Hi everyone! I actually wanted to update this story only after updating Love of Fire and Water, but this took too much time, so I finished this chapter today. And as promised, I've finally written some Zuko with the gaang!

Thank you all for sticking with me! I know I'm not updating very often, and getting e-mails telling me that other stories I'm following have been updated almost makes me feel extremely guilty. As I have so much time right now, I know I should update more often, and currently I'm totally blaming Harry Potter fanfiction for this. I just started reading it two weeks ago, and I'm desperately searching for a great and satisfying Dramione fic. I've been reading so many different stories that they all already get mixed up in my head... Yeah, so I was more reading than writing. I'm sorry.

I hope you're all staying healthy and safe!

I do not own Avatar The lAst Airbender, nor its characters.


Chapter Sixteen

"Sooo… Are you okay with this?" Katara asked, skidding closer to Zuko after listening to Toph's voicemail.

He sat at the head of his bed, looking at her curiously and raised his arm to allow her to cuddle up next to him and lay her head on his shoulder. During the last week, they had met almost every evening, talking, getting to know each other, and practising kisses and closeness. In the beginning it felt always still awkward, but throughout the evening Katara felt more at ease. She had to get used to meeting with a friend who she would have to and liked to kiss.

"It'll be Sokka and Toph, right?" Zuko asked.

Katara bit on her lip. Not only, no. Sokka had sent Katara a message about how he wanted to get to know Zuko better before introducing him to their parents, but he had sent this message into the WhatsApp group with Toph and Aang. So Aang knew, too. And Aang wanted to get to know Zuko, too, and he also wanted to meet with all of them. Katara understood, since she had missed seeing him with Toph and Sokka, too. Without Aang, it just felt wrong.

"Er… Well, no. Aang will be there, too," she mumbled.

Zuko had been playing with strands of her hair, as his grip tightened. He didn't pull, but she felt the tightening and wondered what exactly it was about Aang that he didn't like.

"Oh, erm…" He resumed caressing her hair and shifted a bit. He cleared his throat. "Why?"

Katara sighed and took one of the cords of his sweater to twirl it in her hands. She had been surprised upon seeing him in a hoodie, since he normally only wore dress shirts, polo shirts, and wool sweaters. When she had pointed it out to him, he had scowled and said he also owned casual clothing. Katara had grinned.

"Well, he said he'd like to get to know you, and that he missed hanging with Sokka, Toph, and I," she replied as casually as she could.

Zuko sighed dramatically, as he sat up straighter and softly pushed her away to look into her eyes. "Katara, if you don't want to do this anymore, because you have still feelings…"

She sighed exasperatedly. "How often do I have to tell you that I don't have feelings for him anymore? We're just friends. And he will be there as a friend!"

Zuko frowned. "Well, but he's your ex. And you were the one to break up, so he might still have feelings for you."

"But I don't. And Aang will be okay."

Zuko ran a hand through his hair. It was combed back but a few strands were hanging onto his forehead. It looked great. Katara really much wanted to pull him under a shower to wash the hair gel out and ruffle the hair more. If just all his strands would be falling freely…

Katara liked those few strands. He looked way better like that. With his hair down and this hoodie…

"It's just… If I would ever try to get to know the new boyfriend of my ex, then only because I still had feelings for her, and would like to know who my competition was."

"Well, you were never friends with your exes then, were you?" Katara probed.

Zuko sniffed.

She almost wanted to punch him. Somehow his reaction made her incredibly angry. Was he too good to be friends with his exes? Had he maybe not liked them for their personality, too?

"Aang and I were friends, before we got together, and we will stay friends," she said forcefully.

Zuko seemed to comply, as he looked down at the mattress. "Okay, it's just that I… fear you might develop feelings for him again, if he'll be around so much. And then you will quit. And I won't be able to find anyone else like you, besides, now we're close to going public, and after we will, I can't just show up with another girl a few weeks later." He sounded frustrated, as he ran his hand through his hair again.

Katara rolled her eyes. "Well, we're not there yet. And I can assure you that I won't fall for Aang again. I've been there, and I don't want to have it again. Nothing would change after a few months of separation."

His jaw tightened, the muscle twitching as he glared at his wardrobe. "Okay, fine. I mean, I can't really do anything, can I?"

Katara grinned. "No, you can't."

oOo

It was strange, but not totally weird.

Okay, no, it was.

Introducing Zuko to her friends as her boyfriend seemed to be a pretty crazy thing. Considering their past in high school.

But here she was, doing just that.

"Nice t' see ya again," Toph said, punching against Zuko's upper arm.

"Ow! What was that for?" he snarled.

Well, that didn't start so well. Katara grabbed Zuko's hand, before he could get even angrier at Toph. It wasn't like it was difficult.

"She's showing affection like this," Katara said to him, pulling him towards the couch of Toph's apartment.

If it was up to her, Zuko would never meet her friends, and she was sure that he felt the same way about it. But they had insisted. Toph had been simply curious and clearly looking for some kind of drama and gossip, and Aang wanted to make sure that she was happy.

At first, Katara had felt strange about the fact that Aang would be getting involved, but after Zuko had been so iffy about it, she simply felt okay with it, because. Besides, Aang had already known for two weeks that she was "dating" Zuko. So she hoped it would all go well.

Now, it really paid off that Zuko and she had already practised behaving like a couple, so it didn't feel strange when Zuko put his arm around her shoulder. By now, Katara had the feeling she would feel strange if Zuko wouldn't put his arm around her shoulders. The only weird thing was that he was doing it in front of people.

"So, Zuko," Sokka, who sat across from them, said, as if Zuko wasn't his real name.

"Yeah?"

"You're taking good care of my baby sister?"

Katara wanted to face palm.

The biggest problem was that Zuko couldn't lie. Every time he had tried to lie to her to cover up something embarrassing to him, she had noticed. He would widen his eyes, which would move around, as if he was looking for the answer to be hidden somewhere, sometimes he stammered, or blushed, and mostly he didn't look her in the eye.

"Yes," said Zuko sternly.

Katara rolled her eyes and squeezed his hip. He had to smile, when he was saying something like that. After all, they were supposed to be in love.

Zuko didn't even flinch, she had to give him credit for that. He strengthened his hug around her, until it was almost painful, in return.

"No one needs to take care of me," Katara objected, wiggling her shoulders to lessen the strength of Zuko's grip.

"I try, whenever she lets me," Zuko said to that, which surprised her. That was actually a good answer.

How she knew him, he was probably dying inside from nervousness and awkwardness.

Toph cackled quietly.

Sokka raised his eyebrows. "And you're treating her well?"

Before Zuko could say anything more, Katara had had enough of this nonsense.

"Gosh, Sokka stop it! You're embarrassing yourself!" Katara growled.

"If I wouldn't, she wouldn't be with me," Zuko said simply and shrugged, before looking at her and smiling.

Katara felt surprised. She had thought he'd forget all about the smiling. And his smile looked pretty real. As if he suddenly was a good actor. Or his smile was real... It looked so soft. Shit, was she blushing?

Katara quickly turned away to clear her throat and hide her pink cheeks, only to realise then that her reaction was completely wrong. So she slowly turned to Zuko again, looking at him from under her lashes. "Yeah, that's true, honey." She smiled up at him and imagined how she would tip his nose, if they were a real couple. Zuko would probably look completely startled and aghast at such an action. She had to rein in her inner laughter.

Zuko managed to smile wider, before turning back around to Sokka.

Sokka was still supporting his elbows on his thighs, keeping his chin in one hand and eying Zuko critically. "You know, when we ran into you all those weeks ago, and I would have known that this is going to happen, I wouldn't have left you two alone," he said, light venom in his voice.

Toph, who was sitting on the armchair's rest next to him, smacked him over his head.

"Ouch!" Sokka yelled, and Katara saw how Zuko's mood lightened a lot. He actually grinned a little.

"Stop being an idiot, Sokka," Toph said grumpily.

Sokka smirked up at her. "Since you show affection with punching, and that hurt a lot, you must actually loooo..."

Aang jumped up at that. "Okay, who wants to get some noodles?" His voice was loud, and it was obvious he wanted a change in topic.

"Sokka, I thought you would go shopping with Toph this afternoon?" Katara scolded. The plan for tonight was cooking in Toph's kitchen with the things that she and Sokka would have already bought. "Did you end up in the arcade again?"

Sokka nodded. "Yeah, the arcade..."

Katara frowned. Sokka was not acting guilty. That was strange.

"That's why we gonna get noodles," Aang said again, making a motion with his arms to the door.

"But I thought we could all cook and eat here!" Katara objected, hating how whiny her voice sounded.

"Stop complaining, Sweetness," Toph rolled her eyes and made a hand motion.

Katara hated that nickname. She hated it with the intensity of a thousand suns. She hated how nothing about this evening actually went like she wanted it to! He friends were being impossible right now!

Zuko cocked his head to the side, looking thoughtfully at Toph.

"Don't even think about it!" Katara cried out, smacking Zuko lightly on his chest.

He jerked up, and turned towards her, his cheeks burning red. "I didn't think about anything," he mumbled.

"Er, what was this about?" Sokka asked with all the subtlety of a raging rhino.

Zuko's cheeks burned even redder now.

Katara's eyes widened. Oh shoot. No one could know of the search for a pet name, or she would hear ridiculous pet names for the rest of the evening!

"Nothing," she shrieked, then chuckled slightly, ruffling Zuko's hair. She hoped she could get it out of that ridiculous style. He combed it back again! She really, only for once, wanted to see it in a normal state. Maybe she would have to surprise him, when he just woke up. A picture of a just woken up Zuko popped into her head. His hair all a mess, hanging into his eyes, only wearing sleeping pants, and such a cute, confused, tired look on his face...

She blushed furiously. Oh no! How could she think that? She tried to reason this with the fact that they had practised kissing almost every night this week, and maybe her body reacted to its lack of any recent snogging with perverted daydreams. Or would that be her mind?

A few strands of his hair actually did fall on his forehead.

"Katara, stop!" he complained, and took her hand out of his hair.

Everyone else looked strangely at them. They were not acting like a couple! Shoot, she needed to do something couply to him.

She leaned in closer, taking him off guard, but he didn't lean away. "You'd look way hotter with messy hair, you know," she whispered, and hoped that no one else could hear it.

His eyes widened almost comically, and she could see how his gaze suddenly dropped.

Not onto her lips, as she thought first. But onto her décolleté.

Katara tried very hard not to shove him away for being pervy.

Fortunately, Zuko looked back up really quickly, and smirked a little.

"You could make it messy later," he replied, and Katara felt something really, really strange.

It was nothing inexplicable, really. It was just that he smirked, right there in front of her face, like really close, and his eyes were so golden and kind of sparkling in that moment, and his voice sounded veeeeery raspy as he said that, with that smirk evident in his voice, and it sounded sooooo flirty, and that was a little too much Zuko-being-inadvertently-hot for one evening.

Because Katara's heart suddenly beat faster at the thought of messing his hair up that way. And she felt like she was blushing. And her lips opened.

She tried to make that weird moment go away by chuckling quietly.

"Oi, get a room!" Toph shouted, grinning.

"Never ever do that in front of me again!" Sokka wailed, going down on his knees, and lifting his hands to Zuko and Katara. "Please! I'd do anything! I just never ever want to see you all in each other's faces again!"

"Guys! The noodle shop closes in two hours, and you know how hard it is to get a table, and to stop Sokka from..." Aang piped up.

Katara smirked at Sokka's antics. "Really? Everything?"

Sokka nodded.

"So you wouldn't like us doing this?" She quickly cupped Zuko's left cheek and turned his face towards her. She gave him the practised we-have-to-kiss-now-look. He nodded once, but didn't look happy about it.

Katara always thought Zuko would feel much more at ease with kissing in public, because he had done that with his ex-girlfriend. But since he didn't have those feelings for her, he was actually quite shy. However, she just gave him a task, and Zuko was determined as always.

Katara still felt weird, kissing someone in front of her friends and brother. She never would have done that with Aang. On the cheek, yes, but not on the lips.

She pressed her lips onto Zuko's, grabbing his shirt with her other hand to pull him closer.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Sokka yelled and quickly pulled them apart.

Zuko scowled at Katara. She glared back.

Why was he even looking like that? He had just given her the okay look for the kiss. This was her idiot brother, and she would deal with him the way she thought it was good! She knew that Zuko would have rather continued the interrogation, but Katara had wanted to get her brother to fuck off her fake boyfriend!

"Please don't get all gross in front of me!" Sokka said again. "I'm your older brother, I'm not fit to see such things!"

She just wanted to answer, when Zuko nodded. "Okay, Sokka."

Katara stemmed her hands on her hips. "What?"

Zuko cringed. "I get the not-wanting-to-see-your-younger-sister-doing-something-like-that-feeling," he explained, but looked apologetically at her.

Sokka turned towards Zuko with wide eyes, then he suddenly smirked. "Ah, Azula right?" He nodded to himself. "That girl was hot as..."

Zuko suddenly jumped up and pressed his hands to his ears, singing "Lalalalallala! I can't hear you!"

Sokka stopped talking about Azula, and looked at Katara, with raised eyebrows.

Katara felt a bit weirded out, but sighed, as if she found Zuko adorable. "He can be such a dork," she gushed and felt that this felt kind of true. Zuko could be a dork, and she liked it. Not enough to gush about him, of course, but... It was nice. Cute.

She stood up to pull his hands from his ears. "It's okay. Sokka stopped talking about Azula," she said softly.

Zuko let out a very relieved sigh and put an arm around her waist, to her astonishment.

"Look, Sokka. How about a deal? I don't kiss Katara in front of you, and you don't talk about what guys think about Azula," he proposed.

"Only on the lips!" Katara interjected, before blushing a little. "I mean, Sokka, you have to let Zuko kiss me on the cheeks, at least." This was not strange behaviour for Katara. And she didn't feel like she wanted Zuko to kiss her cheeks, after all. That is just what she would have said, had they really been a couple.

Sokka looked between the two of them for a while, then sighed, and let his head drop in defeat. "Fine. But whenever I see you going up in her face, I'll talk about Azula's hotness!"

Zuko grimaced. "Fine."

"You're such a hypocrite," Katara snarled at Sokka.

Sure, Sokka's ex-girlfriend Yue hadn't wanted to show much affection with Sokka in public, but he had wanted it a lot, and she had never pushed him back, only if Sokka was being impolite.

"Yeah, the way you were with Yue?" Aang adds. "Even I found it gross and not sweet anymore."

Toph chuckled a bit.

Sokka got indignant, Aang got cheeky, and then there was chasing, until Sokka hit his leg on a couch leg. He whined a lot about it, and Toph walked over to him.

Katara made an oh-no-what's-coming-now-face.

"Get your lazy ass up, Sokka! We're going to get noodles now!" Toph yelled.

"With beef?"

Toph crossed her arms. "You can have beef," she said in an annoyed voice.

Katara raised her eyebrows. Wow, that was very gentle behaviour of Toph. Telling Sokka to get something to eat when he was hurt was the best way of making him happy again.

"Okay," he murmured and let his foot touch the ground again. He flinched a little, and Katara rolled her eyes.

She then looked up at Zuko, who still had his arm around her waist. "Are you okay with noodles?"

He smiled andleaned closer. "It's probably better than whatever those two would have made," he whispered, nodding in Toph and Sokka's direction.

Katara frowned. "Well, you're probably right, but if they had done what I told them to do and gone SHOPPING, actually I would have cooked here. These two can't cook to save their lives."

Sokka and Toph looked in their direction when Katara raised her voice, while Aang rolled his eyes and started walking towards the entrance door.

"Then how do they live without you?" Zuko asked sarcastically.

Katara shrugged. "Fast food."

Zuko grimaced. "They should learn how to cook. It's not fair on you to do that."

Toph had taken to sarcastically and mockingly care for Sokka's leg who just glared at her, while putting his jacket on. Aang wore his typical yellow and orange poncho with the red balaclava that had a light blue arrow on top. Toph quickly changed, too, then turned to snap at Katara and Zuko.

"Oi! Would you get ready? Some people here are hungry!"

Katara blushed, as she pulled away from Zuko to grab their jackets from the wardrobe in the hallway. Zuko had worn a suit coat, and Katara a wool jacket.

Once Katara slung her bag over her shoulder, Sokka opened the door. "Finally," he groaned and rushed out of the door.


I hope you liked this chapter:)

Reviews mean the world to me, so please let me know what you think:D

Answers to reviews:

To IDidn'tSignUp4This: Thanks!:D

To uchihaNaruto247: Thanks, and no, everything's okay with Iroh. Zuko and him just didn't have any contact as Zuko decided to be what his father wanted him to. I wrote that in the prologue, so it's been sixteen chapters ago. We're practically in a beginning-of-book-three state. But Iroh is well, not imprisoned. He still lives in Ba Sing Se, running his tea shop, with contacts in the capital to keep an eye on his brother and nephew. He's worried about Zuko and would never want Ozai to hurt Zuko again.

To Darklady: Thanks so much! Here it is! Sorry for the wait:)

To Smckoy929: Here it is. Sorry for the long wait... I hope you liked the chapter.