Disclaimer: The Avatar world and characters belong to Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.

I've lowered the rating to a T mainly because I don't plan on write anything dark/smutty enough for the M rating. It was M initially as I was unsure about the rating system and wanted to be on the safe side. There is the chance I'll decide to raise the rating again later on in the story, but for now it's predominately T.


Zuko opened his eyes to the growingly familiar sight of his room in the Western Air Temple. He rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling from his narrow bed, and enjoyed how the light from the newly dawned day filtered into the room through the curtains. Lying still, he could hear the gentle noises of the birds and animals that also inhabited the temple break through the silence.

Something was scratching at the back of his mind, fighting to come to the surface of his memory as he blinked himself awake. Zuko could sense his moment of morning peace was about to come to an end.

Every morning was like this, now; Zuko woke with the rising sun, the temple building quiet as everyone slept on, and he was allowed a few minutes of peace and silence. And then, every morning, he would suddenly remember and his bubble would pop.

It had been a few weeks since their drunken night, and yet it still hit him in the gut with the same sharp twist when he remembered that he had married Katara.

Zuko was sure that word would have reached Azula within the first week that he had been spotted, and he had no doubt that she would know about the wedding as well. He'd advised the group that it would be a good idea to lay low for a few weeks, as Azula or her minions were no doubt patrolling the areas around the Fire Nation coast for sightings of the Avatar and traitor prince.

It had been weeks of Katara just ignoring Zuko, regarding him with as much warmth or attention as she would a stone wall. Zuko had noticed that Katara had stopped wearing her wedding ring after the first day. He didn't push either issue, secretly hoping that she would eventually stop hating him. But with each day, Katara's resentment towards him only seemed to grow, and she found new ways of ignoring him and excluding him from the group.

He understood that he would never truly fit into the Avatar's group of friends. However, after realising that Toph's dreadful nickname for him and arm punches were displays of affection and acceptance, Zuko had deduced that Toph, Teo, and the Duke didn't seem to have a problem with him.

After his trip with Aang, the kid had followed him around the temple for days like a happy parrot-pig, constantly asking him to do the dragon dance with him and, more than once, Zuko had to tell Aang off for grinning at him too much during their training sessions. Now, Aang was noticeably more dejected around him following the Ash Island trip; Haru, too. Zuko's marriage to Katara had only isolated him further from the group.

Why am I so bad at being good? Zuko groaned to himself as his hands reached up to cover his face in embarrassment. Suddenly uncomfortable, he threw off his cover and stood up from the bed. It was time for his morning meditation, and he desperately needed to clear his head. Zuko stepped out of his room, and began walking down the corridor to the main courtyard and practise area.

The room next to his was Katara's. It had initially been the Duke's, until Katara had suggested after Zuko's first night that the Duke should switch rooms with her so that he could be closer to Teo's room. This put Katara in the room in-between Zuko's and Aang's rooms, something which Zuko was fully was not a coincidence. To top it off, Katara slept with her door wide open as if she spent her nights waiting to see if Zuko would try and kidnap Aang. She had made her distrust of Zuko, especially in relation to Aang, very clear from his first day at the Western Air Temple.

Because she left her door open, Zuko always caught a glimpse of Katara sleeping peacefully in her bed when he walked past each morning. Today she was spread out on her stomach, one leg dangling off the edge of her bed, her hair a mess of curls twisting across her pillow.

Zuko kept walking towards Aang's room, and knocked loudly on the door when he arrived. It was important that he made his actions loud enough to wake Katara, or else she would accuse him of sneaking around and being suspicious.

"Time for meditation." Zuko opened the door slightly to see Aang nodding at him, bleary eyed, from his bed.

Aang had a lot of training to get through each day, so it was important for him to get an early start. Despite his years as a monk, Aang didn't wake up in the early mornings as easily as Zuko did, so it had become a routine for Zuko would to him up for meditation. Zuko walked into the courtyard and sat facing away from the temple buildings, looking out towards the edge of the cliff. A few minutes later, Aang joined him, and they sat cross-legged and breathing evenly.

It had also become a routine for Katara to get up when she heard Zuko waking Aang. She didn't supervise Aang's training with Zuko, but she was noticeably around, even when she was at a distance. Zuko knew it was because Katara didn't trust him. He knew that. And yet, even though Zuko didn't want to admit it, even to himself, he sort of liked that Katara insisted on getting up at the early hours.

And the hours really were early. The Western Air Temple was located in the northern hemisphere, and in the summer months the days were noticeably longer; the sun set late into the evening, and would rise only a couple of hours later. This was Zuko's favourite time of year; he was filled with an endless amount of energy from the extra hours of sunlight.

It was always quiet in the morning. Aang and Zuko would sit in their silent meditation, and Katara would busy herself with work whilst everyone else slept. Zuko preferred it when it was quiet; it was harder for Katara to ignore him when there were fewer people around, and it was easier for him to steal glances at her during the training practise without having to worry that anyone would notice.

In the morning, the first thing Katara would do was fetch water from the well. She would generally clean and tidy the place for the day, sweeping away any mess from the previous night. Then she would make a start on any laundry that needed doing, and hang it up before using her bending to pull the water from the clothes in order to speed up the drying process. After an hour or two had passed and the boys had stopped meditating and begun practising forms, Katara would start making breakfast for the group.

Often while Katara moved about, she would always make sure to keep a watchful eye over Aang's training with Zuko. She couldn't help but feel the need to keep warily checking them out of the corner of her eye every now and then. Katara didn't trust Zuko with Aang, even though now she was, regretfully, married to him. The betrayal of Ba Sing Se still sat like a knot in her stomach, and she would need to look to Aang for the reassurance that he was alive and safe.

"Katara! Katara! Watch this!" Aang would yell when he got the hang of a new-technique that he was proud of, with enough force to wake up the entire population of the air temple. Katara would look over, watching and complimenting Aang's technique, while Zuko would give him criticism and make Aang run through it again.

"You have to be ready," He told the Avatar. "There can't be any room for error. Let's do it again, but with more ferocity."

Katara would be forced to notice how Zuko took his training with Aang incredibly seriously, pushing almost as hard as Toph had in the beginning. It wasn't an approach Aang particularly enjoyed, but even Katara had to admit that they didn't have enough time for Aang to learn firebending at a gentle pace.

"Is that breakfast?" Aang asked enthusiastically. "Zuko, can we break yet?"

"Not yet," Zuko replied gruffly, turning away from Katara as a silent dismissal of her to leave and stop distracting Aang. Katara glared at his back and stalked away.

When the morning sun had fully risen, the boys would often disregard their shirts during their training in the warm weather. Katara would try not to notice how broad Zuko's shoulders were, or how strong his arms looked, and she would most certainly try not to look at the pale muscles of his abs. Katara turned back to the breakfast and tried not to think of how he had reacted when she had told him that she would not let the marriage change anything. She also wished that she could ignore how, in the weeks since then, he had respectfully given her space.

Katara did not feel married; she only felt confused. She knew it was a real marriage, and that no amount of pretending was going to fix her mistake or make the marriage disappear. But she wasn't ready to accept that she was married, and she certainly wasn't ready to act like she was married. It just wasn't fair. Katara didn't want to be married! She had decided to put off accepting her circumstances for as long as possible.

Katara had fallen for Zuko's act before, and it had stung bitterly when she found out she was wrong about him. She refused to be wrong again, to let her feelings blind her. Katara had decided that it was safer for herself, the group, and or the fate of the world that she kept her guard up around Zuko.

"Morning, Sis," Sokka mumbled as he walked over to Katara to survey the breakfast. "Morning Aang. Jerkbender," he called out to the two firebenders.

Usually between the combination of Aang's shouting and the serving of breakfast, everyone else began to get up for the day.

After breakfast, Toph would quickly go over earthbending drills with Aang, or Katara would run through some waterbending practise with him before he went back to firebending training for the rest of the day. With time running out, it was important Aang's training rotated between his three teachers to make sure he would be well prepared in with all elements for the fight to come. As Zuko had pointed out, he would need to spend most of his time doing firebending training as it was his weakest element.

"How'd you sleep, Zuko? Marry anyone last night?" Zuko had been subjected to many jokes like this in the past few weeks. He swallowed back his retort, aware that Sokka's jokes were probably his coping mechanism for the odd situation.

Zuko had noticed that Katara, aside from hunting for food or firewood, did nearly all of the chores around the camp. Zuko had taken it upon himself to be the one to make tea for the group. This was partly because, after months of working in a tea-shop with Iroh, he enjoyed brewing tea, but also because Katara made terrible tea. Zuko was afraid to insult her tea-making skills outright, but also couldn't bear to chug down another cup of the awful stuff.

After breakfast, Zuko made the mistake of collecting all of the dishes and depositing them into the bucket to be cleaned before Katara did.

"What are you doing?" She asked suspiciously.

"Clearing away the dishes. I was going to wash them."

"Why? I can do it faster with my waterbending."

Zuko shrugged. Zuko didn't enjoy doing the dishes, but he occasionally found there was something oddly therapeutic about the task.

Katara glared at him. "Stop it! You can't just sneak the marriage onto me by helping do the dishes! That's not how trust works!" She ranted.

"What? I am not sneaking the marriage onto you, I'm just washing up! There is no sneaking! We're already married, whether you care to admit it or not," Zuko hissed back.

"That doesn't mean we have to act like we're married, that's the part you're trying to sneak in!"

"I'm not sneaking! I was just going to do the dishes. Why is that so awful of me? That I wanted to help and I don't want you to hate me?" Zuko shouted.

Katara stared at him in shock. She looked appalled that he had revealed that he didn't want her to hate him, and Zuko couldn't understand why. He stormed off in frustration, and proceeded to avoid her for the rest of the day.

Zuko couldn't sleep. Every time he tried to drift off, his mind wandered back to his predicament with Katara and their most recent argument. Zuko had grown up watching his parents' loveless marriage, and the idea of resigning himself to a life of that with Katara filled him with dread. Why was she insisting on making the whole thing so much more difficult?

Zuko guessed it was because she still felt betrayed from the events of Ba Sing Se. But the others were slowly beginning to trust him, so why couldn't she?

Flinging off the covers, Zuko silently slipped out of his room and into the corridor. Like a ghost, he drifted down the hall as quietly as possible, passing Katara's room where, thankfully, she slept, snoring loudly.

His plan had been to pace around the courtyard and the western wing until he felt tired; maybe he would meditate as well, just to clear his head. However, his plans were forgotten when he heard someone stumble behind the fountain and quietly curse.

He rushed over, readying a ball of flame in his palm to strike at the potential intruder.

"Sokka?" To Zuko's utter surprise, the Watertribe boy was trying to collect his scrolls and maps back into his arms. The flame in his hand faded. "What are you doing?"

"Uh nothing. What are you doing?" Sokka lied unconvincingly. He straightened up to look at Zuko, his arms full of paper. Zuko stared at him, raising an eyebrow in confusion.

"That doesn't look like nothing," Zuko said.

"I, uh, just wanted to go over the plan, you know?" Sokka babbled. "Couldn't sleep until I knew it was, uh, a good plan. You should go back to bed." He started backing away from Zuko.

"Sokka, what are you really doing?" Zuko stepped forward, glaring at Sokka sternly.

"I want to go save my dad," Sokka admitted, his shoulders sagging in defeat. "I know we're supposed to be keeping a low-profile, but I've waited for weeks, and Sozin's comet is fast approaching. I can't just keep sitting around while my dad sits in prison."

"Sokka…" Zuko began, but Sokka cut him off, his voice low and urgent.

"Look, Zuko. I know you want Katara to trust you, so you're going to feel like you have to tell her where I went, but she'll only be mad if she finds out that you let me go, so it's just smarter if you don't say anything about seeing me leave, ok?"

"Sokka, there is no way I'm just going to let you leave," Zuko argued. "I'm coming with you."