Chapter 2

"Why aren't you up yet?"

That was the first sound Aang woke to the next day as his firebending sifu stormed into the room. Aang squeezed one eye open and peeked around his room. Sure enough, there was Zuko, standing angrily at the foot of his bed waiting for Aang to say something.

"Aw, Zuko. Can't we take a break for one morning?" yawned Aang as he looked out the window, the moon still visible in the coming dawn.

Apparently, that was not the answer Zuko was looking for as his face turned from angry to scowling.

"You've had a break for three days while I was off with Katara!" yelled Zuko at the uncooperative Avatar.

"Yeah well that's not my fault is it," retorted Aang, finally shaking the sleepiness out of his body. "You were the one who was all, all… uppity about going, even when I said not too!"

"Uppity? You know what? I'm not even going to argue with you because this is just pointless. Just get your lazy butt out of bed and meet me out in the courtyard in fifteen minutes," said Zuko, trying to reign in his temper.

Zuko paused as Aang just lay there. "And I mean it!" he yelled as he stormed out of the room.

"Aw monkey feathers!" huffed Aang as he finally started to get out of bed, heeding Zuko's warning.

An hour and a half later, blasts and explosions could be heard outside, along with the occasional outbursts of threats issuing from Zuko's mouth if Aang didn't stop being lazy and in his words, 'be a man.'

Toph and Katara were the first ones up that morning, other than Aang and Zuko. Toph complained that the explosions were "annoying her feet" and so she couldn't sleep, while Katara got up early on a daily basis to make breakfast for everyone.

Toph strolled out into the courtyard and flopped down on the stone steps, not even bothering to greet the firebenders hard at work.

"Hi Toph!" yelled Aang as soon as he saw her lying in the middle of the steps. He stopped in the middle of his sets and was walking over to her when something caught his arm.

"What are you doing? You were in the middle of a set? Toph obviously had the courtesy to not interrupt us so get back to work!" Zuko was once again angry at Aang. Sighing all the way, Aang went back near the fountain and continued his set under the watchful eyes of the heated firebender.

After being sure that Aang wasn't going to stop again, Zuko went and sat next to Toph on the steps. He was about to thank her for not interrupting their training, but she beat him to the catch.

"You know, the only reason I didn't say anything was because I was just too lazy to make conversation with you two bums, not because I had courtesy." Toph sneered that last word as if it was a disgusting and vile quality to be courteous.

"Well thanks anyway," said Zuko, not altogether as shocked as he would have been a week ago. Zuko had come to grasp Toph's personality over the course of him joining the gang. Yes, she was abrasive and blunt, sometimes to the point of rudeness, but Zuko liked her. She was independent and strong and just as funny everyday as Sokka on his best days.

"By the way, I like your Firenation clothes," added Zuko, being truthful but also stating it to see what Toph's answer would be.

All Zuko got by way of response was a pshhh and Toph closed her eyes to take a nap. Zuko smirked.

"Okay Aang," said Zuko five minutes later. "You can stop now. We'll take a break for the rest of the afternoon." Aang whooped and jumped in the air, flying skyward fifteen feet before landing lightly in front of Zuko. He looked up at him expectantly.

"Uh, good job then?" That seemed to be the correct response as Aang beamed at Zuko and went to sit on the edge of the fountain, grabbing a towel once he got there.

Just then, Katara walked out of the house, carrying a giant pot, while at the same time trying to balance four bowls and spoons on top. Despite this possibly dangerous situation, Katara beamed at Zuko and Aang.

"Good morning Zuko, Aa—whoa!" she yelled as she stumbled over a crack in the stone courtyard.

Zuko quickly got up from his step and grabbed the bottom of the pot for her as she straightened up.

"You okay?" asked Zuko as both he and Katara carried the pot down to the center of the courtyard.

"Yeah," Katara said, blushing slightly at her blunder. "I guess it was heavier than I thought." Zuko and Katara gently lowered the cooking pot to the ground as Katara grabbed the four bowls and spoons. "Thanks," she said. "And on that note," began Katara as she knelt down by the pot, "breakfast is served!"

Katara divvied up the meal into four bowls as Aang and Toph walked down to where Zuko and Katara knelt by the fountain.

"Where's Snoozles and Fanny?" asked Toph, nodding her head in Katara's general direction as she was handed a bowl of food and a spoon.

"In town, eating," replied Katara as she handed bowls to Aang and Zuko. "They decided to take a look around town and of course, Sokka couldn't wait to find some new Firenation foods to eat," Katara added with a smile at her silly brother's seemingly endless stomach.

As Katara started filling up her own bowl, she noticed Zuko staring at her from the corner of her eye. "What's wrong?" she mumbled. "Is there something on my face? My skirt?" Katara quickly started rubbing her nose and face, while simultaneously looking at her outfit for any stains or food.

"No," began Zuko. The truth was that he had just noticed Katara's Firenation 'disguise.' He hadn't noticed too much before with the giant pot she was holding but now… well he thought she looked great.

"I, um, I just realized… I mean you look goo—… I mean not that you don't always look good, but you look…nice in red," stumbled Zuko as he pointed to her outfit.

"Oh!" said Katara, startled. She looked up at his wary gold eyes. "Thanks," she mumbled, slightly blushing.

"Ughhh!" groaned Toph as she fell onto her back, obviously annoyed at the whole conversation. "Let's talk about something interesting Aang, seeing as these two here want to talk fashion."

Aang laughed. "Katara does look good though," replied Aang, smiling at Katara. She smiled back. "But okay, what do you want to talk about?" he continued.

Before Toph could get in what exactly she wanted to talk about, Sokka and Suki appeared at the back of the beach house, both in their Firenation clothing.

"You guys are not going to believe this," began Sokka, looking as though he'd just won a year's supply of fireflakes. "There's a play about us!"

"We were just in town and we found this poster," added Suki. She, too, was surprisingly very excited about the prospect.

Sokka whipped the poster out from behind his back, and sure enough, it was an advertisement for The Boy in the Iceberg. There on the poster was an illustration of Zuko's face in the background, along with illustrations of Katara, Aang, and Sokka in the foreground in which Sokka was much more muscular in the poster than in real life.

Sokka spun around, showing everyone the poster, even Toph as she rolled her eyes and huffed, "When is he going to realize that I'm blind."

When Sokka got around to Katara, she looked from the poster, back to Sokka, back to the poster. "What? How is that possible?" she asked, completely bewildered by the mere idea of it all.

Sokka took the poster back and began to read from it. "Listen to this: 'The Boy in the Iceberg is a new production from the acclaimed playwright Pu On Tim who scoured the globe gathering information on the Avatar from the icy South Pole to the heart of Ba Sing Se. His sources include singing nomads, pirates, prisoners of war, and a surprisingly knowledgeable merchant of cabbage'."

Suki leaned in to read the rest, "'Brought to you by the critically acclaimed Ember Island Players'."

As soon as Suki had read the last line, Zuko groaned and rested his head in his hands. Everyone looked questioningly at him as he finally looked up.

"My mother used to take us to see them. They butchered Love Amongst the Dragons every year…" he explained.

Katara turned her gaze from Zuko back to her brother as she thought about what he was saying. This is crazy! she thought. "Sokka," she began seriously, "do you really think it's a good idea to attend a play about ourselves?" Sokka, and Suki for that matter, definitely weren't thinking straight.

"I'm with Katara," said Zuko. "It's too risky, plus it'll be a terrible play. Trust me." Zuko shuddered. Obviously plays were not Zuko's thing.

Sokka wasn't taking no for an answer, however. "Come on! A day at the theatre! This is the kind of wacky, time wasting nonsense I've been missing!" he replied grinning at Zuko and Katara as they silently tried to communicate with one another about what to do. Finally, Katara tore her gaze away from Zuko's pleading eyes and looked to where Toph and Aang were sitting.

"Well?" she asked. "What do you guys think?"

"You know I'm all for it," replied Toph as she stood up, moving next to Suki and Sokka. "I'm getting bored cooped up in this house!" Sokka grinned and patted her shoulder.

"Alright! What about you Aang?" questioned Sokka. He put on his best puppy dog face, complete with giant eyes and pouting lips. "Pleaseeeee?" he whined.

Aang looked from Sokka to Katara and Zuko. "Well…" he began, scratching his head uncomfortably. "I kind of want to see it… I'll be really careful Katara. I promise," he added after seeing the disappointment and uncertainty on Katara's face.

Katara and Zuko looked at one another, then finally looked up. "Fine," they replied, albeit not too thrilled about the idea. "I guess we're outnumbered," reasoned Zuko to Katara as he took the scroll from Sokka and began to read. Katara sat back down next to him as they both took in the poster.

Zuko suddenly mumbled something unintelligible to Katara as his face screwed up in annoyance. Katara giggled and pointed at the poster.

"What is it?" asked Aang, noticing their exchange.

Katara continued to laugh at Zuko's pouty behavior as Zuko looked up from the poster to address the waiting group.

"My scar's on the wrong side."

After Sokka had eaten (it was the breakfast Katara made and his second breakfast of the day), everyone went off on their own for the day. The two non-benders went down to cliffs by the beach a mile off to supposedly 'spar' except, as Aang innocently pointed out to Zuko, Katara, and Toph, that Suki didn't bring her fans and Sokka didn't bring his sword.

"Don't worry about it Aang," smirked Toph as she led Aang back into the beach house courtyard to practice their earthbending. "You'll learn soon enough." Toph looked back to where Katara was standing and winked. Katara glared at her angrily and somewhat repulsed, and then realized that Toph couldn't actually see her warning.

"Ugh," shivered Zuko, apparently oblivious to Toph's jab at Katara. "I don't even wanna think of that mental image of Sokka and Suki."

Katara laughed. "Please just stop talking Zuko. That's my brother and it's seriously creeping me out."

Zuko grinned back at her. "I see your point," he said as he began to pick up some dirty dishes. "I'll stop."

"What are you doing?" asked Katara as he began to stand up and walk to the kitchen. Zuko looked back, confused. "Uh, bringing dishes inside? Do you want them left out here or something?"

"No," replied Katara as she took hold of the, now thankfully much lighter, pot. "It's just that you've never helped with the dishes before or anything." Zuko looked at her as they walked into the house.

"Not that I'm complaining!" she added they sat the dirty pot and dishes in the sink.

"Well," began Zuko as he started to fill the sink with water, "I figured that I can kinda actually help you out now."

Katara looked confused. "See," said Zuko, uncomfortable at where the conversation was going, "now you won't think that I'm, like, poisoning the dishes or something." He smiled sheepishly down at her as he turned off the faucet.

"Well, I guess that is true," Katara admitted as they leaned against the counter, "Well, it's really thoughtful Zuko. Thanks." She nudged his shoulder with her own.

"Actually," she started, "I think I'm just more surprised that you know how to wash dishes more than anything," she laughed. "I thought being a prince meant that you got to skip all the annoying chores that came with being a kid."

"Well, yeah, I did," Zuko hesitated. "But when my uncle and I were hiding out in Ba Sing Se, we worked at a tea shop and I spent a lot of quality time with the kitchen sink." Zuko grimaced at the memory of his constant dishpan hands.

"I wish I could have seen that!" laughed Katara and Zuko joined in. It wasn't often that Zuko actually genuinely laughed, but it seemed as if Katara's laughter was contagious, just like her smile.

Katara nudged Zuko over with her shoulder again. "I'll wash, you dry."

­­­­­­­With Katara's waterbending and Zuko's firebending, they got the dishes done in about half the time it usually took herself and Suki to do them. With their free time, Katara and Zuko decided to get in a little sparring session on the beach before lunch, which went surprisingly well. Katara and Zuko were relatively evenly matched on the sand, but with the whole ocean at her fingertips, Katara eventually got the upper hand and soon enough, had Zuko sprawled on the wet sand gasping for air.

"Okay, okay! You win!" Zuko gasped as he lay there in his beach wear, staring straight up into the glaring sun that came with afternoon. Katara came trotting over to where Zuko lay and offered her hand.

"Sorry about that," she said as she reached out her hand. "Got a little carried away there I guess. Plus I suppose it wasn't all that fair," Katara added.

"You know what?" asked Zuko with a contemplative expression as he was just about up. He was still grasping Katara's hand. "It wasn't."

Suddenly Katara felt herself being pulled into the sand as Zuko quickly let go of her hand and scrambled back to his feet, running to the front steps of his vacation home.

"Now it's fair!" she heard him yell as he ran through the front door.

After getting over the shock of being tossed into the sand, Katara swiftly pulled herself up and ran after him. That was playing dirty, and Katara wasn't going down that easily.

She ran from the beach, up the stone steps and into the house, all with water whip at hand, while calling out Zuko's name.

"Zuko! Where are you?" as she passed the living room, Aang was lounging on the floor, feeding Momo some leechi nuts from a bowl. Aang raised an eyebrow at her as she passed, but she silenced him with a nod of her head and one finger pressed tight against her lips.

Aang smirked from his seat on the floor and went back to tossing nuts up in the air, trying to get Momo to catch them in his mouth mid-flight.

"Zuko?" she called more quietly as she went out the backdoor and into the stone courtyard. "I thought a Firenation prince wouldn't be scared of a little Watertribe girl?"

She said this just as she was passing through the entranceway and suddenly, a shadow jumped out from the doorway and grabbed her hands. The shadow spun her hands around so that the water she was currently holding suddenly splashed to the ground as her hands were jerked behind her back.

"Truce?" came a voice from over her shoulder. She tried to angle her head up and back to see the speaker's face, but all she got a glimpse of was a pale chest.

"Ugh, come on Zuko," she huffed in defeat. "Fine, fine."

Zuko still didn't let go of his grip of her wrists from behind. "Fine, what?" he asked. Katara could just hear the smile in his voice.

She suddenly went rigid, as if saying she had been overpowered was hard for her. "Fine, you won this round oh mighty Zuko! You were better than me for once! Was that enough?"

Zuko leaned over her and smirked in her face. "Yes."

"Whoa, whoa! What are you doing to my little sister?" came a voice from the forest. Zuko quickly let go of Katara's hands and turned to the right.

"Sparring Sokka," huffed Katara as Sokka and Suki appeared on the courtyard's stone steps. "I should be asking you the same question, actually," retorted Katara with a smug look on her face and her hands resting on her hips.

Zuko let out a bark of laughter and looked to see Suki's face turning the same shade as her outfit, while Sokka confidently said, "Sparring. Duh."

"Oh really then?" came a voice from the shadow of the house as Toph, Aang, and Momo suddenly appeared in the sunshine. "How come I have these then?" Toph brought her hands out from behind her back carrying. In her left was Sokka's meteor sword and in her right were Suki's Kyoshi fans.

Sokka blanched. "Well, uh," he began stuttering as Suki's face became even redder. "We were, uh, you know, training in… hand to hand combat!" Sokka finished with a flourish of his hands and he became confident in his answer once again.

"Cool Sokka!" yelled Aang. "You and Suki have to teach me some of the stuff you did!"

Toph sniggered as Zuko rolled his eyes and Katara had a violent coughing fit to cover her laughter.

"Okay guys!" Katara said as she got a hold of herself. "Let's eat lunch and then we have lots of cleaning to do!"

"But I thought Toph finished all that!" was the last thing that was heard from Sokka's mouth as the Gaang filed into the house.

After lunch, despite Toph's quick work of the debris and dust in the bedrooms, there still was a lot of cleaning that needed to be done. Broken furniture and wood needed to be brought outside. Sokka chopped up the usable timber into firewood and left it in a pile outside the front door.

Sheets and cushions needed to be aired out (with help from Aang of course) and the wooden floors needed to be scrubbed down. With Katara's waterbending, the floors only took about an hour. Zuko dried them as she moved on to the next rooms. Suki was in the kitchen busily organizing food and cooking supplies in the pantry, while Toph, unsurprisingly, was nowhere to be found.

Finally, an hour before dusk, the house was in the same condition it had been in so many years before when Ozai and his family had enjoyed the summers as a family.

"Finally!" replied Sokka as he flopped on the ground, arms and legs stretched out. He looked if he had just fought a battle against ten platypus-bears. Suddenly, Sokka sat up straight, as if all his strength had suddenly been revived, and yelled, "Play time!"

"Ugh," groaned Zuko and Katara as Zuko face palmed his forehead. Sokka, Aang, and the suddenly reappeared Toph, however, grinned wide and everyone went upstairs to get ready.

As everyone reappeared out of their rooms, Zuko complete with a hooded cloak and his bangs flattened across his scar, Sokka led the way out of the house, skipping more than actually walking.

"Oh Aang, I almost forgot," replied Sokka as he reached into his bag and pulled out a hat. He plopped it onto Aang's bald head and replied, "Voila!" Aang reached up to grab it off his head to examine it, then put it back on.

"Sokka? Is that Dock's hat?" asked Katara as she too examined it.

"Hmmm…" replied Sokka as he got a closer look at it. "I guess it is!" Katara looked at Sokka expectantly, waiting for more of an answer. Sokka, however, continued on skipping down the beach.

Aang gave Katara a goofy smile and Katara grinned back. Her smile quickly faded, however, as she thought of the play. She just had this feeling that going to this play was going to end up being a terrible idea.

A/N: Ok, I just wanted to tell you guys that the rest of the story updates will NOT be as fast as this, lol. I just couldn't seem to stop writing, so yeah. And thanks to zukoxluver for being the first one to review! All the reviews mean a lot to me.

PS: I love writing Sokka and Toph's dialogue =P