A/N: Your kind words give me fuel to continue. Thank you, readers.

I'm so sorry for the delay, I've been in this weird headspace and did not want to write from there. But I swore I would abandon you, so here I am!

I don't own these characters. (Or world)

Chapter 15

Katara had long forgotten the ache and stiffness that came with waking up on a hard floor, even with the thin sheet her brother had provided her buffering the scratching carpet and exposed places of her skin, she woke up with a small rash that itched like crazy.

She's also managed to forget how loud her brother snored, she had been very aware of the fact that Sokka was a snorer but in the four weeks she'd spent sleeping in the same room as Yue, whose breaths were so light she could be mistaken for a pile of pillows under her duvet, she had seemingly played down the raucous noise her brother could summon from his chest while sleeping.

Several times during the night she had resorted to curling her pillow over her ears in an attempt to drown out Sokka. On one occasion she even wondered if he was actually awake and just being as loud as possible as some kind of joke. However, she had found the ungodly noise comforting, many times as kids, whenever Katara would hear a noise or a shadow would dance across her wall in a new home, she'd find herself curled up on the floor of Sokka's room until the morning would come and dispel whatever shadow had scared her the night before.

The warm nostalgia had left her however the moment Sokka had stood on her during a late-night trip to the bathroom, in his groggy state he must have forgotten she was there because the squeal he made was almost as loud as the one Katara had.

So that's how Katara found herself glaring at the side of Sokka's head over breakfast, nursing a sizable bruise on her hand from Sokka's accidental heel, a rash from his needlessly rough carpet and a stiff shoulder from sleeping with her arm under her pillow in an attempt to alleviate the hardiness of the ground beneath her head.

"I said I was sorry, would you stop glaring at me already?" Sokka cried after several minutes of Katara's silence.

"When my hand heals" Katara returned as she stuck her fork into her eggs with more force than was necessary.

"Morning Katara!" The chipper voice of Aang broke through the stalemate that had fallen over the siblings. "Oh, and Sokka" Aang added as he took his usual seat next to Katara.

"What do you mean Oh?" Sokka spoke indignantly as he lifted his head to stare at the beanie clad boy.

"Morning Aang" Katara spoke as she offered a warm smile to their friend. Aang beamed at her, his grey eyes lighting up as he began to chat away in-between mouthfuls of his food.

Katara found herself grateful when their table filled out with Suki and Toph who seemed to be in a better mood than her, as much as she loved her young friend she was fairly tired and even his seemingly endless supply of contagious optimism wasn't breaching her walls. Instead of joining in on whatever spat Toph and Sokka had locked themselves in, she pushed her food around her plate, too tired to eat.

The thought occurred to her that maybe Zuko didn't eat in the mornings for the same reason, that wouldn't surprise her all that much. No matter what time he'd fall asleep the night before he would wake up early, inhumanely early as far as Katara was concerned.

"Katara? What happened to your hand?" Aang asked loudly as he took her hand in his and examined the bruise that had already formed.

"Yeah, Sokka what happened to my hand?" Katara quipped as she threw her eyes over to her brother.

"I stood on it" Sokka replied, "and I said I was sorry!"

"How did you manage that, Snoozles?" Toph asked with mild amusement as she ran her clouded jade eyes over to the siblings.

"I forgot she was asleep on my floor" Sokka defended.

"Why were you asleep on Sokka's floor?" Suki laughed as she flicked her eyes between the brother and sister who were now locked in a heated stare off.

"Yue had Hahn over" Katara replied flatly, as she passed her eyes over to Suki. This time she did miss the micro expression that ran across Sokka's face.

"Ah" Suki replied with a nod and a sympathetic smile as she sipped at her cup. "Makes sense," she added with a nod.

"You should see a nurse or something" Aang spoke softly, Katara hadn't realised Aang was still holding onto her hand or that he looked a little bit more concerned than he should.

"It's fine Aang, this isn't the first Sokka related bruise I've had" Katara offered with a smile as she gently removed her hand from his and placed it on his arm. She felt him stiffen a little before he nodded at her.

"Still you should be more careful," Aang replied sheepishly as he faced his food.

"I said I was sor- you know what next time you can sleep on somebody else's floor" Sokka huffed as he leaned back in his chair.

"Don't need a floor when I can stay in a perfectly good bed" Katara scoffed, as she examined the bruise on her hand. It was a light grey colour, nothing to worry about, it only looked worse off her tanned skin. Still, Aang's concern warmed her, even if he was a little over concerned. She put that down to his age, everything seemed so much worse as a teenager.

"Maybe it's time I talked with Zuko" Sokka mumbled to himself, or what Katara imagined was supposed to be himself but given how loud Sokka usually was it ended up being perfectly audible to the rest of the table.

"Do not even, Sokka. Stay as far away from him as you can" Katara warned. "Far away" she added.

"I take it the date went well then?" Suki spoke up as she beamed a knowing smile at Katara.

For a moment she stared into the grey eyes of her expectant friend, a part of her had thought Suki was just trying to get her to admit out loud what she already knew. The more she stared the more she realised that wasn't the case, the sparkle in her eyes, the smile on her mouth, even the way she held her body a little tighter in anticipation. She didn't know and that bugged Katara. A lot.

Then how did Yue? She thought to herself. She felt that same itch in the back of her mind again, the same one she'd had when she'd walked into her room to find Sokka sitting on her bed. She hadn't wondered how he'd gotten in then but now she did.

"It went well, Suki, really well" Katara spoke, her words were tighter than she intended them to be. If Suki had noticed she didn't say anything, instead, she leaned a little closer raising her eyebrows. Her expectant look was killing her, did she not know? Did Sokka not tell her? She felt that itch deepen, the urge to scratch it was strong.

"And…." Suki added as she wiggled her eyebrows at Katara.

Sokka didn't tell her. The thought adding fuel to the fire she was burning inside.

"Zuko is officially my boyfriend again" Katara spoke with a smile she wished she was feeling. Suki squealed as she beamed at her friend, Katara should have mirrored her excitement, been gushing about her beautiful boyfriend. She wanted to, she wanted to tell the whole cafeteria about him, about her secretly sweet outwardly hostile boyfriend. but she didn't. Not only because Zuko would probably die of embarrassment-related cardiac arrest but because somewhere inside her she knew it was wrong too. It felt like a gloat.

"Wait to go Tara' I knew tall, dark and mysterious didn't stand a chance" Suki beamed as she did a little dance in her chair.

But he told Yue. The thought made her squirm. It shouldn't have, they were all friends, Sokka and Yue could talk the same way Katara and Aang could, as friends. Nothing more behind it. So why didn't it sit right with her...

A loud clatter broke Katara away from her thought process, the itch dulling again as she wiped her head towards the offending clatter. She felt herself pause as she was met by the large grey eyes of her youngest friend.

"He is?" Aang spoke, his voice a little too delicate for Katara's liking. She straightened herself in her seat, she wasn't sure what had made Aang so upset but she didn't like it. The hurt look on his face was alien to his usually bright features.

She reached out to place a comforting hand on his arm and was shocked, and a little hurt, when he pulled away from her even more so when he passed his eyes over the table and fled.

"Aang?" Katara called after him, she'd risen to follow him but had felt a hand on her arm, she turned to meet the mirrored eyes of her brother.

"I wouldn't Tara, give the kid some space," Sokka said, his eyes flicking to the path Aang had left from.

"But, I should go and see if he's okay. I don't know what's upset him" Katara protested.

"For all your brains Sugar Queen, you sure can be dense" Toph spoke as she blew her long bangs out of her unseeing eyes.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Katara asked as she narrowed her eyes at Toph.

"Aang likes you, Sweetness" Toph spoke as she dug into her food.

"That's ridiculous. Aang doesn't like me" Katara scoffed as she picked up her bag, ready to follow after the distressed teenager.

Toph was stirring the pot again and Katara was far too tired to deal with her games, she'd never seen such a hurt look on Aang's face and she'd be damned if she was going to leave him alone feeling like that.

"Alright, let me ask you this. Who made the first move between you and sparky?" Toph asked, raising her head to look at Katara.

"Me" Katara replied with an indignant huff.

"The first time Sweetness" Toph drawled.

"Zuko did. But I don't see what that has to do with anything" She returned, Toph was fraying her nerves.

"My point exactly, even though even I can see Aang likes you, you missed it. I'm willing to bet Sparky had to do a lot of the leg work too" Toph scoffed.

"Toph is right Tara" Suki spoke "on some things" she added as she passed her eyes over to Toph.

"You think I'm dense too!?" Katara spat as she stared at her friend. Katara would have been lying if she'd said she wasn't at least a little hurt by that.

"No, I think you only had eyes for one man and the others didn't register," Suki said as her head rested in her hands as she held Katara's stare.

"See, dense" Toph added to Katara's further annoyance.

"Sokka, help me out here" Katara cried, knowing she was reaching if she was relying on Sokka for backup on this, especially considering he'd been the first person to stop her.

"Sorry Sis, but they're right. I'm telling you, give the kid some space, you'll end up making it worse for him otherwise" Sokka spoke with a surprisingly sympathetic smile.

Katara passed her eyes over her friends, surely they were wrong. Aang was still a kid, there is no way he liked her, the idea seemed ridiculous to her. And yet they all seemed to agree on it. She let out a frustrated sigh as she sat back down at the table. Her arms folded over her chest.

"Well someone should go," Katara huffed.

Zuko woke up in a far better mood than that of his girlfriend, he'd slept well for a second night running and he was feeling the effects from a good night's sleep, waking up at his usual time without Hanh's ungodly snoring had only served to make his mood better, as did the fact that he'd returned to his room pleasantly surprised that Hanh had decided to play adult and pick up after himself.

Upon entering, an usually, clean dorm room Zuko found himself pulling back the duvet on his own bed to ensure Hanh hadn't just cleaned up after himself by placing all his used food containers in his bed, part of him had doubted Hanh was that brave, Hanh had been riding the thin line of his patience for weeks now and he might have thrown hands, Luckily Zuko was right, his bed and clothes remained untampered with. Once he was satisfied Hanh hadn't sighed his death warrant, he climbed into his shower and cleaned himself off.

The steam always eased him, cascading down his skin and undoing the tension of the day, loosening any knots and cleaning him of the day's stresses. He found he was always able to calm himself in the shower, it had become somewhat meditative for him. He always assumed it had to do with closing the world off for a time, shutting the door and standing under the warm spray of the water while the hiss silenced the raging cacophony inside him for a while.

It also reminded him of Katara, in more ways than one, she had the same effect on him. She could silence the noise inside him too, pull him from his thoughts and wrap him in her warmth, he felt safe with her, he always had. That was the first way the shower reminded him of her, the second was the hike.

He felt himself throb at the memory of them inside his uncle's cramped apartment shower, a teenage tangle of limbs and lips as they tried to recreate what they'd seen done so much more successfully in the movies. Her leg hooked around his hip, her mocha skin warm from the spray of the shower, his hands trying to find some purchase to steady himself against the wet tile. If it wasn't for the bath matt his uncle had insisted on, they probably would have fallen multiple times as they tried to love each other.

A smirk had pulled at his lips at the memory, they had tried but it hadn't exactly gone to plan. He had to keep repositioning them because he was getting a cramp in his calves from the odd angle, they had to keep breaking from their kiss because the water was running into their mouths and at one point he'd lost his footing, crashing their lips together hard. The end result hadn't been as sexy as they'd imagined, they both ended up with a deep-set cramp in their thighs and calves and a little bead of blood from their lips mashing against their teeth. But they had laughed about it, even then it was funny.

He felt another throb when his brain moved from the less innocent. Katara looked unreal in that bikini. He'd realised almost immediately when they'd ran into each other again, that she wasn't that fifteen-year-old girl anymore. The way her dark blue skinny jeans had clung to her curves, her wider hips and firm shapely rear, or the way her t-shirt was slightly stretched over her now ample breasts had him mesmerised. He always found her beautiful, but now he found her undeniably sexy too. That swimsuit had only amplified what he'd already thought, the sight of the water droplets running down her cleavage had seared his veins, he'd lost track of how many times he'd watched a droplet make the trail he wished his tongue could.

He felt an uncomfortable throb, as his mind traced the contours of her beautiful body. The way those shorts had stopped just under the curvature of her cheeks had given him a perfect unsolicited view of her long, athletic legs. Part of him felt so guilty about how much he liked seeing her in her swimsuit but he'd rationalised it by the fact that he liked seeing her wearing his clothes just as much, and she was, in fact, his girlfriend.

He shifted himself under the water before dropping his amber eyes down, he groaned to himself as he looked at his arousal. He let out a huff of air, he knew it was normal and perfectly healthy, especially when he had a girlfriend that gorgeous, who he had caught appreciating him the same way, but he still felt a little wrong about it. She had been open and honest with him about her ex and although she hadn't given him all the details, which with the murderous rage coursing through him at the time was probably a wise decision, he gathered the little fucker had done some heavy damage to her self-esteem, and he swore he'd go at her pace. He meant every word of it.

But now he was looking at a different problem and from the looks of it, it wasn't going away on its own anytime soon, and Katara was still his girlfriend. His beautiful, sexy, amazing girlfriend… he let out another groan as he took himself in his hand, the friction causing a pleasurable spasm to ripple through him, closing his eyes he let his head fill with thoughts of Katara as he released himself with a curse.

After which he'd stepped out of the, now defiled, shower and dried off. He changed and cleaned his teeth too, he didn't know if Hanh had come back into the room during his personal meditation but he'd been a little more than distracted for a moment there, his head had gone to white noise as he reached his nirvana, so unless Hanh had come back by kicking the door down accompanied by his minions on the bagpipes, he doubted very much he'd have noticed.

He slipped into his bed before he reached for his phone, he'd promised Katara a goodnight text and that guilty part of him felt like he owed her one for that good night. He ghosted a longer message about how much fun he had and how much he missed her already before he promptly deleted it, feeling he was coming across like a stalker rather than her boyfriend, that would be the guilt thinking, and simply stuck to his usual text pattern of a heart-felt word.

Before he'd even had time to close his phone it has lit up with her name, he allowed himself the grin that had been trying to force itself onto his face all night at her extended return text. She'd called him Outlaw again. He liked it when she called him that, not particularly the pet name itself he preferred the way his name sounded on her tongue, but the way she'd say it. The tip of her nose would twitch, like a rabbit, with her smile and her eyes would sparkle, he could hear the playful way she'd speak the nickname just by reading the text.

He felt his heart thump, he wondered when he'd gotten so soft but it honestly didn't matter to him, he guessed her always been soft for her, she'd long gotten under his skin and nestled herself there. Setting his phone down for the night he rolled on his side and let the sleep take him.

That brought him up until the morning where Hanh, gladly, was still MIA. He revelled in the fact that the gods had decided to bless him with a twelve-hour Hanh free window, clean dorm included. With the extra energy, he had from not one but two decent night's sleep he doubled up in his usual workout routine, crushes and push-ups included before he added an extra lap to his morning jog. The crisp morning air coupled with the music bearing through his air pods was enough to blank out the world around him, another form of meditation, one he'd learned in his time in Caldera.

He might have gone another lap had he not had early morning class to get to, so reluctantly he returned to his dorm. A shower, a change and surprisingly a granola bar accompanied by a black coffee later he was tracking across campus in a far better mood than he'd felt in a long time. So much so that he'd actively taken the seat next to Bolin during his finance class. He didn't even offer Professor Varrik a scowl when he assigned group work or when his group consisted of a giggly girl, whose name he'd immediately forgotten, Bolin and some other guy with more hair over his face than necessary.

Today felt like it was going to be a good day. He was feeling optimistic for a change.

A/N: Please R&R