xXx

Katara diced up the carrots and slid them into the stew. It wasn't really the right weather to be eating hot liquid-food, but she just couldn't concentrate enough to make anything else. After stirring the mixture for a bit, she deemed the stew ready to eat. With a flick of her wrist, she pulled water out of thin air (It wasn't that hard, the humid atmosphere was full of it), and doused her tiny cooking fire. Leaning back, she wiped off the sweat that was forming on her brow. Fire Nation weather sucked.

It was still early morning, the sun had risen a few hours ago. Which meant that Sokka and Toph were most definitely asleep, and would continue to be for at least an hour. Suki was off on the beach, practicing advanced combat moves with Sokka's space sword. Aang would be waking up soon. And Zuko was meditating somewhere. He was always up before Katara, being a firebender who rose with the sun and all.

Katara still didn't know how to tell the others what she and Aang talked about the night before. And how to do it without Zuko knowing. She thought a lot about it last night, and decided that if they just showed Zuko that they cared then he would feel more comfortable with sharing his past. Because their little gang was a family- they could tell each other anything. Aang, Suki, Toph; they were like her siblings. Zuko certainly deserves a better family than the one he has now.

Katara's thoughts were interrupted when Aang entered the kitchen, yawning loudly. She scooped some stew into a bowl and handed it to him when he reached her.

"Thanks, Katara. This looks delicious." If Aang thought it was weird to have stew for breakfast on such a hot day, he didn't voice it.

Katara nodded absentmindedly, still trying to figure out her thoughts regarding Zuko. First she would talk to the others, then they could‒

"Hey Katara, look, I'm soupbending!" Looking up, Katara watched as Aang spun a stream of stew through the air. He made it spin across the room and back, where it flew straight into the airbender's open mouth.

"That's great, Aang." Aang frowned. He was obviously hoping for some sort of praise, or even applause. But Katara wasn't in the mood for applauding to soupbending tricks.

Aang sat down next to her. "What's wrong?"

"I'm just thinking," she replied.

"Whatcha thinking about?"

"You know what."

"Oh." Aang glanced around the room, as if Zuko himself was hiding in the shadows. After he was sure that his firebending Sifu wasn't in the room, he whispered: "What are we going to do?"

"I think we should tell the others before we talk to him. Maybe you and I could tell them after he goes to bed. And when everybody is filled in, we could talk to Zuko at breakfast tomorrow."

Aang met her eyes. "Katara, I've been thinking about last night, too. I want to help Zuko as much as you do, but are you sure we should talk to Zuko together? Or at all? He's never talked about any of his past before, and he might think that we're trying to pry into his personal business."

"That's why we need to show him that we care!" Katara exclaimed. "Listen, I know that he never had the best family experiences, but he needs to know that we are his family now. And family tells each other everything." She knew that Aang was being reasonable, but Katara needed to know. She wanted Zuko to tell them. She wanted to know why he kept to himself, and why he needs to lock his feelings inside. Katara always had this urge to understand people, to talk to them and help them through their problems.

Aang looked uncertain. "But don't you think‒" He faltered when Zuko strode into the room and grabbed a bowl. "‒ that it's too hot for soup?" He finished loudly, looking nervously at Zuko. The firebender ladled himself some stew and sat down across from them.

"Sorry, Aang, but that's all I could make with the food we have. We need to get some more." Katara played along.

"There's a market a mile or two that way," Zuko gestured behind him with his spoon. "And I think there's some apples on the tree in the front."

Aang looked sheepishly at his Sifu. "Not anymore…" He mumbled guiltily. Zuko shrugged and continued eating.

"That's perfect!" Katara clapped her hands together. "I'm sure the others would like to get out of the house anyway. You and Aang would have to stay behind though, someone could recognise you two." Aang visibly drooped when Katara said this, and Zuko shrugged again.

"That's okay with me, I hate shopping. I could give Aang another lesson while you're doing that." Zuko finished his stew right as a sleepy Toph and wide-awake Suki entered. Toph sat next to Zuko while Suki served her some food.

"How ya doing, Twinkletoes?" Toph asked, slurping her stew very loudly. Katara pursed her lips in disapproval.

"I'm fine, Toph. Absolutely positively splendid." Aang squeaked.

Toph set her bowl down, a small frown appearing on her face. "Okay, spit it out. I can tell something's up. Is it the same thing that was bothering you last night?" Now Zuko and Suki were looking at Aang, who glanced nervously at Katara.

"Well…" He began, but was saved by a very hungry Sokka, who burst into the room.

"Morning, is that food I smell?" Katara never thought she would be so happy to hear her brother talk about food. Sokka immediately filled a bowl and chugged it, not even stopping to chew, until the bowl was empty. He filled the bowl again and sat down with the rest of them.

Toph was still looking at Aang. Katara felt she needed to change the subject before Aang blew it. "We need more food, we don't have much left." she started. That got Sokka's attention. He looked horrified ‒ more concerned than all the times their lives have been on the line. "So we're going to the market today!" Her brother let out a sigh of relief.

"Sounds good. I'll go with you, to make sure you get enough meat." Katara rolled her eyes. Of course he thought of meat first.

"Then I'll come along to make sure he behaves." Suki laughed as her boyfriend pouted.

Toph snorted. "Yeah, I'm sure that's why. It's not like you and Snoozles will disappear the moment we get there. I can feel what you guys do at night."

Sokka and Suki each turned shades of deep red, and avoided eye contact. "We don't.. It's not like that.. We were just.." They stammered.

"Yeah, yeah." Toph was clearly enjoying herself. "My feet don't lie. Anyway, I'll go too. It's boring here." Katara beamed. This was perfect, she could tell them all about Zuko while they walked back from the market!

"Then let's go!" Katara stood up and looked at Aang. "You guys stay here, we'll be back soon." Aang looked worriedly at her. She knew that he still didn't like what she was about to do, but she ignored him. She was doing what's best for Zuko.

xXx

Firenation markets are way different than any market that Katara has been to before. Why do they feel the need to put an unreasonable amount of spice in everything? And where do they find all these different spices? She never used anything but salt and seaweed to compliment her food back home in the South Pole.

Sokka instantly made the mistake of eating fireflakes again. Zuko, who seems to have no spice-limit at all, eats them by the handfuls. Her brother thinks that his manliness is being threatened by the fireflake-freak-Zuko, so he's trying to prove that he can handle spice. Big mistake. Sokka put one flake on his tongue and immediately yelped, spit it out, and rushed off to the nearest dairy stall with an amused/exasperated Suki trailing behind him.

Toph kept telling blind jokes. "Are you sure that Banana is ripe? It looks questionable to me." "Wow, that meat looks delicious." "I really like that girl's outfit, it brings out her eyes." Katara learned to ignore them, but Sokka fell for them every time.

After thirty agonizing minutes of enduring endless spices, blind jokes, and brother/fireflake battles, Katara had run out of patience and money. With the help of Suki, she dragged her brother away from the fireflake stall and onto the path back to the house. Toph, who got bored after she ran out of blind jokes, was waiting for them.

Katara led them down the path, mentally preparing herself for what she was about to tell them. She was sure that they would agree with her, Zuko needed to know that they were there for him. But there was something else. Katara felt like she needed to know what Zuko had gone through. She wanted to understand him, she wanted to help him. Hopefully they will be closer after they talk.

The path winded through the lush Ember Island jungle. As usual, the jungle was swelteringly hot, and everybody was sweating through their clothing. When they reached a clearing, Katara sat everyone down in the shade and told them she had something important she wanted to discuss with them, Toph immediately exclaimed "I knew it! You did have a secret thing with Haru!"

Katara frowned and yelled "No I didn't!" Why did everyone think that? Okay, yes, maybe she did have a little crush on Haru when she first met him. But how was this her fault? He was very handsome, and he was the first boy she's ever met that was her age and not her brother. Of course she would be a little attracted to him! But she quickly got over it, and she definitely does not want to kiss a guy with a mustache.

"First of all, there was nothing between Haru and me. Nothing. That is not what I wanted to talk about," Katara insisted.

"Sure," Toph obviously didn't believe her. "But Haru definitely thought that there was something between you two." Katara's frown deepened. This discussion was not going well, and she hadn't even started it. She elected to ignore the last comment and change the topic. Preferably to what she actually wanted to talk about.

"Anyway," She started. "I wanted to talk to you guys about Zuko."

"Oh no." Sokka groaned. "Katara, I thought you trust him now, Please don't tell me you found another made up reason for hating him."

"That's not it either," She snapped. "Seriously guys. Just let me tell you and then you can ask questions, okay?" Everyone nodded, looking apprehensive.

Katara took a deep breath. "Aang and I were talking last night…."

xXx

"So you want to talk to Zuko about his scars," Sokka said bluntly. "Katara, I don't think this is a good idea. He doesn't ever talk about that stuff. It's probably because he doesn't want to."

They were not taking this well. Toph wasn't even aware that Zuko had any scars, so they had to describe them to her. It was so easy to forget that she was blind, so none of them had even realised she hadn't known. Suki confessed that she often wondered how Zuko got the scar on his face, and neither she nor Sokka knew that he had scars on his chest too. Zuko wouldn't let anybody watch the firebending lessons, claiming that they would distract Aang (which is probably true).

"But he can't just bottle up his feelings inside and pretend everything's okay!" Katara was getting frustrated. "Look, if it was his father‒"

"But what if you're wrong?" Sokka interjected. "I can't imagine anybody doing that to their own child, even Ozai. And Zuko is not the type of guy to talk about his feelings. He barely talks at all!"

"We have to try," Katara pleaded. "Sokka, you tell me everything because we're family. Aang tells me everything, he's practically my brother." She looked at the others. "Toph, Suki, you're like my sisters. We don't keep secrets from each other, And now Zuko is part of our family. But we hardly know anything about him! All we know is that he loves fireflakes and hates his family."

"He likes his uncle," Toph added. "And he loved his mom."

Katara did a double take. "Hold on, how did you know about his mom?"

"He told me, back when you all hated him in the Western Air Temple. Believe it or not, he got lonely back there. So I decided to grace him with my friendship. We talked about our messed up families." Toph looked a bit saddened when she said that. "Sparky said that his mother and Uncle are the only ones in his family that were normal."

"Zuko is pretty normal," Suki said. "And I think that we should try to talk to him. The Kyoshi Warriors are a tight-knit group of fighters, but we are all family. They are my sisters, and I know that I can rely on any of them. It sounds like Zuko never had that with his family. We should try speaking to him about it. But," Suki added when she saw Katara's hopeful expression. "If he doesn't want to talk about it, we leave him alone."

Katara instantly agreed. It was a good compromise, and she didn't want to force Zuko to do anything. They gathered the food/supplies they bought in the market and continued down the path towards Zuko's vacation home.

xXx

So next chapter is the last one!

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