A/N: I'm so pleased so many of you are so invested in the story. This chapter is a bit shorter, after the monsters I've been giving you, but I hope you like it, just the same. I can't wait to see what you make of things.

xx-Kitten

Brightest Nights or Darkest Days

By Kittenshift17

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Katara was sick to her stomach with the thought of seeing Aang and Sokka again. After so long apart – two long months spent away from them – she was wracked with nerves and with a crushing sense of guilt over all she'd done since parting from them. Sokka was going to be furious when he saw her with Zuko. Worse, she was sick to her stomach with the knowledge of what she'd almost done with Zuko at the river's edge, and wracked with concern over his reaction.

She hadn't meant to throw him off and just cast him aside when she'd seen Appa. It had just been a knee-jerk reaction when she spotted Appa flying overhead to try and call for them. She wanted to see them again, for all her worry over their impending reunion, and she didn't want to be left behind. She'd been away from them so long, and her heart had filled with hope and joy, excitement overcoming her desire and her distraction.

As she sipped the tea Iroh had brewed for the five of them, Katara tried to clear her head. They'd left her behind. They'd flown right on by without pause. She felt sick with her guilt. They must know what she'd been about to do with Zuko – a boy who was very much still the enemy in Sokka and Aang's eyes – and they'd ignored her shouts. She clutched her cup tightly, both hands cupping the hot porcelain to keep them from shaking. Meng sat beside her, rubbing soft circles of comfort on the middle of her back, heedless of the fact that her sarashi binding were undone and lumpy under her shirt, and of her lack of pants.

Iroh watched her too, an expression of kindness and empathy upon his face. Katara knew he understood her sadness and perhaps even her worry. Kuzon entered the igloo slowly, shaking his head to himself and looking mildly annoyed. She got the feeling he'd been arguing with Zuko – who could say more with one look that she herself could utter in a hundred years – and it hadn't gone well. She knew Zuko was angry with her. She'd known from the second he'd uttered his 'hey' of annoyance when she'd rolled him off her.

"Is Zuko joining us?" Iroh asked when Kuzon sat down and accepted a cup of tea without a word.

"I doubt it," Kuzon grunted, folding his arms. "Stubborn jerk."

Katara felt too sick to laugh. Her insides were all twisted up and the nerves began to set in. Nerves about Sokka and Aang. Nerves about entering Ba Sing Se. Nerves about the plan to overthrow Fire Lord Ozai. Most of all, nerves about Zuko's reaction to being tossed off her when they'd been on the brink of having sex. She didn't doubt he was angry. Not that she hadn't had a good reason for stopping.

Katara frowned.

"I'm going to bed," she muttered, draining her tea cup and setting it down by the fire.

"Try to get some sleep," Iroh smiled gently. "It will be a long day tomorrow. If we push hard, we should reach the ferries that will take us across the sea to the gates of Ba Sing Se by nightfall."

Katara's heart faltered in her chest but she nodded, knowing she wouldn't sleep but unable to stand the tense silence. It was bad enough that everyone knew she'd been deserted by her friends and that Zuko was mad at her. That they undoubtedly suspected she'd had sex with him – or almost had sex with him – only made things worse and she didn't want to sit in the silence while they judged her.

Sokka would kill her if he ever found out. Katara felt an uncomfortable twist of shame to wonder what her Dad would say if he knew she'd been sharing a bed with the prince of the Fire Nation – the lordling who would one day rule a people who'd robbed her of her mother. He'd be furious. Or just extremely disappointed. Katara wanted to sob at the thought.

Climbing back into the bedroll she'd shared with Zuko for the past five weeks, Katara bit her lip, eyeing the bedding. She got the feeling he wouldn't want to sleep next to her after tonight. She wasn't even sure she wanted to sleep curled into him, either. She did, because he was warm and he smelled good and he made her feel strangely safe. But she didn't want to, knowing that her family would disown her and her friends would hate her and that he himself would disdain the notion – if he returned to bed at all.

She loathed the idea that things would be awkward and Katara stared at the blankets for a long minute in silence, debating whether she should part their bedding so that she slept in her own sleeping bag by herself, freeing up his for his use should he return, or if she should keep it just as it was, forcing him to confront her and to climb in beside her if he wanted to sleep and be warm. She doubted he would appreciate the second option, but she didn't want to hurt his feelings by prematurely assuming that the first would be preferable.

Katara frowned to herself, annoyed that she knew he'd be angry. He didn't have any right to be angry. Slightly put out, sure. She'd kicked him off her when they'd been all hot and heavy and completely entangled. She'd insulted his skill by not being entirely focused on what he'd been doing to her and even noticing the flying sky bison in the first place. But he had no right to be angry that she'd wanted to get their attention. He had no right to be in a bad mood just because Aang and Sokka mattered to her, too.

Deciding that she wasn't going to let him be angry over it and avoid her because of it, too, Katara huffed and wrapped herself up in both bedrolls, flopping down and grumpily waiting for him to join her. She didn't know what she wanted to say to him. She didn't want to fight and she didn't want to face him after shoving him off her midway through, but she wasn't going to apologise about wanting to see her friends.

"Stupid, jerkbender," Katara muttered, unknowingly channelling Sokka.

She laid there late into the night, waiting for Zuko to return to bed. She could feel the moon beginning it's descent as the sun crept closer to the edge of the horizon and she'd begun to think he might not return before dawn at all until, long after Iroh, Meng and Kuzon had all retired once more, Zuko crept in. I f she hadn't been tense and on edge, waiting for him, she'd never have heard him. He moved so silently that it was only the tingling sense of awareness along her chi that alerted her to his presence when he rounded the wall into their portion of the little igloo she'd made for the night's camping.

She heard him stop and watched him with slitted eyes, feigning sleep, as he glared at her for a long moment. It was dark in the igloo now, the moon disappearing slowly, but she could still make out the fierce scowl of annoyance on his face when he realised she hadn't parted their bedding. He eyed her for a long moment and Katara would swear several emotions flickered across his expression, too fast to register if one didn't know him well and wasn't looking. Annoyance. Anger. Frustration. Calculation. More anger. Confusion. And finally, resignation.

He must be freezing, she thought, watching him carefully peel back the edge of the blankets and begin climbing in next to her. He'd swum in the icy river with her and he'd been out in the cold wind for hours wearing only his sleep pants and his underwear. He was still shirtless and when his arm bumped hers – his movements suggesting a fear of waking her – his arm was like ice. Frowning with concern, Katara waited for him to settle down on his bad beside her. He pulled the covers to his chin, obviously not wanting to touch her, but also unable to get a decent share of the blanket without doing so.

"I thought you might stay out there all night," she said quietly when he laid there glaring at the ceiling, trying to control his breathing.

He twitched, obviously startled but hiding it well.

"You're awake."

Katara rolled her eyes to herself.

"You're freezing," she replied, since they were stating the obvious. "Are you going to be rude to me if I wiggle over and warm you up?"

He gritted his teeth, looking angry, and Katara took that as a yes. She wiggled over just the same, snaking her arm across his abdomen and hissing a little at the chilled flesh. He quivered under her touch and Katara realised he was shivering. As annoyed as she'd talked herself into being with him for being mad at her to begin with, Katara hated the idea that he'd let himself get cold enough to shiver. Burrowing into his side, she pressed herself to him as much as she could.

"Get off," he snapped.

"Store the anger for tomorrow, when you're not shivering and at risk of getting sick, Zuko," Katara retorted. "You have no right to be angry at me for trying to alert my friends to my whereabouts. They're my friends! Sokka is my brother. You're supposed to want to find them as much as I do because having them back and knowing they're safe – that they're alive – will make me happy and because the longer you and Iroh have to teach Aang Firebending, the better. Or did you forget? You need Aang to take down Ozai. Be angry that I wasn't paying full attention to you out there if you want. Be hurt or offended that I shoved you off when I spotted them – needing to at least try to have them notice me. But don't you dare even think about being mean or being a jerk to me because you're jealous or being stupid and thinking that I used you. I didn't. I told you from the beginning that I knew travelling with you might improve my chances of tracking Aang. I also told you that I was with you to see you back on the Fire Nation throne, so if you're pouting because you think I'm going to just run off when we meet up with them, then you've got rocks in your head. And I don't want to hear your arguments about why you're angry at me, or to have you push me away when you're shivering from the cold because you're a stupid, stubborn jerk. You will be snuggled until you're not at risk of dying from the cold and tomorrow you can spit fire at me about your twisted ideas of what just happened out there. Got it?"

She expected him to argue. To call her a bitch or a peasant or to say something to remind her that he was a prince and she, a peasant. She expected him to shove her off or wrestle her free of his sleeping bag so he could sleep away from her. She expected him to throw a royal tantrum.

But he didn't.

He kept his mouth shut and he kept his hands to himself. Other than the slow decrease of his shivers, he gave no further reaction to her touch or to her words.

"You're pouting?" she guessed, frowning at him in the dark, deflating slowly when he didn't respond to her.

He didn't respond other than to slowly sigh out a carefully controlled breath. Katara gritted her teeth, realising that he was giving her what she wanted – no arguments – and that it was actually the last thing she wanted. It made her nervous. Zuko hadn't proved to be a patient or an obendient person in the weeks she'd known him. He was explosive. Angry. Wrathful. Vengeful. Furious. Destructive. Barely restrained, yet perfectly controlled – most of the time. He was strong willed and stubborn and a complete jerk and she had never met anyone who made her so angry. And she'd grown up with Sokka, so that was saying something.

His silence, rather than comforting her and relieving her, had the opposite effect.

"Zuko, say something," she commanded, sitting up and pulling away from him, hugging her knees, feeling like she needed to run from him or she might throw herself at him and beg him to forgive her for something she'd had every right to do – something he should've been happy about.

"Goodnight, Katara," he said finally and Katara glared over her shoulder at him, still sitting up, frustrated now.

He didn't try to pull her back down to lie beside him, even though she was hogging the covers. He didn't argue. He didn't fight. He didn't complain or chastise her for what she'd done. He didn't scoff about how she'd been using him to fill in the time or about how if he'd been just a little bit quicker, she might've been able to add him to her list of regrets. He just laid there with one arm curled behind his head, staring at the ceiling with one knee drawn up.

"That's it?" she asked. "Just goodnight? No complaints? No arguments? No questions? No 'hey, we were kind of in the middle of something'. You're just going to lay there and not speak to me?"

He didn't even tip his head in her direction. She couldn't even tell if he was still angry. He seemed to have snuffed it out like the flames he so easily controlled. He just ignored her. Katara found that was worse. She was prepared for a fight. She was getting better at dealing with his temper. The complete lack of it made her second guess everything. The friendship they'd built; the sex they'd almost just had; his supposed interest in her. She found herself recalling with sudden clarity the way he'd seemed so into it during that first kiss weeks ago when the sun had finally come out. He'd been hot and forceful and he'd made it look and feel like that kiss had been one he'd craved all his life, but when he'd pulled back and spoken he'd been controlled, hateful and mean. He'd been acting.

Had he been acting since then?

"Fine," she snapped when he didn't answer. "Don't talk to me. Ignore me. Cast me aside like the meaningless peasant I surely must be to the esteemed prince of the Fire Nation."

She made sure to sarcastically bite on the word esteemed, letting him know that that both knew he was currently still banished and disgraced, exiled and cast out of his own family. She huffed angrily when even that got no response and Katara wanted to growl like a raging platypus-bear when he didn't make a sound. She threw herself back down, rolling to face away from him and taking the blanket with her, hoping it might get some reaction from him.

It didn't.

Long before dawn broke, Katara of the Southern Water Tribe learned to hate the self-control drilled into every Firebender, and especially into the prince of the Fire Nation. She laid there glaring at the icy wall of the igloo, her body wracked with the ghostly sensation of his hands upon her though he didn't reach for her or move an inch. She relived every moment of their time in the river – her subconscious digging up reasons that he might've been acting, faking it all. She tortured herself with questions of it all just being an act and began to doubt everything.

Had he been simply faking his enthusiasm for staging a coup – helping Aang take down Ozai? Was it a ruse to trick her into convincing Aang to let his guard down just long enough for Zuko to catch him and haul him off to be a Fire Nation prisoner for the rest of his days? Had every kiss she'd shared with Zuko been a lie?

She slept fitfully that night, and her dreams were wracked with terrible flames reaching up to devour her.