fire and water bender duo came in at the same time, the tanned brunette had given Katara a sly smile and wink, but backed off the rest of the night.

Smart man.

Her work had gone by quite quickly, despite the distractions. Occasionally she'd have to walk by Zuko, and as the two brushed, she'd feel her face quickly reddening, and she knew it wasn't just the regular heat of the kitchen.

How ironic, Katara found herself thinking, my hormones start kicking in when I'm nearly twenty five, and I 'm beginning to fall for a firebender. With a stark realization, Katara frowned. Her birthday wasn't that far away, and she still wasn't sure how old Zuko was. It was a stupid thing, but she hated feeling in the dark. He was... very mature. A lot of guys Katara knew were just getting out of the immature frat boy stages, but Zuko was different. She found herself musing if Zuko ever had regular teenage stages...

Then again, Katara never really had them either. When someone would speak of how hard life had been, she had always inwardly laughed. Compared to what? Choices and situation circumstances were what made a person discover themselves as they grew. It was the dreams and goals that made the road more defined when people decided to act, other than just plan towards their dreams.

When she was a little girl, she'd always dreamed of finding her prince charming, falling in love and marrying said prince charming, have a happily ever after she and her knightly prince rode off into the horizon and setting sun. Hah. If only things could return to being simple, carefree and pure. The hour after she found her mother lying dead in cold blood, they had drastically turned to more… philanthropic things…

Live to see Sokka finish collage, be the best sister Aang and Sokka could ever have, be financially independent, and help Aang master the elements... The additional options that had weeded their way into the agenda were still only flitting thoughts in her mind at the moment.

Teach her brother's child everything she possibly could, see Aang reveal his presence as a fully fledged Avatar to the world, help Toph when it was turn to get married—and speaking of which—Aang too. They were family to her as much as Sokka. They were one big happy family. Suki, too. And Iroh was like her aging uncle. In every way, he was actually becoming her uncle. She'd never had one other than him, in any other case—so now she had a complete, or at least as it was going to get, set of family.

Then there was Zuko.

He had certainly become one of better friends she'd ever known. She had really gotten to know the firebender as well as he'd gotten to know her. But she didn't really know what to call him. He was actually the only person she wasn't sure about. He sparked her inner desires. He comsumed her thoughts, and his voice filled her head when he wasn't there. He was someone she could let watch her back if anything went wrong, he knew what to do when she herself didn't really know, she could count on him, rely on him to be there, depend on him to make her days better, and trust him with her secrets and thoughts.

Almost all of the above could also be applied to a good bar of chocolate.

His voice was a whisper across her skin, his essence electric. Embarrassingly, he had been the first man to kiss her. It wasn't embarrassing that he'd been the first - it was just that she had made it to twenty four until checking that one of the things-to-do-before-I-die list.

What she'd been getting at was, was that he sparked a flame in her. One that only grew as it was deliciously fed.

And to think, it had only been in a matter of months that she'd met the stoic firebender and slipped beneath his shields. She wasn't sure, but falling slowly was the only thing she could think of.

What a time for her voice of reason to desert her. Sure, leave me by my lonesome with no idea how to handle this.

Every little thought that night found a way to slip Zuko's name in there. La knew Katara was bordering on the line between admiration and obsession. She hoped it was more on the admiration part than the latter. Aang wasn't at work, but Jet told her that a girl called earlier and said he'd be absent today. There wasn't any further explanation, but Katara knew that she'd probably get one once she got to her apartment. Hopefully they didn't blow it up the one full day she was gone. Her room was already trashed, and Aang's was always that way. She hadn't even gotten around to painting yet...

Sighing, she watched a certain firebender close up the restaurant. They'd both stayed late to clean and feed the fish, and the electric sparks somehow found their way into Katara's blood system whenever the two touched. Cascada was playing repeatedly in her head.

Coincidence?

Think again.

"That was certainly epic night," she told him softly, referring to the workday. It seemed so... toned down, compared to what both had endured only hours before they both got to work.

"Not everything can be action packed," Zuko replied, turning around to give her a smile. She realized that he did that more often now, and she had even left her hair down for the last work session. And she was even startung to play around with it a bit. It was actually - dare she say this - fun.

"Would you like me to drive you home?"

Katara shook her head no. "It wouldn't be good for you to spoil me. Besides, I don't know what to expect when I get back there. Toph and Aang have never behaved well together."

He gave her a low chuckle, and his golden eyes bore into her own sapphire orbs. Katara held her breath when his hand raised up, brushing her cheekbone. Giving her a light kiss on the lips, he turned out of the building to enter his sports vehicle. She took a breath once everything began to spin around her. Certainly, if she was unsure of nothing else, he was affecting her like no other. She walked to her apartment in a daze, not really in tune with her surroundings. Only did she snap to full reality when police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks made their way back from somewhere. It wasn't away from her current residence.

Getting home, she realized she was wrong. Totally and horrifically wrong. Where the four story apartment building was now a very, very large mass of rubble. The site smelled strongly of smoke and ash, and there were a few people around salvaging through the mess. Turning to a couple, she asked in an over subdued tone what in the world had happened.

"We're not quite sure ourselves," the woman said. Her graying hair was falling in her face, a worried frown on her thin lips, her brows dipping in frustration. "We arrived earlier when the building was on fire. They said no one was seriously injured." The man looked at the heap of debris. "The people here at the time are mostly gone, but one of them might be able to tell you a little bit more." He nodded towards the people atop the flattened pile of their homes, digging up what they could salvage.

Taking a deep breath, she walked towards a woman. She was crouched over and held a black book in her hands. Almost similar to one she knew had been tucked securely away on her bookshelf. A stray thought crossed her mind as she looked around, and her heart withered. All of Zuko's books had been in her apartment. If she no longer had an apartment…

Damn. All of those wonderful sketches lost to the flames. It made her sad to think that she had never gotten to see them all; even in all the time she'd had them. More times than not, she would finger through the pages of the first leather bound book she'd opened, longing to understand what exactly drove the inspiration of the pictures. Out of the entire stack, she had only gone through two of them. There had been over a dozen total.

"Excuse me, Ma'am; do you know what happened here?" Katara asked, bending down, her hands shaking in suspicion.

The woman looked at her with sad, watery brown eyes and shook her head. She was sweating and her hands were dirty and cut. Katara took the woman's load as it was handed over, and the woman turned over a burnt timber, snatching a picture frame with a relieved sigh. Its glass facing was cracked, but the smiling worn picture of an older man was intact and unharmed.

"There was a rumbling earlier from the north end, and I thought it was an earthquake. Came outside and found everyone running outside too. Then one of the buildings exploded, blinding light came towering from one of the top housings. Next thing I knew, fire had already consumed it."

Katara thanked the lady and backed away, her blue eyes wide as she understood. Sudden, spontaneous tower of blinding light? Looking for her friends, she wordlessly panicked when Sokka pulled down the street in his battered up truck, horror written on his face. Lightheaded, she placed a hand on her breast and ran towards her big brother. He would know what to do. He was the plan maker. He could make things right. He could chase away the nightmare like he had the bogie monster hiding in her closet when she was five.

He met her at the half way point, and she threw herself into his arms, trembling. Hearing his disbelief, she explained what she had heard. Comprehension dawned on him and they darted to the police cars, halting in front of a tired looking woman.

"Have you seen a man with blue arrows on body? Or a blind girl wearing a headband?"

"I'm sorry, I haven't—"

Katara peeled away, and pulled her cell phone out and dialed. After a few rings, she listened, and stumbled ungracefully as she ran towards the ring tone coming from the ruined apartments. She found Aang's cell phone underneath a twisted scrap of ruined metal. She pocketed it, dialing another number. Sokka, realizing what she was doing, sprinted towards the heavy metal ring tone loudly pounding in the air. He held it up with a triumphant but disappointed curse. They split up and looked around the area, their friend's cellphones in hand.

The worried sick waterbender cried out in relief when the familiar shout of her friend greeted her ears. Out of breath, she halted as Toph angrily shouted at the confused water tribe man.

"What happened?" Sokka pleaded harshly as he placed his tanned hands on the smaller earth bender's shoulders, the large shirt tattered and torn on her and hints of orange peeked through the grim, the whereabouts of his foster brother still a total mystery.

"He went berserk!"

"What do you mean 'berserk', Toph?" Katara panted, reaching the two. "As in berserk berserk? Like as in…glowing?" Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something familiar in a young child's arms. A leather bound sketch book. She turned away, and walked toward the crying child, hearing Toph yell that she didn't have the word glowing in her vocabulary.

Katara knelt down in front of the girl with a careful smile. The girl clutched the leather bound book to her and turned slightly away from the water bender, eyeing her suspiciously.

"Can I have my book?"

"No!" the girl sobbed, tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Why not?" Katara softly inquired, careful not to frighten the little girl. She couldn't be older than three. Her little pigtails were askew, and her pink jumper was dirty with soot. Then, a slightly taller girl popped up and angrily hugged the crying child as she yelled at Katara.

"Mrs. Pretty is losted!"

Within a minute, Katara agreed helplessly to assist her and her sister to find her doll in exchange for the sketch book. Even though she didn't have to help, she did, and was glad in the end. It took a while, but after searching everywhere, she had uncovered a surprisingly intact rag doll. She brushed the ash from it, and with a sigh got to her feet to head towards the two children. The little green eyed girl had hugged Katara's legs and handed over the sketch book, shocking Katara when she pulled out the water bender's copy of Pride and Prejudice and told her it had been lying in perfect shape on top of the battered sketch book. Of all the things…

Thanking the girl and patting her head affectionately, she returned to her brother with a questioning look. He shook his head and kept rubbing Toph's shoulders, the two a picture of frustration.

They now where talking next to Sokka's blue ford, the three of them silently waiting for someone to speak. With a sad thought, Katara hugged the books as her heart ached.

Aang had gone into the Avatar State. Toph had admitted to them arguing over, surprisingly, their friend. When Sokka asked whom, Toph had quietly clammed up, resting her forehead against his arm miserably muttering that she had been stupid.

If that hadn't petrified Katara, what her brother mentioned next would.

"So… what now?"

--

She worked late into the day, uncovering things and searching for anything she could keep before the bulldozers arrived. Her and the unlucky apartment dwellers were helping each other look, dig out salvageable belongings, and anything usable to keep. In the end, she had about nothing.

When she and her brother watched helplessly as the bulldozer removed her former home, she swallowed a tangible lump, her eyes blurring in anger. Aang was nowhere to be found. Her apartment was gone. Her only belonging's consisted of a meager assortment: her purse and its contents, Pride and Prejudice, and the lone surviving miracle of Zuko's artwork.

She wasn't crying over her lost things, or her apartment. No. She was biting back the tears that were the result of frustration directed towards her missing brother. All Toph would tell them was that the fight had basically revolved around one person. Katara. When subject woman probed further, all she got was the silent treatment.

So a good while later, she and Toph sat in her older brother's apartment, fearing for their airbender. So the hours went by as it was decided that for the time being, Toph would get the couch and Katara would get the floor. The only real choice they had in the matter. So until Toph left for her home, the four of them would settle for sharing the tiny, tiny one bedroom apartment and wait to see about insurance on Katara's behalf.

Suki, who was starting to show, held a motherly glow despite of her concerned frown. Her hair was pulled back into a tight pony tail, and she was watching the local news, seeing for the first time what had happened to her friend's apartment despite what Katara had already told her. Hands playing with a chunk of metal from the ruined apartments, Toph silently focused on shaping and reshaping the metal under her will, surprising both Sokka and Katara—Suki was too intent with the television to see that the shape floating in the middle of the blind earth bender's hand looked distinctly like a penguin.

Nothing much on the news tonight. The only thing that had caught the water bender's attention was the description of a masked robbery not too far away from her current job.

The odd things about the robbery—so the newscaster stated—was that this man had swords, and that the things he'd stolen were returned only minutes ago, perfectly free of fingerprints. Swords? Who used those nowadays? A report of the person's appearance settled into her mind as the earth kingdom man read out the description.

"Laughing blue demon mask, probably a replica deriving from the Blue Spirit legend… entirely covered from head to foot— police have no clue as to what nationality he is… armed with weapons… reported to be dangerous..."

When it was time, Katara called in her work—and to her fortune it was one of the waitress's , saying things had come up, and she'd be absent and to pass it along to the kitchen. Not but a few minutes later, the phone rang again, and she picked it up without hesitation.

"Aang?"

"Huh? Who's—"

"Jet, why in the world are you calling?"

"Isn't that the bartender's name?"

Snapping, she realized it was too late to stop the bottled up anger that hide her fear. "Yes, it is. So unless you have information pertaining to him, I'll be going now."

"No, I don't. Hey, wait! That's—"

Katara hung up, pausing at the door to listen to her soon to be sister-in-law.

"You going out?"

Nodding, Katara answered with a curt reply. "I need some fresh air."

Obnoxiously, the phone rang again. Suki could deal with it. She didn't bother grabbing her things. They were safest here. She yanked her sneakers on and opened the door. Her brother's apartment was on the ground level, exactly three quarters of an hour's walk away from hers. Or what used to be hers.

She ran. Not a slow run, but a flat out burst of motion. She needed to get away from her thoughts. If she focused only on breathing, her mind would be clear as long as her legs didn't give up on her.

In.

Out.

Repeat.

The beat of her footsteps against the concrete were what she concentrated on. When she couldn't run anymore, she just stopped, her lungs burning and her body exhausted. Leaning against the brick wall behind her, she sank to the ground and closed her eyes, gulping in air to her deprived lungs.

Now that she could think, she gloomily wondered if it was humanly possible to just change the batteries and keep running. Sweat covered her in a thin layer, and she opened her eyes to take in her surroundings.

It wasn't dark yet, but it would be within the hour, the sky was resting on the turning of dusk. Pedestrians were many and one or two were staring at her openly, curiously. Cars stopped at the red light, went at green and drove off across the intersections. Stores of all assortments were just getting busy, their business opening to the general public. It was an upscale area, for sure, but the location—a different matter?

Where in the earth kingdom was she?

--

izzy- Ahaha, I think a few of you may remember the hit from a few years ago 'Every time we touch' by Cascada. I kept thinking of that when I wrote about Kat and Zuko :3 I'm such a loser, I know.

heflo- hehehe… I'm guilty there too. Cascada is a good artist to inspire some ideas when writer's block is peeking around the corner. Sorry about the lack of updates, everyone. Izzi was right about me finally coming out of my unsocial shell. Trying to clarify to someone who doesn't understand my situation circumstances would be like me trying to explain the color… blue. How do you explain to someone what blue is? Or how it operates, becomes, or is? Wow, I actually worked out a simple understanding for once… maybe not. In any confusion, read in review—as always.