Title: annie get your gun

Summary: and then, yes, then her dashing saviour-hero-knight-in-shining-armour is revealed. It's Zuko. Katara tries not to be disappointed. / zutara, zombie au

an: prequel to poison in the water.

Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: the Last Airbender.

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Katara is not helpless. Really, she's not. She is a perfectly capable young lady, especially when she has a gun in her hand.

But, of course, now happens to be the time when she runs out of bullets. Huzzah.

Now also happens to be a time when her ex-boyfriend-turned-zombie has cornered her in an alley away from the main fight, moaning about brains and frothing at the mouth. And she doesn't even have a good reason for running out of bullets - she had a shooting contest with Toph. In retrospect, she congratulates herself for A+ planning, or she would, if she wasn't about to have her brains eaten by her ex.

Katara tries very hard to think of some good options, but Aang and Toph are busy with a grouping of zombies, and Sokka is back at the hide out on guard duty with Suki. Katara decides it is a perfectly reasonable time to panic.

Zombie!Jet reaches out a stiff, grey-green hand towards her, and moans "Braaains," froth flying from his foul smelling mouth. Katara tries very hard to stop her squeak of disgust, but she fails. Miserably.

(Which, as she'll later tell herself, is perfectly reasonable. Really.)

She bats away his hand with the knife she keeps in her belt and it falls from his arm. Seriously. His hand literally falls off the end of his arm to the ground and starts twitching.

Katara does not squeal in disgust. Really. She doesn't.

(Okay, she does, but she'll deny it later.)

"Braaains..." Zombie!Jet moans again, completely undeterred by the loss of his hand. Then again, perhaps the hand is not lost. It's stopped twitching now and has scuttled away under a garbage bin. Katara tries very hard not to think about that and makes a stabbing motion.

The knife enters Jet's abdomen and Katara squeals in disgust again.

(No, scratch that, she doesn't. Really.)

(Okay, okay, she does. Shut up.)

She pulls the knife out as quickly as she put it in, and, to her dismay, Jet continues unfalteringly. He doesn't even bleed. Katara is beginning to resent the slowness of zombies. He's really just drawing out her horrible, tragic and gruesome death.

(No, Katara is not being overly dramatic, thank you very much.)

But then, like an angel sent from heaven, her dashing saviour appears.

(Really, she's not being dramatic at all.)

Okay, so he doesn't really appear, at least not until a little later. Instead, there is a loud bang, a bullet flies through Zombie!Jet's skull and bounces off the wall above Katara, bouncing lightly off her head as it falls to the ground, and Jet falls on her.

It's disgusting.

This time, Katara is willing to admit that she shrieks in disgust. It's perfectly reasonable. Being covered in dead zombie is disgusting.

Somehow, after much flailing of her arms, and possibly (definitely) some help from her aforementioned dashing hero, dead Zombie!Jet falls to the ground and then, yes, then her dashing saviour-hero-knight-in-shining-armour is revealed.

It's Zuko.

Katara tries not to be disappointed.

He holsters that damn engraved silver semi-automatic pistol, (she's not jealous, really,) and smirks at her. "Alright there?"

The speech that was blossoming on her tongue (something along the lines of my hero, but she'll never tell him that,) dies instantly. "I had the situation covered, thanks." She says shortly.

"Really?" he asks, smirk growing wider, "It looked to me like you had accepted your fate."

"I was faking." She snaps. He raises an eyebrow, and she gives in (for unknown reasons).

(It's definitely not because he's cute or anything.)

"Fine," she mutters. "It's just that no one was free, and I didn't want to distract them."

Zuko looks insulted. "I was free." He tells her.

"Erm." Katara looks determinedly past his shoulder. It isn't awkward. At all. "I didn't notice."

"You don't trust me." He fills in.

"Uh…" Katara studies the dumpster behind him very closely.

"I do have your back, you know that?" he says, "We were partnered for this mission. Being partners means we look out for each other."

"Heh." Katara smiles uncomfortably, "Yeah. Um. Right."

Zuko rolls his eyes and turns away, heading back towards the main skirmish.

Katara panics then, just a little. She is, after all, out of bullets, and there's probably a live-dead-cognitive-whatever zombie hand under the dumpster, and he did just save her. "Zuko," she calls before she can stop herself. He turns back towards her, golden eyes narrow. She silently curses her disobedient mouth. "Um…" she dithers for a moment, before she blurts, "Jet's hand is under the dumpster."

"What," Zuko asks, "A big girl like you can't handle one little zombie hand?"

"I'm, um, out of bullets." Katara says in a rush.

Zuko rolls his eyes and hands her a magazine from his belt. "There," he says, "Next time don't have a shooting contest with Toph on a mission."

"Heh." Katara gives him an awkward half smile. "Right."

Zuko rolls his eyes again and strolls out of the alley, Katara close at his heels.

She doesn't realize it then, but this is the day she learns to trust him.

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an2: um. heh. review?