Lotus Lake

"So are we all agreed?"

No one answered Iroh's question, no doubt Jet and Zuko were feeling as stubborn as I. My gaze was fixed on the deep red carpeting of the office floor and I heard Iroh clear his throat pointedly. I nodded and voiced my consent while Zuko and Jet half-heartedly murmured something that may have been agreement.

Iroh stood from his seat behind his desk and smile genially. "Good. So we all agree to leave behind petty feuds, and if you can't do that then you should at least stay out of one another's way. If we can do that at least, then I'm sure that Headmaster Zhao will not need to be informed of any of these events."

He nodded to Jet, who stood swiftly and, after shooting me a burning glare, left the room with Jee close behind him.

"You should go and clean up that cut Katara," Iroh smiled at me.

I returned his smile and stood from my chair. I turned and saw Zuko, who had been standing behind the chair I was sitting in, nod to Iroh and we both left the pleasantly warm office. The corridors were mostly empty, a few people had already finished dinner and were making their way up to the dormitories. I noticed a few of them give me strange looks, and I realised that my little episode with Jet was probably already common knowledge.

I looked at Zuko from the corner of my eye, he was awfully quiet. "What's wrong?" I prodded.

He turned his head slightly. "Just thinking of how to get back at Jet."

"Did you not hear what Iroh just said?" I raised my eyebrows. "You really should just stay well enough away from Jet."

"But-"

"No buts," I cut him off. "Iroh's right. Zhao doesn't know what happened, and when he does find out he won't be able to do anything because Iroh has already 'disciplined' us. If you start causing fights then Zhao will jump on the chance to punish you."

Zuko stayed silent and I could tell he wasn't happy. I sighed and grabbed his hand tightly. "Look, Jet came off worse in the end, can we not just forget about him? Really this weekend should be a happy one."

Zuko turned to me with interest. "Why?"

I sighed heavily. "You can't tell anyone but Yue's leaving on Sunday. Her dad is coming to pick her up, he wants her to be closer to home or something. She wants us all to have a nice couple of days before her dad arrives."

"Wow. Does Sokka know?"

I shook my head. "She's not telling him until tomorrow night."

"I don't think your brother will take it too well."

I nodded in agreement. "It hurts when you have to leave people you care about." Suddenly we weren't talking about my brother anymore and the air was heavy with silence.

The rest of the way up to the residential corridor was quiet, each of s caught up in our own thoughts. Emerging into the long airy hallway Zuko loosed his grip on my hand and touched my bottom lip lightly.

"You should go and clean that up, it looks quite nasty." He paused and then added as an afterthought, "Jet didn't hit you did he?"

I rolled my eyes at him. "I told you in Iroh's office, I bit it when I tackled him."

"I wish could have been there to see you floor him actually," he smirked. "Now go and clean that cut."

"You could always kiss it better." I teased him. He crossed his arms over his chest and raised his eyebrow. "Fine, but the next time you want a kiss you know what you can do" I grumbled and headed for the bathroom; I distinctly heard Zuko snort in amusement.

When I exited the bathroom, my lip cleaned but very tender, I saw that Sokka was talking to Zuko. Yue and Suki were there too although they were stood either side of Sokka. I made my way over to them and Sokka practically yanked me towards him when I got close enough.

"Zuko told us what happened," he stated whilst studying me closely. "I should congratulate you on showing that smarmy git what for, but seeing as how you hurt yours in the process…"

He trailed off and released my shoulders. I knew he had just been worried and I wasn't going to hold that against him. I caught sight of Yue over my brother's shoulder and felt a little guilty at causing such a fuss when she only had a small amount of time left at Lotus Lake.

"Well it's all in the past now Sokka," I sighed. "I think we should all just focus on making the most of the weekend, we should have some fun and not think about Jet at all."

I made eye contact with Yue and she smiled in understanding.

As it turned out we ended up spending our Friday night in the recreation room, watching a wide variety of movies. Aang, Haru and Teo had joined the five of us and we all relaxed on the floor in front of the large television.

The room was quite full, there were several groups of students scattered around the room, chatting, playing cards and generally having a good time, but there wasn't many other people near us.

We had already watched a comedy courtesy of Aang; the younger boy was sat on my left still occasionally giggling. I sighed and leaned into Zuko on my right, his arm was draped across my shoulders and for once Sokka wasn't bothering us. In fact my brother was probably too preoccupied by the two girls sat on either side of him.

It seemed that Suki's animosity towards Sokka was wearing off; she wasn't talking to him, but she wasn't glaring him either and that was a definite improvement. I craned my neck to see Yue and I was happy to see that the girl seemed to be enjoying herself.

"So," Haru said from his place between Aang and Suki. "What should we watch next?"

"I think we should let Yue choose." I piped up. "If we let any of you guys pick the film then we'll have an hour and a half of mindless gore."

Yue smiled at me and moved to change the disk in the player. The opening credits appeared on screen and the boys groaned when they realised that we would be watching a romance.

"Well I'm glad that's over." Sokka yawned as he stretched his arms above his head. "Right guys?"

He received no answer. I could hear Yue and Aang sniffling and I myself was crying into Zuko's shirt. Peering blearily at the others I could see that everyone (apart from Sokka and Zuko) were either fighting tears or freely crying.

Sokka snorted and stood up. "Oh come on! It was rubbish, right Zuko?"

"Actually it wasn't so bad," Zuko murmured as I tightened my grip on him.

Sokka rolled his eyes and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "gross". He looked at the others and smirked. "You're all a bunch of pansies, it's just a film." He received couple of glares. "Well I'm going to bed. See you in the morning."

I heard the others gradually make their way to bed too until only Zuko and I were sat on the floor. There was still quite a few people around the room, obviously it was still too early for some people to retire on a Friday night.

I wiped my eyes dry on the back of my hand and grinned guiltily at Zuko. "Sorry about using you as a tissue."

He smiled nonchalantly. "No problem, but your brother's right, it was just a film."

"But he died!" I whined, trying to make him see my point.

"So?" Zuko shrugged. "He was dead for most of the film."

I glared at him. "That's not the point. He couldn't find peace until he knew she was going to be okay!"

Zuko raised his eyebrow and I sighed. "Never mind." I yawned and stood along with Zuko.

The walk back upstairs was quiet but when we emerged into the residential corridor we were greeted by a substantial amount of noise; quite normal for the weekends.

"Well, goodnight." I unlinked my fingers from Zuko's and made for my door.

"What? No goodnight kiss?"

I looked over my shoulder and grinned at his putout face. "You should have kissed my lip better earlier shouldn't you?" I teased before slipping into my bedroom.

Sorry about yet another wait, I actually had this sitting around on my computer for a few days before I decided I could do nothing else to the chapter and decided to post it.

The good news is I have the rest of the story planned out and it's just a matter of writing the last few chapters down.

You guys outdid yourselves with reviews on the last chapter so thanks to all of you. Special thanks to LovelyLadyJem and sakurablossom101 for being my 400th and 41st reviewers; as promised a request fic is yours.

Actually when I rechecked whether I'd counted the reviews right I couldn't be sure whether .Lady.Meister. was my 400th reviewer or not so what the heck! Get in touch and I'll do a request fic for you too, heaven knows I need some fresh inspiration to get me back into the swing of writing.

Just out of interest, I wonder if anybody can guess what film Yue chose? I didn't give away a lot but I bet a few people will be able to make a good guess.