A/N: Hi, everyone. Sorry for the delay. I know I said I would be trying to keep this updated on a weekly basis, but the Muse wandered off and wanted nothing to do with Zuko for a little bit. Sorry abut that. I think I'm back on track, so fingers crossed the momentum keeps up. I can't wait to see what you make of this chapter. Thanks ever so much to all of you who take the time to read and review.

xx-Kitten.


Brightest Nights or Darkest Days

By Kittenshift17


CHAPTER TWELVE


Fireballs flew at her and Katara danced out of their way, laughing. She sliced razor sharp discs of ice at Zuko, flinging them and watching him block every single one, fire whips, fire balls and quick footing allowing him to destroy them and dodge them with ease. He threw fire in return, the two of them duelling fiercely despite the way Katara laughed, teasing him, when she showed that since the last time they'd fought, she'd improved immensely.

He was silent as he battled but for the occasional grunt of effort behind particularly powerful attacks. Katara knew he was good, but for the time being she was holding her own and having a blast doing it. They'd been stuck in the igloo with Meng and Kuzon for days now as the blizzard raged on. After the first night, she'd created more suitable 'bedrooms' for the four of them, allowing the other couple privacy and saving her and Zuko having to endure another midnight surprise.

The young couple were infuriating, Katara had found. Meng was ever-perky, always bouncing around with bright ideas and entirely too excited about everything. Kuzon was a lot like Zuko, but he had a quicker sense of humour – or perhaps he was simply less guarded than the Fire Prince. The two of them together were infuriating for the simple fact that they were young and very much in love. They were often all over each other and if it weren't for the painfully obvious way she and Zuko were both uncomfortable with it, she might've thought it adorable.

But it wasn't adorable. It was annoying. Every morning she woke to Zuko prodding at her behind and every day she thought about rolling over and offering to help with the problem. In keeping with Zuko's surly attitude and the need to play this off as the two of them being a couple, they stolen a few innocent kisses when Meng and Kuzon were paying attention, but beyond that they had both been keeping their hands to themselves whenever possible. The live show being put on by the others was enough to keep their libidos raging and they certainly didn't need any more fuel for the fire.

"Is that the best you've got?" Katara taunted Zuko across the long, wide practice hall she'd made entirely out of ice for the sake of burning off some energy and relieving some tension before Zuko could actually kill their new friends.

"You can't handle the best I've got, Water Bender," he retorted, his eyes narrowed with deadly focus. He'd been surlier than ever and Katara had been having a hard time getting a word out of him that wasn't a snapped instruction or a scathing comment about their new friends, not that she entirely blamed him. For someone who tended to loathe what seemed to be the entire world, he was doing well to have refrained from killing the other couple they were currently sharing a dwelling with.

Katara flung another water whip at him, catching the fireball he'd thrown and smirking at him.

"We'll just see, won't we?" she replied.

He didn't smirk, but he did frown just little bit less before creating a wave of fire and forcing it toward her. Katara met him blow for blow, hissing whenever the fire got too close and taunting him whenever she managed to douse him. The sound of their battle inside the enclosed ice-hall was unbelievable, the roar of his fire creating blasts of steam and booms every time there elements met, head to head.

She was tired and sore by the time Zuko finally grew impatient enough with trying to beat her through Bending from a distance. She hissed when she miss-stepped as he closed in on her, forcing her into tight quarters, cornering her.

"Tired?" he challenge as she lost a good chunk of one of her hair loops when he threw a fire blade at her and almost took out her eye.

Katara bared her teeth at him, encasing her body in ice before launching herself at him, attempting to tackle him across the floor. He grunted on impact when she hit him, his body-heat alone enough that the ice began to melt around her. Katara grappled with him batting at him with icy fists and he met each one with a flame-encased blow of his own, her ice rapidly turning to steam as it melted. When she managed to pull him to the floor, she thought she'd won and she squealed in protest when he encased his whole body in fire, rolling and tumbling with her across the hard ground to finally pin her – drenched but no longer covered in ice.

"Yield," he commanded, pinning her wrists above her head as he straddled her.

Katara wasn't giving up that easy, kicking one leg up, she managed to hook it against his shoulder, dragging him backward until she could roll again. She hit him hard, knowing better than to pull her punches, knowing he wasn't pulling his, and that later she'd be able to heal the pair of them of whatever they did to one another. Zuko grunted when she slugged him across the jaw – keeping her wrist locked and making sure she didn't tuck her thumb inside her fist, just the way he'd taught her.

He actually smirked when he wiped at the blood that trickled from his split lip and Katara kicked him, rolling free until she could crouch before springing to her feet and trying to round-house kick him when he made to block her. She squealed again when he caught her leg and yanked it skyward, almost toppling her backward but for the unrelenting grip he had on her. Katara flailed, trying to keep her balance and she cursed when he looked wickedly amused.

Snatching at him, trying to use her weight against him, she slugged him again, pouncing on him and latching on to his neck, trying to get him in a choke-hold.

"You're really not strong enough for that, Water Bender," he commented, laughing just a little when all she managed to do was end up being piggy-backed around by him whilst trying to cling on too tightly to his throat.

"Well, what was I supposed to do?" she huffed, still clinging to him and attempting to hit him while they grappled before he flung her forward over his head to land painfully on her back in the dirt. The wind knocked from her, Katara winced when he aimed a fist at her, threatening to burn her or hit her as the need might arise, proving once again that in a fair fight, he could still beat her.

"You should have used my grip on your leg to jump kick me with your other foot," he told her, offering her a hand up when she yielded. Katara took it, breathing hard as she let him pull her back to her feet.

"I'd have fallen on my butt," she protested, frowning.

"So would I if you kicked hard enough. If you'd kicked here," he indicated to his solar plexus, "you'd have winded me, too. Then you could have stuck the landing and attacked by pouncing on me again either with a knife or with your bending. You realise that, if the need arises, you could drown an opponent, don't you?"

Katara nodded. "I've never used my bending to kill, though. I mean, I've used bending to knock soldiers off of things and they might've fallen to their death, but I've never, you know, drowned anyone or used the ice to sever arteries or anything."

"Because you're scared," he said, not needing to ask, just knowing it to be so.

"Water bending is primarily used for healing," she sighed. "Using it to commit murder feels very wrong. For defence is fine, but actually inflicting lasting harm or death makes me feel uncomfortable."

Zuko eyed her for a long moment and Katara could tell he was judging her. That he wanted her to do better. Yet, there was a flicker of something in his eyes that was almost... relief. As though the idea that she didn't like to cause pain or want to harm anyone she didn't have to made him feel better. She supposed, with a family like his, that it might be nice for him to have a reminder that not everyone was a psychotic killer like his father or his sister.

"Do you want to go again?" he asked rather than commenting on her admission.

"I'm not sure I can," Katara admitted, still breathing hard from the fight.

He nodded.

"You're bleeding, you know?" she asked softly, reaching toward him tentatively, encasing her fingers with water and tracing a healing touch along the split in his lip. He held still as she did so, though his lips twitched a little when she moved to fix a slice on his arm where she'd hit him with on of her ice disks.

"You're the only person I've ever met who doesn't flinch away from touching me or at least ask permission before doing so, you realise that?" he said, seeming intrigued by her.

"If I asked, you'd tell me to buzz off," she replied evenly, hiding her smile.

"Did I burn you?" he asked. "Other than your hair, I mean?"

Katara nodded, focusing on her own body where several things ached and a few patches stung from the fire she'd caught from him.

"You're going to pay for what you did to my hair," she warned him.

"It looks ridiculous."

Katara frowned. "How uneven is it?"

He reached for the singed loop and showed it to her, holding the shortened chunk of hair where it ended in line it her eyelashes.

"You'll pay for that," she assured him.

"I can even it up, if you like?" he smirked. "But you'd look stupid with a fringe."

"Worse, I'd look like Mai," Katara muttered, reached around him to take hold of the dagger he always had tucked against the small of his back. He didn't try to stop her, watching as she shook out all of her hair

"What are you going to do?" he asked when she combed it all out before using a polished bit of ice as a mirror.

"Fix it," she shrugged, using the knife to begin cutting the long dark locks into a side-fringe that looked as natural as possible.

"Don't do that all the way across," he said, frowning at her. Katara hid her smirk, suspecting he'd heard her comment about Mai and suddenly fearful that she'd try a full fringe like his ex-girlfriend wore.

"Worried about flashbacks, Zuko?" she teased.

"Actually I just shudder to think what Mai, Ty Lee and Azula would say if they saw you with a fringe like Mai's," he replied, looking away darkly.

"Trust me, I have no intention of mimicking her look, Zuko. Just don't burn my hair again, alright?"

He smirked. "No promises."

Katara swatted him lightly before looking toward the living space of the igloo where sounds of Meng and Kuzon stirring could be heard.

"I swear if I have to listen to them one more time, I'm going to scream," Katara muttered.

Zuko looked very much like he agreed, his smirk and light-hearted humour disappearing at the reminder that they had company.

"Has the blizzard broken yet?" he asked.

Katara handed back his knife when she was finished fiddling with her hair, not thrilled with the long side fringe, but stuck with it until it grew out. She used her Bending to create a door in the icy wall of their training hall, leading the way outside. It was still snowing slightly, but the wind had finally died down.

She peered around curiously, taking in the sight of the world, all coated in white.

"We could travel in this," he said, following her out.

"You want to risk it?" she asked.

"We have to," he muttered. "We're almost out of supplies feeding them as well as ourselves."

Katara nodded, sighing in agreement and knowing it was true. If it was just the two of them, they'd have been fine for weeks, probably. Both of them knew how to ration food and the amount they needed to survive. With two extra mouths to feed, they were running out of food, fast.

"We could travel as far as we can and then stop again when we need to. It's not hard to make another igloo for the night."

"Then let's go," he said, and Katara was surprised when she felt him tug the back of her shirt, pulling her backward until she was flush against his chest. His chi slid against hers and Katara sighed, melting back against him without even really thinking about it. She'd grown a little too comfortable with him, cooped up in close quarters, sharing the bedroll every night and otherwise seeking out his company for the sake of their feigned relationship, but also as a way to avoid Meng when the girl got too annoyingly perky.

"What's the next town?" she asked, tilting her head slightly and shivering when she felt him bury his nose against the skin behind her ear.

"Some little nothing Earth Kingdom village," he sighed. "It's occupied by the Fire Nation soldiers, mostly. They use it as a control center for this region, producing weapons and war machines in a factory there."

"So unlikely to be harbouring your uncle or Sokka and Aang," she sighed sadly.

"They'll have a supply room we can raid to make up for all that our unwelcome guests have been consuming," Zuko murmured against her skin. "And probably a hotel where we can sleep in a real bed and don't have to listen to those two fucking like howler-monkeys every other minute."

Katara grinned at the very idea.

"Still planning to share with me when you have no one to perform for?" she asked quietly.

"Yes," he said.

He didn't elaborate more than that and Katara almost laughed to herself. If her friends could see her now, they would surely think her mad, snuggled in Prince Zuko's embrace and discussing the notion of continuing to sleep with him even when she didn't have to.

"Won't getting a hotel room draw the attention of the soldiers?" she asked.

"No, they all live in the village, and with the blizzard, they likely won't think twice about who is trying to stay out of the cold."

Katara nodded.

"Alright, then let's go. We're burning daylight. The sooner we leave, the better."

Zuko chuckled darkly, sharing her itching to be free of Meng and Kuzon.

"What was that you were saying about travelling with them all the way to Ba Sing Se?" he asked, still laughing.

"Oh, no." She shook her head firmly. "No, I couldn't possibly."

"Putting up with just you is bad enough," Zuko teased. Katara elbowed him lightly.

"Hey, Kuzon is your friend," Katara reminded him.

"He's a sex-crazed lunatic bent on the perkiest and most annoying woman I've ever met," Zuko corrected. "And I say this, having grown intimately acquainted with you."

"I will trap you inside a snowman, Zuko," Katara warned.

"Yeah, because a Fire Bender won't be able to melt snow in two seconds flat," he scoffed. Katara laughed, her whole body thrumming with pent up desire thanks to so long spent in close quarters and entirely aware of him as a male. He pressed his lips lightly to the side of her neck before releasing her.

"Are you going to be surly and grumpy all day, trudging through the snow?" she asked as they both made their way back inside.

"Are we going to be generally existing?" Zuko asked in reply and Katara couldn't help but giggle.

"Good morning!" Meng greeted them both enthusiastically, padding about the living space dressed only in what appeared to be one of Kuzon's shirt.

"Hi, Meng," Katara said, noticing the way Zuko pointedly ignored the Earth Bender, curling his lip as he made for the room where he and Katara had been sleeping. "The blizzard broke, though it's still snowing softly. Zuko and I are going to try to make it to the next town today."

"Oh, that's wonderful!" Meng said, bouncing about happily. "Kuzon! We're finally moving again. It's just as well, too, I was beginning to worry we were going to run out of food. Do you think there will be many people on the road today? What if those wolves come back? Which way are we even supposed to go? In this snow I'm just completely turned around."

Meng continued to babble and Katara sighed, walking away from the girl and into the room she'd been sharing with Zuko where he was making faces and angrily stuffing things into his bag.

"I hoped they were going to say they'd stay," he muttered when Katara joined him, rolling up their bedrolls and picking up all their belongings. She packed as fast as she could, watching Zuko do the same.

"There's no use rushing," she sighed. "They'll be hurt if we run off before they're ready."

"So?"

Katara laughed. "So we have to wait for them or we'll be considered rude."

"Katara, I'm the Prince of the Fire Nation, it's my privilege to be rude to others."

"More like it's your pleasure," she muttered.

"My pleasure would involve being as far from those two as possible, preferably somewhere warm, potentially with you, naked," he retorted and Katara's cheeks flamed crimson in surprise at his address of the sexual tension between them thick enough to choke a platypus-bear. They might've both passingly accepted the quirks of each others bodies when desire was present, and shared several heated kisses, but they hadn't gone any further than when he'd peeled her out of her shirt before Meng and Kuzon had turned up in need of help.

"Zuko!" Katara hissed.

"What?" he snapped grumpily. "It's true. You're driving me mad, and they're making me contemplate murder."

"You can't just go blurting it out like that," she hissed. "Things are tense enough!"

Zuko paused in the middle of trying to shove the tea-box back into his pack, his amber eyes lifting to fix on her.

"Meaning?" he asked, looking like he was suddenly amused.

Katara blushed and looked away. She chose not to answer him, not at all trusting that she would be able to admit that if something didn't happen soon, she might explode. Right that very moment she wanted to forget about packing their things, pull him down on the bedroll and have her way with him, but there was no way she was about to admit that out loud. Mostly because Zuko would probably laugh at her, but also because she knew that she wasn't supposed to want him. She wasn't supposed to be forgetting that he'd hunted her, Sokka and Aang across the world. He'd once tied her to a tree and left her there to rot, confound it all!

She wasn't supposed to want him sexually. She wasn't supposed to be finding him funny and interesting, and she was putting it down entirely to the fact that they were stuck together for the foreseeable future unless they wanted to be stuck with people like Meng and Kuzon, or to be all alone, but still travelling in the same direction. She was sure that if not for being in such close quarters and faking a relationship, she'd never be this attracted to him.

"Water Bender," Zuko warned, not liking to be ignored.

"Nothing," she said. "Forget I said anything, and I'll do the same about what you said, and everything will be fine."

Zuko narrowed his eyes on her but he didn't speak. Katara finished packing her bag, standing up and making to return to the main area of the igloo to collect her cooking utensils. Before she could get more than two steps, Zuko caught her arm, tugging her back around to face him. Katara's eyes were wide as she looked up at him, finding him very much inside her personal space.

"You're 'tense' too?" he confirmed quietly, peering past her toward a sudden, loud spat that Kuzon and Meng were having as they tried to fit all their belongings into their packs.

"As though you don't already know that?" Katara demanded.

"Unlike me, you don't have any outward signs of it, so I wasn't sure," he admitted, frowning slightly. Katara made a face at him, hating the way her heart was suddenly pounding and her breath was hitched and her whole body twitched with the urge to reach for him and pull him down until she could kiss him.

"This is a problem," she said, trying to distract them both when his eyes travelled from her own blue pair to rest on her suddenly parched lips. "We're supposed to only be acting like a couple for the sake of fooling the Fire Nation army. We're not supposed to... well. You're still the prince of the Fire Nation, in case you've managed to forget. And I hardly think that your people would be thrilled at the idea of you associating with a Water Bender."

"I'm the banished prince," he corrected with no small amount of bitterness.

"That doesn't change the facts, Zuko. This is supposed to be only for show when our lives are in danger. We're not supposed to be... attracted... to each other," Katara protested.

"Because I'm Fire Nation?" he asked, his eyes narrowing with suspicion, anger and maybe a little hurt. "Or because the Avatar will cry if his crush doesn't pan out the way he'd like?"

"I'm not concerned about Aang's feelings, Zuko," Katara hissed frustratedly. "He's too young for me and he has a silly crush that I'm really hoping he'll grow out of before I have to deal with the awkwardness of breaking it to him that I think of him as a younger brother. That's not the point. The point is that just because you and I have come to an understanding for the sake of travelling peacefully, doesn't mean that when we get to the end of this little journey, you're not still going to try to capture Aang for the sake of restoring your honour and returning to the Fire Nation. How accepting do you think they'd be of you if they found out you'd slept with some Water Tribe peasant - as you've called me in the past? How do you think I'd feel to have you turn on me to capture Aang and hand him over to be murdered by your father."

Zuko frowned.

"How exactly do you envision me handing him over without finding myself in chains too, Katara? I'm the second most wanted criminal in the world. What good does capturing he Avatar do my honour if I can't reclaim my throne that way?"

"So you wouldn't try to capture Aang if he walked in here right now?"

"At this point I think it's more than clear that my father's tactics for war don't work other than to make the rest of the world hate the Fire Nation, Water Bender. Do you know how I got this scar?" he asked, pointing to the angry red scar upon his face.

Katara nodded. "An Agni Kai against Ozai."

"Yes, one he insisted on because I was invited to a war meeting with my father and his generals, where one of those generals suggested a plan to have newly recruited and untrained soldiers slain as a distraction while an experienced team infiltrated from another position. They planed to use those men like canon fodder and I spoke out against the idea. I spoke out of turn when it wasn't my place and I apologised profusely in the face of my father's anger. I was thirteen years old," Zuko told her coolly. "He did this - a grown man - to his own son just for speaking out of turn against what I maintain to this day was a dishonourable, cruel, and merciless plan that punished Fire Nations soldiers as much as it punished the people of the Earth Kingdom city they were infiltrating. He made an example out of me about what happened to those who spoke against his plans and then he stripped me of my title, banished me from my home and told me the only way to ever return and redeem myself was to find a boy no one had seen for one hundred years."

Katara blinked, shocked that he was so willing to share the truth behind his scar with her. Shocked that he seemed so utterly serious in the face of what amounted to accusation of his impending betrayal when this was all over, and that he was denying any plan to capture Aang for the sake of his throne.

"Now, as a stubborn kid, kicked out of home and dethroned, I wanted to regain what I'd lost, believing my father when he said I had lost all honour - as though it was something he could take from me the way he took my throne and my home and my mother. But that was before I realised how wrong the Fire Nation is about the rest of the world. I will reclaim my title and my throne, Katara," he vowed. "But not by handing over the world's last hope at defeating the man keeping me from them."

Katara's eyes went wide in utter shock at his declaration. She could hardly believe her ears and wondered, briefly, if this wasn't some sexual-frustration induced delirum she was dreaming up. Was she going to wake up in the furs beside him any minute now, having imagined a world where Prince Zuko might change sides and turn on his own Nation just because he'd met her? Had she gone off the deep end?

"You're... switching sides?" she asked breathlessly. Zuko looked away for a moment, releasing her as he shrugged as though the acknowledgement of the idea was as much a shock to him as it was to her. As though he'd just realised as he said the words that he planned to turn traitor in every sense and that he would work to restore balance to the world, rather than continuing to threaten their last hope for balance ever returning.

"I think I technically switched sides when I started freeing prisoners and killing the wretches holding them captive or doing other reprehensible things in the name of my kingdom," he muttered. "So while I don't know what I plan to do when we run into your little friends again, I can say with all certainty that capturing the Avatar is no longer my goal."

"The what is?" Katara asked quietly.

"Finding my Uncle," Zuko said, meeting her gaze once more and looking deadly serious. "Undoing what my Nation has done to the others. And claiming my throne so I can do so with the power of a Fire Lord, rather than just a rogue guerrilla warrior."