And the penultimate problem is that she doesn't want to want him. She should want Aang, someone nice, not him.

He's terrible and she despises him. And he has tried to kill her so many times and he treats her with respect and like an equal and he is obsessed with something as inane as honor and he looks terrible — and she can keep lying to herself. That's easy. Easier. It's easy to refuse to acknowledge things. When mother had died she had stepped up to task and she doesn't want to do that again. She's older and ignorance isn't just her bliss.

She hates him. She hates his stupid smirk and the way his hair falls over his eyes, the way he draws himself into his cloak when they're outside like he can hide within himself, the strange jokes with the absent punchlines he keeps pulling up. She hates how he's crawled up inside of everyone else and she hates how hard it would be to also fall. Everyone else wants her to do that. He's Aang's master and he helped Sokka rescue Dad and even Toph doesn't mind him after he burned her feet. So now she's turned into the nagging mother again. To all of them. But not to him.

And the way that he looks at her doesn't help. It makes her blush, turns her pink inside-out. He looks so genuinely respectful, so curious. He isn't like Aang or Sokka who jumps to making excuses. And no matter how absolutely worthless honor is practically she's starting to see some of its applications here. He owns up to what he does because he's grown out of immaturity. She also detests that.

When she can't insult his character anymore she jumps to his face; and the issue with that is that aside from the burn mark it's impeccable. He's angled perfectly right, every curve of his skin fitting into the other, and the scar enhances and doesn't detract. That should have been an easy point in her favor because it's mottled and should be disgusting. But it's better and now she looks at it with a healer's eyes. It is the result of a great tragedy and he has come past it, tissue has regrown and let him become someone new. She has to allow herself to respect that.

So what's left? His past, which everyone else here has forgotten. He may be kind and awkward and handsome now but he wasn't for the longest time. She still remembers a boy in a ponytail shooting out flames and she wants to laugh because it's ridiculous and even if she was terrified at the time she now knows that was a show. And then she holds herself back because she couldn't be laughing because Zuko had held her grandmother even if he had no intention of hurting her. And he was just misguided. But that's not an excuse or a reason to do the wrong thing. It never is.

And then he'd taken a bounty hunter and found them again and left her useless, paralyzed her until she was a shell of herself, and then he'd fought Aang. And all she can think about is his hand on her back and the way he can bend far better now, after the dragons. She keeps seeing growth. She doesn't even want to see growth. She needs to hate him, she wants to.

She can leave this behind. She can let . . . Aang kiss her again and all thoughts of the stupid prince will leave her head and that will be all. That will.

Yet she can see the sun rising ahead of her. She's been up the whole night contemplating this strange feeling in her stomach and she wants to laugh at herself as well. Great job, Katara. Smart, Katara. You definitely feel nothing for him. You haven't spent an entire night thinking about him.

The sun is rising. Her head turns at the thought. What is she missing here? Sun . . . firebender. I rise with the sun. There's a shock of black hair heading out of the circle inside of the temple. Of course, of course, of course.

And now, of course, she has to go after him because he's evil, and he chained her to a tree (she'd been terrified at the time but now she almost looks back at that memory fondly), and he's bad. He's bad and she hates him, with his stupid sunny eyes and strange and barely comprehensible anecdotes.

"Hi," she says breathily, wishing she could take the word back when she hears how it comes through her mouth. He turns and his face is genial and it makes her heart pound. She should kiss Aang.

"Hey," he responds throatily. His vocal cords are deep and she can't tell if that's just because he's older, almost an adult and out of puberty, or because he spent years on a ship, or because he once screamed so terribly loud it disrupted his vocal cords. She wants to put her hand on his throat and find out. She wonders if he would be warm. "Good morning."

Then he looks like he's bracing himself to be attacked — because she should yell at him and claim something about betrayal. That would be the right thing to do. She can feel his body shudder as she falls into step with him instead. "I don't want to see you," she lies through her teeth.

When they round a corner, far away from the rest of the group, he grabs her hand and moves her towards the fountain in the corner. His skin is rough, marked with tiny healed over scars and bruises and even small areas that are burned. They mark him for what he is; a swordsman, a sailor, a bender. His fingers wrap against hers, longer and lither and smooth, caressing her wrist. "You hate me," he whispers quietly as he guides them to sit down on its rock outerface.

She lets him move her down until they're both settled against the stone, calves thudding the material. At least nobody else will come here because only he rises so early; and sleep suddenly hits her, all of her worries coming to light. She leans to the side and he catches her and places her head on his thighs. He catches her like he always does.

"I should kiss Aang," she mumbles into red fabric which smells like smoke and the Fire Nation. It's not a good scent. She feels his arm contract around her shoulder.

"You won't kiss me," he responds.

"Is that sad?"

"You're the Avatar's girl."

"It is sad," she finalizes. Then she turns her head until her forehead is on his shoulder, firmer against him. She's closer but his grip still tightens. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry," he repeats and whispers, and her eyes are downcast but her fingers raise to press against his scar, thumb brushing the lips she can't kiss. The lips she hates and the face with the terrible mark and the boy who makes jokes that don't make sense, the boy she's lost too many times and will lose for the rest of her life.

His lips are dry and so she admits her eternal struggle. "I don't want to want you."

"That's fine. You'll have me."

Something sounds from the corner, either Toph or Haru or Aang. He rises and leaves.