Blueeyeddevil06, thank you for being my beta! I can't help myself, and I have three stories going at once. Thank you for being willing to jump around in different fandoms and stories. It's a huge help.

I hope you all enjoy this story. It is an AU story without bending powers. I was able to find what style of martial arts the different bending styles were based on for this story.

Please let me know what you think. I will be posting at least once a week on this one.

"So what's wrong with the girl?" Zuko asked Aang.

Sokka objected, "Hey! She's my sister!"

"That's the only part that makes sense," Zuko teased.

Aang spoke up, "I've known Katara for a long time. It just seemed to make sense for us to date. It was… nice. We're close and trust each other, but there wasn't any… heat."

"Again, she's my sister!" Sokka objected.

"Hey, I'm saying I wasn't trying to get in her pants."

Sokka glared at him, "Good. But as far as I'm concerned, I don't think of my sister as a girl, so back off."

Zuko looked at Aang and pointed at Sokka. "Tell me she doesn't look like him."

"Nope. She's…" Aang trailed off and looked at Sokka. "He'd punch me for saying it."

"My sister isn't a girl!" He yelled.

Aang chuckled and whispered to Zuko, "She isn't. She's all woman."

That was as much information as Zuko had gotten on Katara from the guys. Since he'd first met them at University, he found out quickly that Sokka and Aang had known each other since they were both eleven years old. He figured he would be the odd man out and didn't press to become their friend.

Aang had other ideas. Including his desire to learn Northern Shaolin kung fu from Zuko. If it weren't for Aang's kindness and natural talent, Zuko would have given up on training him. Aang lacked focus and tested Zuko's patience constantly.

The three of them quickly became close friends, and Zuko was shocked at how natural it felt. Aang was the center of the group. It felt to Zuko like they both orbited around him in a way. He always thought up what to do and demanded they all go out for food in the middle of the night. Once, he woke up Zuko at three in the morning, telling him they needed to get a candy bar. Zuko just sighed and got his keys.

Sokka was the comedy relief and surprisingly intelligent. He put on an air of someone who was just out to have a good time. But he was incredibly perceptive. It was Sokka who asked him about why he and his father didn't get along. He hadn't realized he'd even slipped and given clues away. He usually never did. But Sokka had picked up on them and encouraged him to tell them. It was then he realized how much he trusted both guys. He told them about his father's abuse and the years of torment. How, when he died, Zuko had a hard time not showing his relief at the funeral.

Now, he was wondering, for the first time, what Sokka's sister was like. How could she break up with Aang? Everyone loved him. Weirder yet, it sounded like they were still friends. He'd never heard of that actually happening. You always say you'll stay friends. You never do. He figured that had more to do with what a great and forgiving guy Aang was.

A month later, Zuko was pulling up to Sokka's house to meet his family. Well, his father and his sister. His mother had been murdered when they were children. He knew that left a deep scar in Sokka.

"We're here!" Sokka said in excitement.

"You only invited me so you'd have a ride home. Didn't you?"

Sokka shrugged, "That was like fifty-five percent of it. So?" He got out and grabbed his bag. "You would have just been stuck at school if I didn't invite you. Unless you wanted to go with Aang to meditate with the monks?"

"No! I most certainly didn't want to do that!" Zuko shuddered. "My idea of a vacation isn't to spend it with a bunch of old balding men."

As Sokka headed up the front walk, he said, "Oh, and even though she's my sister, I'm not stupid. She's beautiful. You bother her, and she'll kill you."

"You're not threatening me?" he said in confusion.

Sokka rolled his eyes and said, "Once you get to know her, you'll understand. She can kick your kung fu ass across the room."

"Oh, really?" He said in actual interest.

"She's a tai chi chuan master and all-around badass. You know Aang's one of my best friends, but they didn't work together. She's too... "

"If you say something mean about me, I'll put sand in your dinner." Zuko looked at the now open front door, and there stood a goddess. He actually froze as soon as he laid eyes on her.

"I was going to compliment you, Katara!" Sokka whined. "Don't threaten to mess with a man's food. That's just mean!"

She rolled her eyes and turned to Zuko. "Was he going to say something nice about me?" She looked like she expected his denial.

"He was telling me you were too good for Aang. At least that was where I was thinking he was heading," Zuko said.

She sighed, "I'm not too good for him. We just didn't work. He has… other priorities."

"Like meditating with old men?" Zuko asked.

"Actually, yes, that's one of them." She smiled and held the door open for the guys. "He didn't have time for his pursuits and a girlfriend."

Zuko was trying to figure out if Aang was actually going to become a monk. He'd have to be. Zuko figured most guys would be annoyingly clingy with Katara. She was definitely not a woman you could stay away from if you had her in your life.

"Hey, sis, where's dad?"

She rolled her eyes and sighed, "Off saving the world, again. He is on his next mission to save the… newts? No. That's not right. That was last month." She thought for a moment. "Oh, I remember. It was the Aye-Aye this time. Apparently, they're endangered."

Zuko and Sokka walked into the house, and Sokka said, "Yeah, it's in the lemur family. There's a superstition that says if you see an Aye-Aye, someone in your village is about to die, so people kill them."

Zuko looked at him in shock, "And how do you know that?"

"I had to write a paper about an endangered animal in high school, and I picked the Aye-Aye. It has a long middle finger. I had this old teacher who just about busted a vein in his head when he couldn't mark me down for constantly talking about it, giving the grubs the finger. They use their middle figure like a dipstick in trees to get grubs out and eat them."

Katara shook her head, "You were the only A student he ever hated."

Sokka shrugged, "He didn't get my humor."

"Most don't," Zuko teased. "I know I find it questionable."

Katara laughed, and he felt like he just won something. She was even more breathtaking when she smiled.

"Back to dad," Katara redirected the conversation. "He's going to be gone a while. Sorry, you don't get to see him on break."

Sokka shrugged, "I wasn't counting on him to be here anyway."

"But, he told you he would be," Katara countered.

"I wasn't counting on it, though. I've known him even longer than you have, little sister."

She nodded, "Well, I'm going to get back to work. I'll be in my office." She then walked off.

Zuko asked, "She has an office?"

"My sister is a genius. She's going to a local university part-time since she runs my father's non-prophet."

"She runs it?"

"Yup. It goes to what I was about to say regarding her and Aang. They aren't well matched. He's carefree and meditating while she's meeting with CEOs and soliciting donations."

"She's here all by herself most of the time then?"

"Our gran-gran lives nearby. She comes and cooks for Katara sometimes." Sokka sighed, "My father doesn't like to be home ever since my mother was murdered."

"You don't really talk about it. Can I ask what happened?"

"Yeah. There isn't much to tell, though. She was murdered in our home, and Katara found her dead. They never caught the guy."

"You don't know who did it?"

"I didn't say that. I said he was never caught." Sokka whispered. "I tracked him down."

"What happened? Did you tell the police?"

"No. He'd overdosed on drugs, fentanyl."

"Why are you whispering?"

"Katara just knows that he's dead. I didn't tell her I'd found him dying and didn't call for help. I just waited for him to die."

Zuko smiled, "Good. I would have done the same thing."

"Really?"

"I did. My father was a monster. He used to burn my arms with a lighter when he was mad at me. The worst part is he never drank. He was stone-cold sober and a monster. When he flew into a rage and chased me with his putter, trying to put it through my skull, he slipped on the stairs, fell down, and struck his head. I told the emergency operator he fell down the stairs while I was in the shower, and I couldn't get to him right away." He shrugged, "I timed how long it took them to get there. I didn't tell them he was dead. They wouldn't have arrived in time anyway."

"Yeah, I had the same thing. The guy was dead less than a minute after I found him. I couldn't have saved him either. It just made me feel like I'd done something to avenge my mother."

"That must have been horrible for your sister."

"Yeah, she won't talk about it, though. I didn't get home before they took her body away."

"It's never easy to lose your mother." Zuko sighed. "Mine left us. She knew my father would track her down if she took my sister and me, so when she ran off, she left us behind."

"We're both kinda messed up, aren't we?"

"At least you have your sister. Mine's turning out to be exactly like my father. She was the only one who cried at his funeral."

"What is she up to?"

"I have no idea. Probably torturing small animals. She's cruel."

Sokka chuckled, "I definitely did better than you. My sister is trying to save the animals."

Zuko said, "I think she's trying to save your family. She wants to keep you all together."

"I hope not. My father has made his own choices, and he didn't choose us. We lost both parents the day my mother was killed."