I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender, or any of the names or characters of the show. I merely control them for my own twisted pleasure from this point in the story on.

Chapter 14: Healing

"Cliff!!"

The moment Zuko's foot landed on nothing but air he realized how incredible stupid he'd been. For the first time in his life, he wished he was an airbender.

Terror filled him as he tumbled down in a heap of confusion and panic. Mindlessly grabbing at anything he could, he managed to catch himself once, only to lose his grip and fall again. Very suddenly everything went black as his hit his head. Then, all at once, he was awake again and still falling.

He reached out for the blur of a wall with his hand slipping again and again. Finally he caught something and he held on for his life with both hands. Looking up to the edge above, he refused to focus on anything but the adrenaline.

It took less than a second for Katara to appear on the edge; she was so far up he couldn't make out the details of her face.

"Blue!" she cried and Zuko shook his head of the pain that clouded it. Blue? He thought absentmindedly. He shook his head again, trying to figure out what she was saying. "Hold on I'll be-"she yelled again, but her voice cracked with tears. She moved from side to side, apparently looking for something along the edge.

He thought that was strange until he realized what she was really doing. She was looking for a way down! The thought snapped into his brain and he started to panic again. What if she slipped? What if he couldn't catch her? He couldn't let her do that.

He felt around with his right hand for a small rock and threw it up at her. It struck the ledge a few inches away from her hand and she looked down at it before looking down at him. He waved his arm back a forth, trying to tell her he was alright and that she didn't need any help.

She didn't move anymore, so he thought it might have worked. As long as she was okay, and he didn't have to worry about her, he would be fine too. He tried to get a foot hold and nearly slipped again when his right ankle gave out from under him. A throbbing twinge shot up his leg and he gasped in pain.

Okay, his right leg was useless. Learning from his mistake, he tried the other leg gently. When it held, he settled himself for the long climb back up the cliff.

The cliff wall was more than a couple hundred feet high, and falling the whole way most likely would have killed him. He managed to catch himself about thirty feet down and had a dangerous climb awaiting him to get back up to the worried girl.

Having been so focused on ignoring his reaction to Katara's reaction, he hadn't thought twice about where he was going, or even if he was stepping off the path. He just wanted to get away for a little while. Unfortunately, he realized too late that the path didn't just end at the trees; it opened up into a chasm.

Not that he could see the ground through his mask anyway.

If he'd only looked at the stupid map he might have known that. He swore the first thing he'd do was learn how to read one of those pieces of parchment. With a wince of pain, he used one hand after the other to slowly ascend the wall.

Katara's heart was pounding so fast she was sure that if at any time in her life she would faint, now would be now. She rushed to the edge and got her knees before looking over as far as she dared. The Blue Spirit tumbled around for the longest second before finally catching himself. She had already starting to cry and couldn't stop the tears from falling.

"Blue!" She called down to him with tears clouding her voice. When his head moved to look up at her, the tears redoubled in relief.

He was aware enough to hear her and respond, so he had to be okay at least. Could her waterbending even do anything for this situation? Water and ice would only make it worse, so she quickly dismissed the thought.

So many other possibilities went through her head: find an earthbender. Go and find help in a nearby village. Climb down and help him up. But every option would mean taking her eyes off of him, and she wasn't ready to do that.

"Hold on!" she cried, trying to keep the tears out of her voice. Going for help would be best, but she couldn't leave him here alone. "I'll be right-" her voice cracked and she stopped trying to talk. Just standing there watching him was, in its own right, just as ridiculous as leaving; she decided to climb down anyway.

But as she began looking for the best way down, a sound got her attention and she glanced over at the rock that appeared a few inches from her hand where none had been. She looked down at him and saw him moved his arm back a forth before using it to support his weight.

She was breathing in and out so hard she thought she was having a panic attack. But to see him move, and to watch him start slowly up the cliff, she let her whole body go numb. She fell to her stomach and lay on the edge, her head hanging over to watch him on his slow journey up the cliff.

She watched and waited as he inched up and up and up. Slowly, she calmed down enough to breath normally again, but her eyes were focused on his every move. She quickly noticed that he was only using one leg to climb and wondered how badly the other was hurt.

Minutes passed by like hours. Each time he took a further hand hold up, her breath caught painfully in her chest and didn't release until he'd settled again. Every time he stopped for a few minutes and looked up at her, her heart would skip a beat. As the sun began to disappear under the horizon he was almost close enough to grab on to.

Katara's hand had been reaching down for him long before that point, however, and she was straining her arm out for him. When he was close enough, he held it in his own for a few seconds before climbing the rest of the way up with his own strength but still holding her hand in his.

Zuko was drained. Having never climbed a rock wall in his life, he was surprised he made it at all. When he thought about giving up and when he stopped to take a break, he would look up at Katara, and see her there, waiting for him. She made him feel like he wasn't alone.

And that was why as he ascended the last few feet, he grabbed her hand and held it, letting her help him up. He crawled over the ledge and sat there on the ground, panting hard and looking at her like he'd never seen her before.

She had trusted him to make it. She had believed in him enough not to leave him when he needed her the most. And as she sat there next to him, he felt for her something he'd never felt for anyone else before; true affection.

He suddenly wanted to reach out and touch her, if only a little. He looked down at her hand that was still so close to his and reached across the inch long gap between their fingers with one of his own. She looked at him in surprised and gave him a meaningful smile.

She reached out towards his mask, and although he desperately wanted to pull away, he didn't. Instead, he only sat and waited to see what she would do.

"Your mask is crooked from your fall," she said, and shifted her body a little closer towards him. Reaching around behind his head, she tightened the ties that held up his mask and he didn't move at all.

When she was done, she continued smiling and stood up. He followed her, ignoring the sudden pain that shot through his right ankle. He inhaled sharply and saw her take noticed, but didn't say anything about it. She dusted off her front and moved to do the same to him, but he stopped her with a slight shake of the head.

Still a little embarrassed about his fall, he pointed towards the sky and then back toward the opposite tree line, hoping the change of subject would keep her from asking any questions. Katara watched him and nodded, taking out the map and sweeping her eyes over it before rolling it up and putting it back in the bag.

"There is a place to set up camp about three hundred yards from here." She said and pointed father down the path. "It's marked clearly on the map as safe."

Disregarding the tenderness of his ankle once again, Zuko nodded and started out down the path. He was taken aback when she could tell what he wanted with nothing but hand gestures and body movements. She was really good at reading people.

Katara watched as he limbed away, knowing the moment he took his first step that he was trying not to look hurt. With her pleasure at his small act of affection still fresh in her mind, she knew he was trying to keep her from worrying about him.

That was fine; she'd let him have his pride, as all men did. Maybe he'd let her look at it later when he was satisfied that he'd done all the work he could do.

But even after their camp had been set up and the fire started, he didn't make any moves to draw her attention to his injured foot, and she had been watching. He was still acting like nothing was wrong with it. He was poorly acting, but she could still tell the difference.

When he put out the old stone tea set but made no move to use it, she assumed it belonged to the old man. She understood if it did, and she reached up for her mother's necklace at her throat; he needed to keep something of the older man around for a reminder.

She didn't talk while he did his best to make them dinner. It was cute how he tried so hard to make an edible meal, but in the end she took over, cooking for them much the same she did for the boys and Toph.

She watched him out of the corner of her eye when he ate, deliberately spooning each bite under his mask. She was very curious as to what he looked like, but she wouldn't invade his privacy and asked him to remove the disguise. He had his reasons and if he wanted her to know them, he'd show her.

As she lay out next to the fire and looked over at him in the firelight, she wondered how the old man was doing. The Blue Spirit would follow Sho to the ends of the earth and back for that old man; that was clear even to her. She also wondered how they were related, if at all.

She looked over at him and the tree he'd chosen as a back rest. When she saw his head lower to his chin and rest there, and his breathing became heavy with sleep, she sat up quietly. Scooting over as gently as she could, she reached out for the now swollen ankle he'd kept from her all day.

Zuko awoke to the pain of Katara inspecting the ankle she'd already stripped of boot and wrappings. So, she had noticed he was hurt. He was about to stop her, knowing his ankle would be fine in a couple of days, and not really wanting to see what would happen if she used her waterbending on a fire bender.

But when she touched him with her cool hands against his normally hot skin, he felt a sense of pleasure that he'd never felt before. So he watched, unmoving, as she worked, examining the sprain with quick and efficient fingers. She checked out the rest of his leg for any other injuries, and finding none moved to bend water from her hip flask. She covered her hand with the water and it turned a glowing blue color, before she placed it against his exposed skin.

Suddenly the pain was gone, and he resisted the urge to move it around to make sure the healing had worked. If it was that painless, maybe he'd talk to her about the bruise around his neck later.

When she turned to gather his boot and wrapping from behind her, he sat up quietly, and reached out to tap her on the shoulder.

Katara finished the healing and turned to reach the masked man's boot and leg wrapping. When a touch at her shoulder sent a shiver down her spine and a gasp from her mouth, she spun around to see the Blue Spirit sitting in an upright position.

She huffed and crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes slightly. "You were awake?" She asked, and he nodded. "The whole time?" she added angrily.

He didn't move to answer, but she heard a soft coughing sound come from behind the mask, and saw his body shake slightly. Worry filled her at first before she understood what was really going on.

"Are you laughing at me?" She demanded sourly. When his body shook harder and a soft chuckle came from behind his mask, she blushed and punched him in the arm; something Toph did to her a lot.

He stopped laughing and tilted his head at her before shoving her gently sideways. She huffed playfully and pushed him back before standing up and running away when he tried to grab her.

Before long, the two of them had digressed into small children who's teasing had become more of a fist fight. Katara was laughing so much she found it hard to fight back after a while, and tried very hard to keep him from landing any good-natured blows.

When her laughing became too much to control, she gave up and threw her arms around him, sending them both to the ground in a heap of legs and arms. When she finally stopped laughing enough to open her eyes, she looked up at him just as he leaned over her.

Zuko looked down at the laughing girl, in a better mood then he'd been in months. He had never had that kind of fun, having no playmates as a child but Azula. When Katara stopped laughing, he leaned over her, a huge smile on his face even though she couldn't see it.

When she reached up for his mask again, he didn't think twice about letting her move it up just enough to expose the lower half of his face.

But his heart did skip a beat when she pulled him down into a very soft, closed mouth kiss.

This is where my Author Notes go...Enjoy.

-Beams proudly- Although too many words ruin this part, I have to say that this is one of the longest and best written chapters of this fic… And it ain't over yet.

And just to let you guys know, when I say 'Muse.' I mean my best friend Chii; she comes up with the best idea's ever. She was responsible for the "cliff."

But don't think I'm mad for the muse bashing. I'm not, promise; it's very funny to read because I forgot you guys didn't know.

Reviews: Did you like? Did you not like? More? –giggles and rereads the awesomeness-