A/N: Wow finally! Here's another chapter, full of Zuko-ness and good times. Thanks for all your patience, school is really getting the best of me this year, and I'm trying my very hardest to squeeze this in where I can. A big massive thank you to the reviewers and the readers, who remind me that it's important to keep writing. You're all great. In this chapter, Zuko has a chat with Sokka, has the Ozai talk with Aang, and finally confesses something to Katara. Thanks for putting up with me aaaaa

If Zuko had to pick a moment in his life in which he was mostly content, it would have to be this one. He decided that, with the way things were going, he was settling in at about forty percent happy and only sixty percent unhappy, which was a point he'd never really quite reached. He had begrudgingly decided that was pretty alright, even though Katara insisted that forty percent happy still wasn't very much. Whatever it was, it was a new record, and Zuko was fine with that. Even so, he figured there was no point trying to relive any more of his anger because it just didn't feel like it was going anywhere, so he tried to focus on positive things, like spending time with his friends and spending less time locked alone in his room.

Surprisingly, most everyone had let up on his feelings. Maybe he just wasn't as exciting anymore now that he'd seemed to have calmed down a bit, but it was still a little off-putting. Not even Sokka was pestering him anymore, and Sokka was normally always pestering him.

Loathe to admit that he missed it, Zuko paced aimlessly around the house. Maybe someone would notice that he looked a bit lost, and maybe they'd corner him and force some emotion out of him. It wasn't even that he wanted to talk about his feelings, because he didn't. There was just the simple fact that he had feelings and he was a bit miffed that no one seemed to care anymore, least of all Sokka, who was usually the most nosy of them all.

Of course, Zuko wasn't even sure why Sokka was so invested in his love life in the first place, especially considering that it was Katara he wanted. Zuko had brought this up a few times, but Sokka always brushed it off and said that he owed him.

Zuko suspected the events of Boiling Rock were at play here, and he didn't really want to question it. The weird thing was, Sokka seemed to be more pro Zuko-Katara than any of them. If the three of them were sitting alone, Sokka would make some grand excuse and leave. When Katara needed help with something, Sokka always delegated the task to Zuko. Whenever Katara had to go get something from town, Sokka would make her take Zuko with her.

It was all very suspicious.

Deciding it was high time he got some answers, Zuko walked around the house until he found Sokka, who he eventually found lying facedown on the parlor couch, complaining about back pain.

Zuko walked into the room as casually as he could. "What happened to you?"

"Earthbending," Sokka grumbled unhappily. He made a great show of turning around, grimacing expressively. "Toph thinks it's funny."

"I need to ask you something."

"Yeah, sure," Sokka crawled to a seated position, making a great show of wincing as he did so. Zuko sat in a chair a good several feet away, his hands clasped.

"Why do you care so much about setting me up with your sister?" he asked, not bothering to beat around any bushes. He was going to get to the bottom of this. "I mean, if i were you trying to hook up with my sister..." he paused, reconsidering the analogy. I'd put you in a mental institution, that's what I'd do.

Sokka made a face. "No offense, but your sister is...bonkers."

"Yeah, forget that," Zuko waved his hand. "I just thought you'd be more, you know...against me wanting to...because she's your sister and everything. It doesn't make any sense."

"You want to know why I'm ok with it?" Sokka asked, confused. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"We'd be here all day if I answered that question."

Sighing, Sokka looked at Zuko seriously. "Look, I know you used to be a total jerkbender, but you're pretty cool! I mean, everyone deserves a second chance, right?"

But Zuko didn't accept that answer. It was too simple, there had to be something else. So he just frowned, and Sokka shrugged at him. There's something else.

As if he understood, Sokka sighed, his shoulders slumping. He gave Zuko a look that read fine, I'll tell you if you want to be pesky about it and Zuko responded with a I'll be pesky at you forever until you tell me already.

So he began.

"You remember when we first met, right? Back in the North Pole?"

"You hit me in the back of the head with a boomerang, yeah, I remember."

Sokka smiled dreamily. "Yeah, those were the days. But remember, I hated you. You were chasing us all the time, attacking us, trying to kill us, yelling about honor, capturing Aang, going on and on about..."

Annoyed, Zuko glared. "Can you get to the point?"

"What?" Sokka paused. "Oh, right. But you turned out to be a pretty good guy..." here, he looked at Zuko seriously, "a really good guy. You came with me to the most dangerous prison in the world, even when I hadn't warmed up to you yet. All because you wanted to prove yourself." He paused again. "And I owe you for that."

"So you're trying to pay me back?" Zuko was confused. "Sokka, I didn't go with you so you'd let me date your sister, I went because I couldn't just let...I couldn't stay behind and..."

He trailed off, the difficulty of his thoughts clouded his words for a second. Grappling with words in silence, Zuko huffed and looked to the floor. The fact was, he didn't want to see another relationship between a father and a son completely destroyed. Maybe he didn't have a father anymore, but Sokka and Katara still did, and they needed him. And Sokka was right, maybe he did want to prove himself. Maybe he needed to. Zuko didn't particularly feel like the world's best person because of it.

"I know," Sokka said quickly, as if he could guess what Zuko was thinking. "As I said, you're just a good guy. And a guy that good...well, Katara deserves someone like that."

Sokka obviously didn't realize the full extent of Zuko's intentions.

"Am I, though?" Zuko found himself voicing a different worry. "A good guy?"

"Well, yeah," Sokka shrugged, but Zuko didn't believe it. He just shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck.

"I don't feel like a good guy," he admitted. "I actually feel like a pretty crappy guy. Most of the time."

"That's ridiculous," Sokka said plainly, waving his hand aside.

"It's not," stressed Zuko. "I've done so many bad things, and some of them are more recent than I'm willing to admit. I chased you around for how long? I kidnapped Katara, I rescued Aang from Zhao only so I could turn him in to my father myself, in Ba Sing Se I betrayed...everyone." Not just Katara, he often had to remind himself. He had betrayed everyone in Ba Sing Se, everyone but Azula, who was betraying him. There was no worse look in the world than that sad, resigned disappointment in his uncle's eyes. Such bitter disappointment left a tremendously bitter aftertaste, and Zuko felt like he was still choking from it.

"You've redeemed yourself," Sokka told him quietly. "And we've all forgiven you for it, I don't know why you're..."

"Because I don't deserve it."

"You need to stop telling yourself you don't deserve good things," Sokka sighed, in the way one sighs when someone just isn't getting the point. "You keep looking for reasons for us not to trust you, but...I probably trust you more than anyone I know."

This shocked Zuko a little, and the sincerity of it really astounded him.

"What why?" he asked, as if they were just one, single word and not two. Sokka only shrugged and looked off at the distance, as if the conversation was a little too emotional and not manly enough for him.

"When I was growing up, I was the only kid my age in the whole village. There was Katara, but she's...a girl." He shrugged apologetically. "She never wanted to bash around and hit stuff with clubs, especially once..." once our mom died, he was going to say, but his mouth clamped shut before he could. Zuko just nodded to show him he understood, and Sokka continued. "Until there was Aang, I never really had friends I could relate to, and I even had trouble relating to him. And I know Aang would have come with me to the Boiling Rock, but you were the one who did. Ever since then, I don't know. It was like you were the friend I wanted back at the South Pole, when it was just me, Katara, a bunch of children, and Gran Gran." He took that moment to pause and look at Zuko seriously. "Going to the Boiling Rock could have meant the end for you, and you knew that. And you and I both know that the end of you means a lot more than the end of me, because...I mean, you're the future of the Fire Nation, right? There was so much at stake, but you came anyway. That's why I trust you."

Zuko didn't say anything. Sokka coughed in a manly fashion. Suddenly feeling the need to do so as well, Zuko coughed in an even manlier fashion.

This resulted in a manly coughing competition that lasted nearly five whole minutes, until Katara yelled from a few rooms over "what are you guys DOING."

Sokka yelled back "BEING MANLY," and Zuko could practically hear Katara's eye roll.

Feeling strangely comforted, Zuko realized that he wasn't the only one who hadn't much experience with friends. He wasn't the only one who had come from a broken family. As alienated as he normally felt, he thought that maybe these people were more like him than he'd thought. You don't have to make yourself so alone, Katara had told him once. Maybe it was just in his head.

The look on Sokka's face confirmed his more than anything, really. It was just a little smile, but to Zuko it said 'hey come on, you know we're bros' and Zuko did his best to give him a smile that said 'yeah, we are bros.'

At this point, Aang poked his head into the room and asked if he could join them in being manly.

"Of course, plenty manliness for everyone," Sokka said in an unnaturally deep voice, stroking a beard he didn't have. Aang strutted into the room, a strut he'd obviously been practicing for many hours.

"No no," Sokka corrected, and stood up, his extraordinary back pain suddenly forgotten. "You're doing it all wrong. You have to throw your shoulders back, puff your chest out more. It's much more manly."

"Like this?" Aang stuck his tongue out and puffed his chest, but the resulting walk was a lot more waddling than it was before.

"Don't stick your tongue out," Sokka admonished, shaking his head. Zuko couldn't believe an impromptu strutting lesson had just broken out in the living room of his father's beach house. "Put your hands in your pockets."

"But I don't have pockets." Aang showed him. Sokka frowned like this was a real problem.

"I could find some scissors," he suggested, but Zuko decided to put a stop to this before it got out of hand.

"Stop," he said, standing up. He put a hand on Aang's shoulder. "Besides, that's not how you strut anyway. If you really want to pull off a manly strut, you have to be much moodier."

"Moodier?"

"That's just your solution to everything," Sokka waved a hand aside.

"It's true," Zuko insisted, crossing his arms and looking down at Aang. "If you want to be manly, you have to be broody. You have to walk into a room like you just don't give a fuck about anything in it."

"I guess that makes sense," Aang scratched his head. "I mean, that's what you do, and you're the manliest person here." This elicited a HEY from Sokka, at which point Aang had to backpedal and tell Sokka he was also very manly. Sokka just crossed his arms and made a grumpy face.

Slumping over to the wall, Aang practiced being broody for a while. But both Sokka and Zuko had very different opinions on what being manly really entailed, and they both had extremely varying opinions on what being broody really had to do with it.

"More slouchy," Zuko said, but Sokka rebutted with "stand up straight!"

Katara appeared in the doorway, looking irate. All three boys looked at her with varying shades of guilt.

"What are you doing?" her voice was flat and suspicious.

"Teaching Aang...how to be manly?" Sokka supplied uncertainly.

"Is that going to help him defeat the Fire Lord?"

"Well, if you think about it, the Fire Lord has to be pretty manly himself," at this, Sokka craned his head to look at Zuko as if to ask if it were okay to say this. Zuko allowed it. "So if we amp up Aang's manliness, then..."

"Shouldn't you be teaching him firebending?" Katara gave Zuko a look, under which he quailed. "I don't think trying to make Aang more grumpy is very productive."

"Well, I wouldn't say that for sure, exactly," he said quickly. Katara didn't buy it.

"Well what have you been doing all day?" Sokka challenged. She screwed her lips to the side in a show of indignation.

"You know, productive things," she insisted. "I went to the shops with Suki."

Sokka's first reaction was "WITHOUT ME" but then he remembered himself and raised an eyebrow at her. "What did you buy?"

"That's...that's not the point."

"I think it is the point!"

"Guys..." Aang finally cut in, stepping in between the two siblings. "Katara's right. I need to focus on my training. There's no time for fun." he gave her a pointed look as he said this, and Katara sighed. After giving them each a suspicious look, she seemed to relent.

"Fine," she said, throwing her hands in the air. "Teach him how to be a weirdo, I don't care."

"I resent that!" Sokka called as she sauntered away. Zuko huffed.

"We aren't weird," he muttered, before looking to Sokka for confirmation.

"Yeah! She's the weird one."

"Maybe weirdness is what makes us special!" exclaimed Aang, and while Sokka shrugged in a 'yes this is true' sort of way, Zuko just shook his head.

"Maybe we should practice firebending," he said, still watching the spot from which Katara had left. "Before she yells at us again."

"She'll get over it," Aang jumped up onto the couch and started air scootering back and forth. "I need a break anyway." Really, Zuko could just tell that Aang didn't feel like practicing, and while normally he would argue with that, there wasn't much chance of him teaching him anything anyway. Once Aang had decided he did or didn't want to do something, he would stick to that very stubbornly and there was nothing anyone could do or say about it (and Zuko had tried).

He made a mental note to train him twice as hard tomorrow, to make up for it.

In fact, there seemed to be something bothering Aang, and Zuko was almost afraid to ask. As a friend, he knew it was expected of him to ask, especially considering the fact that people were always prodding him for explanations when things were bothering him. But he was afraid it was Katara bothering Aang, and that wasn't a subject he wanted to discuss, not with anyone, least of all Aang.

But, as a friend, he felt obligated to do so, so he did. Awkwardly, as was his nature, he asked.

"You seem...bothered. By something," he said, his head turned to face him. Aang turned in surprise, and sort of hovered in the air before he landed gracefully on the couch.

"I guess," he scratched his head. Giving Zuko a nervous look, he said "I don't know if you really want to hear about it."

Sokka and Zuko exchanged a quick look.

"Maybe I'm in a good mood today," Zuko told him, with a fair bit of hesitation, and Aang smiled a bit at that. He crossed his legs on the couch and looked around nervously a bit before he started talking.

"I'm just really worried about fighting the Fire Lord," he said quietly, to Zuko's surprise. He'd expected Katara problems, not Ozai problems. He'd always thought he was the only one who had Ozai problems, although on second thought, that did seem stupid. Zuko tried to keep the surprise off his face, but a little sliver of shock escaped through his eyes, and Aang started talking very quickly. "And if you don't want to talk about it that's fine, because I know he's your dad, and..."

"Aang," he interrupted, "It's fine."

In all actuality, this conversation wasn't one Zuko really didn't want to have either, but Aang was a person who needed to talk out his feelings in order to solve his problems, and the Fire Lord/Fatherlord issue was a rather big one. The whole thing filled Zuko's head with pangs of guilt and worry and what Katara called 'angst about your dad.'

But Zuko's acceptance of the topic seemed to comfort Aang a bit, and he relaxed slightly. "I've been worrying about fighting him for a long time, and now it's only two weeks away! I'm not even ready to fight him, I won't be ready, I'll never be ready." Aang paused, and looked at Zuko with large gray eyes. "I'm scared. But I'm the Avatar, I'm not supposed to be scared, am I?"

"There's nothing wrong with being scared," said Zuko seriously. "Especially of him. Believe me, I get it."

Aang paused, in the way someone does when they're on the verge of asking a question they're not sure is okay to ask.

"Monk Gyatso was like a father to me," he started to say slowly, like he was trying to figure out how to phrase what he was trying to say. "And if one of my friends was trying to defeat him, even for the good of the world, I don't know how I would feel about it."

"Are you asking...my permission to defeat him?" This astounded him a bit; why was he asking his permission? The confusion must have been showing on his face, because Aang looked a little sheepish about it.

"He's your dad," Aang shrugged uncertainly. "I always knew I had to face him, but now his only son is one of my friends, and...it complicates things, you know?"

"I don't think it's really an issue," Sokka said when Zuko remained silent, looking between the two of them. "I mean..." his words dropped away, and suddenly Zuko became very aware that they were staring at him. Discomfort twisted in his stomach. Maybe I shouldn't have asked.

The thing was, he wanted Ozai gone probably more than any of them. But even that made him feel guilty, and guilt just made him angry. He wanted me gone, he reminded himself. He was going to kill me himself.

"I don't want you to have any reservations about this," he eventually said, keeping his voice as even as he possibly could. "If he senses any weakness in you, he'll exploit it in the worst possible way. He'll imagine every possible way to hurt you in that one second, and there won't be anything after that."

He nearly reached for his scar, but he stopped himself. It's over. It's done. It's not that big of a deal. Not anymore.

Aang's face was full of sympathy.

"He did that to you, didn't he?" he asked quietly. Zuko nodded jerkily.

"Yeah."

"If you talk about it, it'll clear out a lot of negative energy in your mind," Aang suggested, in a soft and gentle voice. Being the Avatar meant that Aang was always spouting out spiritual wisdom, and Zuko never found any of it particularly helpful.

So he just shook his head stiffly, and Aang had the sense to pull back. He was relieved Aang didn't get preachy about it, as Aang was like to do, because really, he just didn't want to talk about it with anyone.

There was a bit of an awkward pause. Naturally, Sokka felt like he needed to be the one to break it.

"Soooo..." he said, rolling his shoulders like he was stretching, "is there a plan for today?"

Aang shrugged. "I dunno. You're the plan guy."

For a moment, Sokka reverted back to stroking a fake beard. But Zuko was still thinking about their conversation; whenever his dad was brought up, things were bound to weigh heavily in his stomach like stones for several hours. So he got up and left the room, leaving Aang and Sokka to their daily plans.

Should I feel guilty about wanting him...dealt with? He wondered. But that, he knew, was something Sokka and Aang could never understand. He'd met Sokka and Katara's dad, he was what dads were supposed to be like. He had the same stupid sense of humor Sokka did, and in him was the same ferocity and protective instinct that Katara possessed. More importantly, he loved his kids, which Zuko knew Ozai never had.

He and Azula were only ever tools, ways through which he could gain power and manipulate it.

But he's still my father.

A little irate that yet another conflict had risen in his head, he half walked-half stomped up the stairs into his room and shut the door, not quietly.

Why did everything have to be a huge enormous deal? Why couldn't he just accept the fact that his father didn't deserve to live?

But does he deserve to die?

Zuko didn't know the answer to that. He hardly thought there was an answer, whether it be right or wrong.

If there was an answer, he knew Katara would know it, so after a few minutes of stewing over it in his room, he left again and went to find her.

The most important thing Katara ever did for him was take his hands and understand. And that's what she did consistently; Zuko would slouch up to her with a problem, and she'd sit him down on the ground, take his hands, and she tell him "I understand."

It sounded like bullshit coming from everyone else, but Zuko knew that Katara really did, on some level, understand where he was coming from. He could sit down in front of her and babble out his thoughts, and somehow, they made sense to her. She'd nod, never taking her eyes off him, listening. It really struck him in these moments just how much he needed her. He hated that in some ways- he hated being vulnerable, and he hated being dependent on someone else, but being vulnerable in front of Katara wasn't bad. It felt sort of nice, in a weird way, like he could just dump all his confusing feelings onto her and she'd sort them out all nice for him, without ever saying "no Zuko, that's stupid."

Depending on Katara felt natural.

So he sat in front of her and started babbling about his father, never really saying anything in detail, but vague little pieces, little threads in a much larger, more tangled story. It didn't make any sense, hardly to him even, but Katara nodded anyway, hanging on to his every word.

"I understand," she said, her thumb stroking his palm. "Your father did terrible things to you, things you didn't deserve." She frowned a bit. "But you know that. Don't you?"

"I do and I don't," he admitted. They sat cross legged on the ground across from one another, just holding hands. Sometimes, that felt like all Zuko needed. Just Katara, and her words of comfort, and her hands. It occurred to him then, as it often did, how beautiful she was. I could just kiss her, he thought, without even saying anything.

But he couldn't tell her now, not until after the war was over. And the promise to Aang, there was still that stupid promise.

Zuko pushed that out of his head.

Instead of saying anything, Katara only gave him that small, tight lipped smile that was now so familiar to him. It was a signal that she wanted him to keep going, that she didn't want to step in just yet. She'd learned as of late that this was the best way to get Zuko to confess his feelings.

"He was my father," he continued, now able to hold her gaze without turning furious shades of red, without babbling incessantly and helplessly. "Imagine if someone that close to you hurt you like that. I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that my father, who was supposed to love me, would hurt me without reason. So I told myself there had to be reason, there must have been something I'd done." Katara remained silent, so he kept going. "And I'm slowly realizing that what he did was wrong, and maybe I wasn't to blame for his cruelty. But..."

The word but worried Katara a great deal, and the worry manifested on her face in chewing lips and knotted brows.

"Zuko..."

"I did a lot of bad things." His voice dropped to a low, guilty mutter. "Maybe he was the one who drove me to do them, but that doesn't excuse it. Not to me. Now everyone magically forgives me, even though I can't forgive myself. Even though..." he screwed his face up in agony, the emotion of the thing driving him mad, " Even though I don't deserve it."

"Zuko," Katara said softly, inching a little closer. "You earned our trust for a reason, and you worked harder for it than anyone else we've ever met. You worked for our trust. You worked for my trust." She squeezed his hand. It comforted him, but only a little. "People don't just deserve things, they never do. They earn them. You didn't deserve this. No one does." Her hand lingered over his scar. Moving forward a little, Zuko pushed his head into her hand. It's okay. You can touch it.

You're the only one.

"What about my father?" he asked quietly, nearly mesmerized by the way her fingers made the scar feel smooth, unblemished, and invisible. Her touch felt good, so impossibly good, and even in the seriousness of the moment, Zuko felt a rush of heat throughout his body. "What about what he deserves?"

Katara spoke quietly, carefully. "Your father has tormented hundreds, if not thousands of people. Some of those people are the best people I know." She looked at him seriously. "...I don't know how honest you want me to be."

"Completely."

Her voice dropped to a hush. "He was never your father, Zuko," she said softly, sadly. "He was only your nightmare." Zuko snorted in amazement, only Katara would have dared say that to him. Only Katara could look him in the eye and tell him the harsh truths, only Katara could run her hands over his scar and tell him the horrors of his own life. Anyone else would have surely suffered a cruel and terrible fate, or at least a long period of yelling and stomping, but when Katara said it, he knew it was true. And it was okay.

"I know," he muttered, not breaking his gaze. He paused. "I want Aang to kill him."

"I know." There was no judgement on her face. No distress, no disappointment; just understanding. Katara was the only one who knew.

Zuko fell headfirst into her shoulder, and felt tears leak out of his eyes. He didn't shake, he didn't sob, it was just cold, even breathing and the hot tears of purging guilt; and words whispered into his ear, "It's okay, it's okay."

Slowly, something started to surface in his head. He saw his father, he saw himself, kneeling on the ground, crying to Ozai's feet and blinking with two unhurt eyes.

Like vomit, the story started to build in him. It was sudden, the way he realized it, I have to tell her about the scar. It was a wrenching feeling in his lungs, like the air was being sucked out of him and the truth was being forced up with it. Memories of fire and his father were rising in his throat, and knew he would only ever be able to retell it once, and only to Katara. Only Katara. Raising his eyes he looked at her, not bothering to keep the tremors out of his face. No pretenses. Just the truth.

Katara looked back at him, her breath bated. Forcing himself to find comfort in the softness in her eyes, the loose strands of her hair, and the thrumming of her heart, Zuko breathed.

"This is how it happened," he began, his voice strangled. "This is how I got burned."

A/N: Thanks for reading! Here are some thoughts of mine.

A popular thing I've noticed in the Zutara fandom is that Sokka is usually placed in the role of Super Disapproving and Protective Big Brother, which I don't have an inherent problem with; Sokka is protective, but I don't think he's protective to the point where he'd disapprove of Zuko having feelings for her. As he explains, he thinks Zuko is one really cool dude. Zuko really proved that on the Boiling Rock expedition, and after that, Sokka was really on board for the Zuko Train, so to speak. He sees Zuko as someone he could trust, and I see no reason why he would really disapprove of him and Katara, because they're totally bros.

I debated for a long time whether I wanted to do a "wanna know how I got this scar" scene with Zuko and Katara. Obviously this is one of those Really Big Deal sort of things, but at this point, Zuko is going through a period in which he's learning trust, he's realized he has all these genuine friendships, so I think the story has been jostling around in his head for quite some time. It's just one of those things that have to be done. Katara really wants to know the story but she would never ever ever ask, because she guesses how painful it is- and really, all she wants to do is make Zuko feel better, because that's what Katara does.

In the next chapter, Zuko and Katara have the most extreme of heart to heart conversations and there will probably be tears and lots of hugging. Again, thanks for your patience as this story goes onto a sort of semi-ish hiatus (hiatus is really the wrong word) (there will just be larger gaps between updates) and thanks for reading! I blog about my Zutara feelings frequently, so we can chat about those if you're a person who likes chatting about those sorts of things. hugs and kisses xoxoxoxo