Okay, funny story about my ditzyness. I was talking on the phone and saw this little red compact thing. I opened it up and thought, Oh good. Lip gloss. So I smear this stuff on my lips and then I realize that it smells really powerful and instead of making my lips softer it begins burning the crap out of them. Turns out it was actually perfume, so now I smell horribly like Night Magic and my lips are suffering from chemical burn. Yayness. Jeez, I have like five mosquito bites on my stomach and I have no idea how they got there. Gaaah! I found out that in my Sci-fi and mythology class my teacher wants each of us to write a story and try to get it published. Any ideas in this case would be welcome and if anybody wants to be a co-author, just tell me in a review or email me and we can swap ideas.I have a question to all you people bored enough to read about my life. How many of you out there are guys or girls? Some it's easy to tell, but others have left me stumped. Just let me know in a review, I'm really curious and I live in constant fear that I'll get genders messed up in shoutout messages.

Athenera: I really like your idea, but I've decided I want to keep the rating down so more people can read it. But I'm telling ya the truth when I say that I really thought about your idea and tried to find a place to put it, but I came up blank.

Starchic: Okay, I will.

Newsiefreak9er9er: Yes. Yes he is.

Khazia: Yeah, I really should go see fantastic 4. And yes, I tend to add a lot of pain to my fics. It makes me laugh.

Lovergal1227: M-A-R-I-U-S. And I'm kinda using the idea you gave me in this chapter, but I think we'll see it more later on.

ZukoPunk: That sucks that your email is down. Hey, I read in your profile that you have two ferrets! That rocks. I had one two years ago. His name was Taz and he was the greatest even though he reeked somethin' awful. He would climb up my bedspread and sleep on my feet. Then he would bite my feet. But he got loose and my neighbor's dog ate him. How sad.

Zukoscute2: I really liked your story. I can't quite remember if I reviewed, but I'm pretty sure I did. Yes, Marius is a Scuzzoid.

O-dragon: Just for your sake I'm going to keep the rating down. I'm also taking your plot idea into deep consideration and think I'll try to use it in a later chapter. There's a little something between Katie and Sokka in this chapter, I just don't want to be one of those Mary-Sue'rs that have every guy falling over themselves for my character. To tell you the truth I'm just not pretty enough. So there's not going to be an actual relationship there. And I don't think I'll make myself a bender of any kind.

Once again, I can see on my stats page that there's another review for this chapter, but my computer won't let me see it yet. So I'll get you nextchapter whoever you are.

"GAH! This is so confusing." Katie yelled in frustration. They had stopped to camp for the night; they had traveled five miles in three hours. Katie was already feeling extremely grumpy. Shinja had done a very good job with the stitches, Katie could barely feel a thing, but the splint had left her arm hanging limply at her side. She couldn't bend it or rest it on anything so the entire left side of her body was beginning to feel the strain. When they had stopped, Zuko had remained true to his word and had begun her first reading lesson.

"Only because you're making it so hard. Besides, I was under the impression that you already knew how to read."

"I can, but I know how to read something entirely different from this." Katie said leaning down to get a better look at the character. "So tell me again what this one says?"

"It says 'tree'. You can tell because of these two lines. If they weren't there it would just say 'plant'." (a/n: I really don't know how to read Chinese characters; I'm just making up what sounds good in my brain.) Katie glared at the symbol trying to readjust her arm. Just wearing the brace was making her feel exhausted. It was taking every shred of self-control to stop herself from ripping it off. "Here, how about this." Zuko stood up and rummaged through his saddle bag until he came up with a piece of parchment he had brought in case he needed to write a letter to his uncle. He also grabbed a burning stick from the fire. He extinguished the flame clinging to it and drew away any residual heat.

"This is the basic word for plant." He wrote it down and then wrote the word several more times. He than began adding various lines or dots to each one. "This is tree. This is rose. This is flower in general. This is leaf…" He went on down the list. Suddenly an idea popped into Katie's head. She took the stick and parchment from him and wrote beneath each one in English. "What's that?" Zuko asked staring at the strange, curved markings.

"This is what I can read." Katie said trying to get the burnt stick to work as good as a pencil. Zuko looked very interested. "So learning how to read your way has to do with memorizing every single character?" Katie asked with a frown.

"Of course. How else would you learn how to read?" Katie sighed and rolled her neck around feeling a satisfying pop. This is going to take a while. The lesson continued on for another hour. Zuko's uncle would watch over their shoulders and give his advice every now and then as he cooked their meal. By the end of the lesson, Katie had learned various types of plants and animals. She felt like her brain was going to pop. Finally, Zuko announced that this was enough and they began setting out their bedding. Katie began scratching at her bandages. Her skin felt tight and itchy all up and down her arm. It was driving her insane.

"I have to say that I've never met a more unlucky person." Zuko said glancing up at her with a grin. "What is it about you that unleashes obsessive behavior in us?"

"I really can't imagine what it is, I'm not even that cute." She muttered sullenly as she undid her boot. She let out a happy little groan as she pulled the boot off. "Oh man. Something that feels this good should be illegal."

"Huh?"

"Nothing. So do you think we'll get back to your ship by tomorrow?"

"Probably not. Maybe by noon the day after." Zuko said smoothing out his bedroll then moving over to do the same for Katie. She sighed and tried shifting her shoulder around. The end of the brace was digging uncomfortably into her armpit.

"I have to pee." She announced standing up and walking away barefoot.

"Be careful." Zuko called after her.

"Please, I've been doing it for years." Katie joked before she disappeared into the trees. Katie walked out of sight of their campfire and looked around. She loved the woods at night. She watched an owl flutter overhead and disappear into an old cracked pinetree. Katie looked down at her belt and sighed. How am I supposed to do this with one hand? She wondered, frowning. She heard a snap in the foliage and tensed. She looked around blocking the suddenly bright moonlight from her eyes with her hand so she could see. Back home when she was little her uncle would tell her Bigfoot stories when they went camping that would totally freak her out. These jumped into her head right now as she stood alone in a strange world. She strained her ears and she felt primordial instincts begin blooming forth. She could sense that something was coming towards her, she just couldn't distinguish what direction it was coming from. Suddenly she felt a hand clamp tightly over her mouth and another wrapped around her, pulling her back deeper into the trees. She bit down hard and used her splinted arm as a club, whacking her assailant upside the head. She opened her mouth to yell for Zuko when she heard:

"Dammit! What are you doing? I'm trying to help you!"

"Sokka? What the hell do you think you're doing?" Katie whispered angrily.

"I said I'm trying to help you. If you come with us now we can get you away from Zuko before he notices you're gone. Geez! I think I'm bleeding!" he said touching his head with a finger then inspecting it in the moonlight.

"Sokka, Zuko isn't holding me captive."

"Please, every time I've seen you you've been beaten up one way or another. You can't tell me he's not holding you against your will."

"You've seen me twice and Zuko isn't the one beating the tar out of me. Now would you mind giving me some privacy before my eyes start turning yellow?"

"What?"

"I have to pee! I can feel my liver beginning to rupture as we speak, so go away!" She said and shoved Sokka away. "But thanks for the concern anyways Sokka. Give Katara and Aang my best." She whispered as loudly as she dared as Sokka disappeared into the trees.

After the call of nature was officially answered, Katie strolled happily back into camp. Zuko looked like he was about to pull his hair out.

"What took you so long? I thought something had happened to you!"

"Um, excuse me. I kinda don't have access to all my facilities right now." She said waving her arm. "Speaking of lima beans, could you help me with my belt? It's one feat I haven't managed on my own." Zuko helped her with the buckle, Katie officially felt like a four-year-old.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you. Things just seem to be happening to you around every corner."

"Yeah, tell me something I don't know." Katie sank into her bed with a groan. Two feet away Zuko did the same. She went over the events of the day in her head. Listening to Zuko tell her about his mother last night seemed like ages ago. She remembered him saying that his mother's presence had really changed his father. Really looking at Zuko now she could see how much the last week and a half had changed him. Not long ago he was bent on finding the avatar, now he was using all his energies to be her babysitter. Katie frowned slightly. "Zuko, just let me know if I'm being a burden." Zuko had been gazing up at the stars, he turned and frowned at Katie.

"What do you mean? You're not a burden."

"Puh-leez! You wouldn't even be here right now if it weren't for me. You would still be on your ship living life comfortably with only the avatar to worry about. Now you have Zhao out for your blood and all the other crap I've brought down on you."

"Zhao's always been out for my blood. And I haven't thought about the avatar for the past few days. Do you know what a relief on my mind that has been? You've shown me what it's like to live. You're anything but a burden. Now go to sleep. Tomorrow's going to be a long day." He reached across the distance between them and squeezed her hand. Katie gave him a little grateful smile.

"G'night Zuko." She said, already her eyes felt heavy and would roll unbidden back into her skull.

"Goodnight Katie."

"Goodnight Zuko's uncle."

"Goodnight kids."

"Goodnight little forest critters."

"Okay Katie, now you're being a burden." Katie grinned into her pillow and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

Kay, before anybody asks, Zuko's uncle isn't going to have a name. I'm just too lazy right now to come up with anything. Rememememeber. I want to know what gender you are so that I don't make any messups in my shoutout messages. I'm not a weird stalker person, I promise. And, as always, please review.