Katara thought briefly to knock at Zukos' door and then wondered why she hesitated. He was expecting her and this wasn't exactly unusual. She'd been told plenty of times that to knock was unnecessary.

Walking in, she saw Zuko sitting at his desk. "Isn't it customary to knock before entering the study of the Fire Lord?" He grumbled out.

"Isn't it customary to do as one has been invited to do, several times in the past few weeks, rather than stand on propriety?" She quipped back. Taking a cushion and sitting down at a nearby desk, Katara, reached around for her bag and took out several scrolls that required her reading and signature, which would then be passed on to Zuko. Even before they had begun being, whatever they were, she had sat in this office and worked with him late into the night on various paperwork and revising speeches. Even when she'd been with Aang, she'd sat here. It wasn't unusual or uncomfortable and she assumed he was teasing her while waiting for their food to finish being prepared.

What she hadn't been expecting was for him to merely grunt at her, not even looking up from the paper he looked at as she made herself comfortable. "Zuko?"

He made a hmmming noise at the back of his throat instead of addressing her directly. "Zuko, did something happen in the last few hours? You seem different than you did when you left me at my room earlier. Is there something I should know about? Something I could help with?" She'd stood as she spoke, making her way behind his over-large desk, trying to inconspicuously cast glances at the various pieces of paper that littered the workspace in front of him.

"Hmph, something you should know about, Katara? What about something I should know about?" He finally looked up at her and she was startled to see that he looked angry. He'd rarely talked to her in anger in all the time she'd known him. Aang, sure; Sokka, definitely; but her? He was usually calm with her.

Racking her brain, she landed on her meeting with Jet. Was that what he was referring to? "I had a visitor today." She tried to smile like it was nothing. Was it nothing? She quickly stifled the thoughts she'd had as Jet had smiled at her not 30 minutes ago.

"You don't say." His concentration was back on the scroll in front of him. He even dipped his brush back into the ink. But Katara could tell he hadn't actually been reading anything, nor was he preparing to write anything.

Turning her words over carefully before she said them, Katara weighed how much he obviously knew. Then, deciding to throw diplomacy to the wind, she decided to speak to Zuko, her friend rather than Zuko the Fire lord. "What is your problem? You clearly already know about Jet and you're acting like I broke some deal we had by hugging him!" She sat down back on her cushion and unpacked her brush and ink with a huff, waiting for him to respond.

"I know about your date." Looking up, she saw that his brush was dripping, unnoticed by him. "Do you think that an unannounced guest to the palace, especially one asking for you, doesn't get brought to my attention?" he finally met her eyes and, was it just her imagination, or were they full of accusation?

Stunned briefly into silence, Katara stared back. "My date?" Staring around the room, trying to make sense of the words she'd just heard. "And excuse me? Why do my guests get special notice by you? You're not my father, Zuko! You don't have control over my personal life!" She stood, careful not to disturb either writing surface. "What exactly do you mean?"

Joining her on her feet, Zuko's height made quite a bit of difference. He towered over her by at least a foot. "Yeah, even less than I thought, apparently." He broke off from whatever he'd been about to say. The pair stared at each other in silence, her waiting for him to explain himself. Him, waiting for any explanation that would make the hole he felt opening in his heart lessen.

Who was he fooling? Did he really think that their time spent together was enough that she'd give up reconciliation with an old flame for him?

Their stare-down was interrupted by a knock on the door announcing that their dinner was served.

Clearing a space for the food to be brought in, he saw Katara doing the same. He had taken his first bite before he broke the silence. "So, tell me how you know Jet. He knew me briefly, but I think you knew that. He didn't know who I was at the time." He took another bite and Katara still hadn't spoken. "He knew me as Lee who worked in a tea shop. He tried to recruit me for his freedom fighting group in Ba Sing Se."

Nodding, Katara had also taken a few bites, trying to shift with the way the conversation had. A few moments ago, he'd seemed so angry and then it had all dissolved. "We ran into him, Aang, Sokka, and me, as we made our way through the Earth Kingdom, trying to avoid you. I had a bit of a crush on him." Katara paused briefly while Zuko seemed to have taken too large of a bite. "But he ended up being bent on so much more violence than I was comfortable with. He was willing to hurt innocent citizens just because they happened to be fire nation, no matter that they were a poor village, clearly not one that had taken part in the war." She took another bite, "And then we met up with him after he'd been brainwashed by the Dai Li. He helped us to get Appa back and then I thought he'd died."

Zuko noticed her sniffling and trying to swipe at her eyes without him noticing. "What happened then? You seem more upset than that would warrant."

Taking a long drink, and then a deeper breath, Katara began again, "He went with us again under the lake. And I thought he'd died and I could have stayed to help him and save him and I didn't. And I've thought about how I let him down so many times since that day and to see him alive and well," She broke off. "Well, I just, I've felt so guilty for so long and now I don't have to. He's alive. Zuko, he's alive." Her eyes were shining with tears.

Forgoing his dinner, Zuko got up and rounded the space of their desks to wrap his arms around her. She sobbed quietly into his chest. "I've worked so hard to learn how to heal people and how to help everyone I can and I've carried this weight that I cared more about the next step with Aang and his destiny that I let Jet die and now, he's safe."

"Shh, shh, it's okay." Zuko rubbed up and down on one of her arms. "I've got you." He felt her shudder as she clung to him and cried herself out. Was it all guilt? Where was all of her emotion coming from in this situation? Did he misread the whole thing?

Zuko hoped he had misunderstood everything as he walked Katara back to her room once she'd calmed down and they'd both finished eating. Neither one of them got any work done that night, but he figured that was okay for one night. As she opened the door behind her and started to lean away from him, she muttered something under her breath, too quietly for Zuko to hear.

"What?" Zuko tired to reach for her hand, but she'd already begun to close the door.

"I said that it's not a date." The door closed in his face, but he still went back to his rooms wearing a bigger smile than he had since he'd heard of Jet showing up at that palace gates.