Author's epistle: One more chapter to go. I'm pretty sure you all know where this is leading. ;) Anyway, I appreciate all the hits, follows, and reviews!

Later that evening, Katara immediately spotted that Zuko seemed to be in a much better mood. She and the others who'd participated in the earthbending "match" on the beach had been laying dazed under heaps of sand after Toph's team had declared "victory" when Zuko and Mai had emerged from the beach house hand in hand, smiling.

Katara saw the contented expressions on her friends' face and had to hide a snicker. She had enough experience living with Sokka and Suki to know what they'd been up to. She'd snuggled up to Aang and daydreamed about putting a similar look of satisfaction on his face one day.

Dinner had been another beach barbecue, with everyone enjoying fresh seafood from the Marketplace. Everyone except Aang, of course, who gorged on roasted vegetables and a special tofu dish he prepared himself over the open fire.

As they lolled on the beach digesting their meal and waiting on the moonpeaches to be broiled for their dessert, Katara was surprised when Zuko caught her eye and motioned with his head that he wished to see her. Katara glanced at Aang, who was laughing at a joke Teo was telling.

"Aang?" she murmured in his ear. "I think Zuko wants to talk to me. You didn't tell him about that lagoon thing, did you?"

Aang looked surprised at the question.

"No. I've barely talked to him all day," he said in a low voice. "Maybe there's something else he wants to talk to you about. Do you want me to go with you?"

Katara saw Zuko say something to Mai, and Mai's eyes flick toward her.

Katara suddenly felt apprehensive. What was going on?

"No, it's fine. I'm sure it's nothing." She sounded more confident than she felt. "I wanted to talk to him anyway."

She stood up, brushed sand from her dress, and followed Zuko to a shadowy corner of the beach house where two stools sat. He waved at one and waited until she got settled before taking the other.

"Zuko?" Katara felt nervous suddenly. Is there something wrong?"

"Sort of." He sighed loudly and faced her directly. "There's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it: I saw you without your top on yesterday."

Katara almost didn't understand the words he was saying, but when understanding hit, it was like a wall of water crashing into her.

She half-stood, crouching protectively, fighting the impulse to run.

"You … what?!"

Her face was blazing hot and she unconsciously wrapped her arms around her chest. Zuko looked extremely embarrassed, but he maintained eye-contact. Above the neck, Katara was relieved to note.

Zuko told his story, steadily and without any deviations. The lagoon. The fear of children being unsupervised there. What he'd heard. What he'd seen.

"The second I saw you weren't, uh, fully dressed, I turned and left," he finished up, quietly serious. "I didn't know what to say or do. I was embarrassed. I thought if I could just avoid things for awhile, it would stop being embarrassing, but it just made things worse."

Katara wasn't sure what to say or do herself in that moment. She'd known Zuko for years. They'd been comrades in arms. Zuko had saved her life, attempting to redirect Azula's lightning all those years ago. It was surreal hearing this, let alone talking about it.

She slowly sank down on the chair again. "Just how much did you see?"

Zuko hesitated. "Everything. But only for a few seconds."

Katara sagged. Just wonderful! Zuko, of all people, had seen her more naked than her boyfriend had to that point! The mystery of why Zuko had seemed unable to look at her was solved, but that didn't make things much better, in her estimation.

"Does anyone else know?" She knew Aang didn't. He would have had a much different demeanor if he did.

Zuko hesitated a moment. "I told Mai. She said I was acting weird and wanted to know why. After the way I fucked up before with her, I made a promise to myself to never keep secrets."

Katara thought about the look Mai had thrown her just a few minutes earlier. It didn't look murderous, but it was hard to tell in the dimness.

"Does she hate me now?"

"What? No, of course not." Zuko looked surprised. "She knows it was an accident. It's not like I went back there hoping to see you like that."

Katara felt a sense of relief, but she wasn't sure if it was because she wasn't going to be a pincushion anytime soon or because Zuko was confirming that the little exhibition hadn't given him a thrill.

"Why didn't you just tell me about this yesterday?" she asked, sounding aggrieved. "I didn't know until today that you didn't want anyone back there. You could've gotten that out of the way and I would've known to be more careful."

"I didn't realize you didn't know until afterward," mumbled Zuko. "It was all so weird to me. I didn't know, I guess, the proper way to react. Seeing one of your good friends partially naked isn't exactly covered in the Fire Lord Handbook."

Katara felt a spike of anger. "Well, maybe not sneaking around like a creep might need to be added to one of the chapters, then!"

Zuko looked as if she'd hit him across the face.

"I wasn't sneaking around! I thought that little kids might be back there, and –"

"I don't mean that! I mean afterward." Katara forced herself to breathe. "Okay, look. I'm sorry I called you a creep. I'm not happy that you saw me that way, but you could have said something. Then at least I would have known that maybe bending without my chest bindings wasn't a great idea. Instead, you just kept this to yourself … why? Why would you do that? Unless ..."

Zuko was peering at her almost fearfully. "Unless? Unless what?"

Katara took a deep breath and felt her dinner turn over in her stomach.

"Unless the issue is that you sort of … liked it."

The Fire Lord's jaw fell about to his knees. A muted squeak came out of the gaping mouth, but not much else. Katara half-groaned, clutching her stomach painfully. She really did think she was going to vomit.

"Zuko, we have to get this clear," she said, speaking rapidly. "I'm with Aang. If I'm lucky, I'll be with him the rest of our lives. I'm not sure what you may have thought in the past, but I have never ever considered you boyfriend material. I mean, for me!" She added hastily, noting the look on his face. "You obviously make Mai very happy. But as for me –"

"Katara," he interrupted, apparently finding his voice, "I've never considered you girlfriend material, either. For me."

She halted what she was about to say and frowned thoughtfully at him. "... Okay."

"It's always been Mai," he went on. "Always. If I can't marry her, then I'll be one of the few Fire Lords in modern history not to have a consort and I guess I'll have to designate my successor since it damn sure won't be Azula."

She could see the truth of his words in Zuko's eyes, and that made her dinner settle down a bit.

"Okay," she said again. "But then, I don't understand why you handled this situation the way you handled it."

"I don't understand why you don't understand," he said wonderingly. "How would you have handled it if you'd seen me naked?"

Katara thought for a moment. "Honestly? I probably would have just laughed it off."

"You would have laughed at me?" Zuko looked mortified. "Your response to seeing me naked would have been laughter?"

"Shocked laughter. When I'm shocked, I laugh. It wouldn't have been at you. The situation," she amended, trying not to chuckle. "Obviously you never grew up in an igloo with a huge common space and only one doorway into the bathhouse."

"Uh …" Katara could see Zuko working through that in his mind. "Well … no. We had bathhouses on every floor. Sometimes more than one."

"Well, if you had grown up in the South Pole, you'd know that sometimes, things happen. Accidentally."

Katara remembered Sokka nearly going catatonic when he'd blearily stumbled in one morning while their Gran-Gran was finishing her weekly bath.

"I think I know where you're going with this," said Zuko, looking more than a little disturbed, "and I get it, but I'm not sure that accidentally walking in on a blood relative in the bathhouse compare to what happened yesterday – except that since I see you almost as a sister, I probably had the same reaction to whoever it is you're talking about."

"That's why your hiding it made it a bigger deal than it needed to be," replied Katara. "Neither of us wanted this to happen, but the coverup – no pun intended – makes this a lot more awkward. If our situations were reversed, I might not have laughed … I probably would have just covered my eyes and suggested you put some clothes on, just like the time when Sokka –"

"I get it. Thanks." Zuko heaved a sigh. "You're right. I should've said something when it happened. I just wasn't sure what to do. I didn't want to cause problems between you and Aang."

"Why would this have caused problems between me and Aang?" Katara was mystified. "Now that we've established that you weren't into it … why would there have been any issue with my relationship with Aang?"

"Well, I just remember how much that play messed things up between you and Aang back during the war. I wasn't sure he'd react if he knew about this."

"Play?" Katara frowned. "What play?"

"You know. The play." Zuko was looking at her in mild disbelief. "The one where Aang was a girl? And you and I - well, the actors playing us - were kissing in every other scene? That play."

Katara gaped at him. "Zuko, the issues Aang and I had over that play weren't about you. It was … something else."

She didn't really like thinking about her kiss with Aang on the Day of the Black Sun. Not because the kiss hadn't been nice, because it had been, but because in hindsight, she'd handled the aftermath ineptly and had hurt Aang needlessly.

Zuko's eyes were wide. "Wait. I thought you guys stopped talking for a week because Aang thought you and I might like each other. You know, in that way."

"Aang already knew we didn't like each other in that way," said Katara. "Everyone knew that, except that weirdo June chick, I guess."

Katara almost didn't catch Zuko's mumbled, "... And Azula."

She caught her breath. "Azula? What are you talking about?"

Zuko sighed again. "Mai told me today that Azula pretty much implied that I was pining for you when we all went to find my mother."

Katara looked at Zuko almost as if she hadn't seen him before. That adventure had been fraught with peril, what with Aang having to go up against the Mother of Faces. She'd barely thought about Zuko when it seemed that the vengeful spirit might hurt Aang. And Azula had all but abandoned them in the Forgetful Valley. Where the hell had she gotten that Zuko was pining for her?

"It's all elephant-rat shit," said Zuko, almost as if he could read her thoughts. "She wanted to needle Mai. Azula couldn't stand that despite everything, Mai still cared for me. She couldn't even let me have that. So instead, she tried to break Mai down. Make her question how I felt about her."

Katara clasped her hands together nervously. "And did Mai believe her?"

"Not completely," said Zuko. "But I think she wondered. I laid that to rest, though. Mai believes me that there's never been anything between you and me and that neither of us wanted there to be. But I still fucked it up."

Zuko shook his head, cursing beneath his breath.

"All this time, I thought the issue was that Aang thought we might actually have been into each other. When this happened, I was scared that Aang might think … I don't know … that it was some kind of sign and start second-guessing you two."

"La's Gills, you had a quick, inadvertent look at my breasts, Zuko." Katara refrained from rolling her eyes. "It would take a lot more than that for Aang to think he and I weren't meant to be."

She still frowned but was somewhat touched that Zuko's main concern seemed to be to not rock the boat between her and Aang. Despite the bizarre and embarrassing circumstances, that was the mark of friendship. Of course, Katara would rather have not been bare-breasted in Zuko's sightline, but Zuko's real abashment, and the way he honestly cared how things might look to Aang mollified her. At least a little.

"Listen, I'm not going to say that this all doesn't make me uncomfortable," said Katara. "But it's useless to dwell on it. It happened. It's over. And it won't happen again."

She gave him a significant look. "Right?"

"Absolutely not." Zuko nodded. "You're free to use the lagoon if you want, by the way. Just … you may wanna … you know."

Katara grimaced. She knew.

"And I'll understand if you want to … take some space for awhile," said Zuko. "From me."

Katara quietly nodded. It wasn't a bad idea. It wouldn't be indefinite. It probably wouldn't even last the week. But she needed a chance to digest the situation and it would be slightly difficult to process things if she were in Zuko's constant presence.

Katara glanced over at the roaring fire of the pit. She could see Aang's face illuminated in the flames. There was much oohing and ahhing from their friends when Aang firebent the flames into a shape much like a moonpeach.

She smiled to herself. The idea that she'd want anyone but Aang was so preposterous, she could laugh. Almost.

"I'm going to tell Aang about this," she said, turning to Zuko. "This is absolutely not something I'd ever keep from him."

She saw him blanch, and said kindly, "Zuko, it's Aang. No, he's not going to be exactly happy, but an honest mistake isn't going to ruin your friendship."

Zuko looked down at the sand. "I hope it isn't going to ruin ours, either."

Katara looked at Zuko's bent head for a few seconds. She could almost feel the anxiety and contrition rolling off him in waves.

"It won't," she said shortly. "No one else knows about this, do they? Just you and Mai?"

Zuko lifted his head. Katara paled at the expression in his eyes.

"Oh Spirits, who else did you tell?"

"Toph," he said quietly. "She sort of cornered me in the washroom and I was caught off guard."

Katara decided she didn't want to probe much of that statement too closely. At least now she could understand why the earthbender had been shooting such speculative looks at her during their game.

"Well, she's kept her mouth shut about it, as far as I know. Maybe she told Satoru, but I doubt he'd say anything."

Katara didn't even want to think about what Sokka would do if he knew about any of this.

"I may regret asking this, but what'd Toph say, anyway?"

"That it was an accident and that since breasts shouldn't be sexualized in the first place, she didn't see why it was a big deal."

His eyes darted from side to side, and he leaned toward her. "And she, um, showed me hers. To make a point."

Katara stared. "She showed you hers? You can't mean …"

"Yep. She just lifted her shirt and flashed them at me." He winced. "It was … not what I was expecting."

Katara bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.

"Did you also tell Mai about that?"

"Yeah. I did."

"And what did she say?"

"Not much," responded Zuko. "She basically implied that we should never speak of it again."

Katara couldn't help but snicker at that.

"That's a smart woman you have there, Zuko. Hold on to her. Tight."

She heard Zuko's grunt of assent, and they walked quietly together back to their friends.

"Does it ever bother you?" he asked after a period of silence.

Katara looked over at him. "Does what ever bother me?"

"That people like June … people like Azula … and maybe others … think that you and I … might have had a thing? Even though we never did and never wanted to?"

"No," she answered almost immediately. "Those people don't know me. Or you. At least … not as well as they think they might. And they obviously don't know Aang or Mai. As long as the people we love know the truth, that's all that matters."

Zuko nodded, looking satisfied, and they slid back into silence.

"Um … so … Mai isn't thinking about payback, right?" asked Katara quietly right before they got back to the group.

"No, I told you, she's not going to go after you …"

"That's not what I meant. She doesn't want to show Aang hers in exchange for your having seen mine, does she?"

Zuko made a choking sound. "No! That's not happening. Not. Happening!"

"Good." Katara's voice matched Zuko's determined tone. "Because then? Then we would have a problem."

She paused for a moment.

"And I'm going to keep an eye on Toph, too!"