Disclaimer: Don't own.
A/N: Igloo comes from Kimberly T. Story was actually one I had written before but its edited now. This is going to be the last update till Friday and then things are going to get a little bit...hit or miss for awhile. I have through L written though.
"You live here, aren't you supposed to know when storms are coming?" Zuko asked breathing fire on to his fingers.
"I'm sorry, your majesty, but sometimes the weather can change in the blink of an eye. It was sunny and warm when we set out. How was I supposed to know that a blizzard would blow in?" She wasn't particularly happy about his tone. She wasn't particularly happy about anything right now but that was beside the point. "Would you mind sharing some of the heat please?"
They were sitting in the ice and show shelter that Katara had waterbent once it became clear that trying to get back to her village in the storm was impossible. They had been going to see the old Fire Nation ship that was stuck in the ice. Zuko claimed he wanted to see if there was anything salvageable about the wreck and maybe he would try to take it back with him. Katara personally thought it was an act of penance on his part, trying to apologize for what his ancestors had done as well as for his own miniature invasion.
"I would, but there's nothing to burn," he complained. He stopped blowing fire into his hand and bent a flame to hold instead. She moved closer to him, holding her hands to his to try to warm them.
"Once Aang used some blubbered-seal jerky as firewood," Katara supplied. She was regaining feeling in her fingers.
"That would be helpful if we had any. Or any food for that matter." Katara was beginning to realize that a hungry cold Zuko was a grouchy Zuko.
"We do. Have food I mean. " He glared at her. No she doesn't', he thought, that would mean she-, "its in my bag. You know, the one that you threw into the corner after I built this because you were holding it." He could have hit her. And not in the affectionate Toph way.
"Why did you bring food?"
"It takes time getting to the ship, then you wanted to look around, and then there was the time back. I figured we would get hungry at some point so I brought food…and a blanket. Well not a good one, but it was more for something to s-"
"YOU HAVE A BLANKET?"
"YOU HAVE FIRE AND YOU CAN RAISE YOUR BODY TEMPERATURE! Besides, it's not a great one, more just for sitting on. I wasn't going to grab it till I could feel my fingers to open the bag," he was glaring at her in a way she hadn't seen for years. It was his "I'm having murderous thoughts" glare. Quickly she got up and got her bag. Spilling the contents on to their laps she spread the blanket over their legs and handed him a piece of jerky. His glare lessoned and he conceded, mentally not vocally, that the blanket wasn't that thick. It was warm, he couldn't think of anything in the South Pole that wasn't in some way warm. But these things he was going to keep to himself.
Katara, meanwhile, was also chewing on her own piece of jerky and wondering how to stay alive out here. This wasn't the season for long storms, it wasn't even really the season for blizzards but that didn't mean that they didn't happen. There was a high probability that they would be able to make their way out of here by tomorrow. As long as the snow stopped sometime during the night and the day was bright she could get them back to her village. If they had to stay longer, well, she wasn't sure. Maybe they could try that ice fishing thing, but she had no real idea how thick the ice was here and they had nothing to fish with (besides her waterbending).
Finally the silence became too much for Zuko. Not that he couldn't stay silent, he just thought this one was rather tense and if he was going to be staying with Katara for at least a few hours it would be better spent without the tension. "This stuff isn't so bad," was the only thing he could think to say.
"Yeah, it travels well. Though I always have to make sure Sokka doesn't take it all when I make it. He tends to hoard the foods he likes. One time a tiger-seal charged our home because it could smell the food Sokka had," she laughed at the memory. "Dad was furious, the wall almost came down. Mom was impressed that he had managed to keep that much food hidden." It had become easier to share memories of her mother over the years, but only with certain people who were close to her.
Zuko, for his part, realized what it meant for her to be talking about her mother; he never really spoke about his (he was still at a loss as to where to even begin looking for her and, even three years later, his father had refused to give any clues). He wrapped his arm around her, pulling her closer. "Uncle would keep different kinds of tea all over his room. He had separate places for each kind. When I asked why he did that he told me it was to stop flavor contamination. I'm not sure if that's even possible, but then again I was only a waiter in his tea shop."
"I don't think I'm ever going to forget you in that apron."
He looked down at her, confused. "When did you ever see me in that?"
"Oh," she was blushing and hating it. "Actually, I'm sorry about this. Before we both ended up in the caves under Ba Sing Se I was heading back to the house we had been given and decided to stop in to the new teashop. I didn't know anything about it and when I saw you and your uncle I ran to tell whom I thought was Suki but turned out to be Azula. So…sorry," she decided it would be better to meet his eyes at the moment, "had I known that it was Azula-no, had I known it was Azula I would have tried to warn more people and you would have just stayed ignorant of her even being in the city. Well, until open rebellion."
"Had I not been thrown in there," he began slowly, "I don't think I would have had to chance to be Aang's firebending teacher. I probably would have just stayed there. So thanks, in a way."
They settled into a closer embrace. Katara really liked how warm Zuko was, especially with the wind that was howling outside and penetrating into their shelter.
"We should put our hoods up," Zuko said.
Katara knew they should, it kept more heat in your body, but she didn't want to. They were inside; surely there was something that could keep them warm besides that. Well, a little voice whispered, there's always the pure body heat option. She wasn't really sure how to feel about that option. You could also let your hair down, that always annoyed you in the Fire Nation. It made sense at the moment and, well, she would leave the other option for later.
Moving away from Zuko's warmth, Katara quickly unbraided her hair, running her fingers quickly through it before straddling Zuko's lap to take his topknot out. Zuko, for his part, had been surprised when she had let her hair down and was about to ask her about it but before he could he had a lap full of Katara. His brain, and other parts of his anatomy, decided to focus on that instead of what she was doing (which wasn't bad either, especially when she ran her fingers through his hair). She slid off his lap (much to his inner protest) and went back to her position nestled against his side.
"I'm always warmer with my hair down than up," she stated as if this was an obvious fact. "I figured it would help a little."
As they readjusted to huddling together Zuko's arm snaked around Katara pulling her closer.
"Did you ever find the group causing all the trouble?" Katara asked turning to look up at him.
He was surprised she even remembered but then again, this was Katara. She remembered almost everything. They had been exchanging letters over the past several months, discussing everything they felt the need to share. He had started writing her after she had given him a few fantastic ideas the last time she had visited the Fire Nation and he needed someone without an agenda to bounce his ideas off of. The letters had become personal over time, little things worming their way into the correspondence.
"Yeah. Turns out Ozai had told them their pay would be suspended for a while to help fund his acquisition of new territory in the Earth Kingdom and they would get their money, and more, once he was successful. They just wanted to get paid. But I took healers with me when I went to try to find them. It worked better than I thought it would." He really was glad she had suggested that to him.
She smiled. "I knew it would," she sounded almost smug and Zuko wanted to do something to make her sound less so. He thought of several ways he could do that, but he stopped most of those thoughts. It was fine to fantasize when he was alone but with the object of said fantasies curled up next to him he had to make them stop.
"Besides that whole uprising, how have you been? Your letters were shorter than usual," she missed the longer ones they had sent each other. They had grown closer and when she felt alone she could write him. Sure she could write everyone else or find Sokka or Suki but generally those too came as a matched set and she didn't particularly want to know someone was reading her letter to Toph or read a long ramble about animals from Aang.
He knew that lying to her was useless; she could detect a lie as well as Toph could. Especially from him. "I've been…I miss Uncle more than I thought I would. Agni I'm beginning to miss Ty Lee, it was nice having someone around who was close in age and not so serious." Mai had left some time ago; she had enough of following other people's wishes and wanted to live a little. She and Zuko had come to an understanding: neither of them were what the other needed or wanted. They had promised to keep in touch but Zuko had found it easier to write to Katara rather than write to Mai.
"It must be horrible for you to start missing 'Ty Lee'."
"She's much nicer than you probably think she is."
"I know, I've talked with her on Kyoshi. She's," Katara searched for the right word to describe the flexible girl. "Intense. She's a lot to take for long periods of time." He chucked at that and Katara liked feeling the rumble of his chest beneath her. Truth be told she liked much more than that about her position but she didn't want to push this.
"She is," he said softly, resting his chin on her head. It was because of the cold he reasoned, nothing else.
As silence settled over them he desperately thought of something to ask her about. It wasn't that he didn't have a wealth of questions for you (are the warriors from the Northern Tribe still making advances towards you? Do you want me to teach them a lesson for you?) but he knew, he knew, he wouldn't be able to keep the jealously out of his voice. Think Zuko, he commanded his brain. That's it! "How are the little waterbenders doing?"
"Oh they're doing well. They like me better than Pakku but that's to be expected. I let them play games," she couldn't keep the smile out of her voice. She loved teaching the newest waterbenders of the Southern Tribe, she had left before any of them had started showing signs of bending and was surprised and happy to see she wasn't the last anymore.
"Is that why Aang would always complain about how hard Toph and I pushed him? Ow!" Katara managed to actually get some skin under all the layers he wore when she pinched him.
"He didn't complain all the time! Besides, you're just jealous I'm a better teacher than you are."
"Have it your way."
Once again they settled into silence. Katara kept trying to inch closer to Zuko, he was so warm. By the time she had managed to somehow burrow her nose into his side so she could just feel it again she had had enough. Embarrassment be damned as well as dignity! She wanted to be warm and direct body heat was the best way. Besides, she knew basic anatomy and it was just survival. Nothing more. At all.
Then why are you not saying anything to him' An annoying voice asked in her head. Oh shut up, she told it moving, sadly, away from the warmth to be able to look Zuko in the eyes. "This isn't going to work. I'm cold still and I'm pretty sure at some point you will feel cold ," she jumbled the last part, feeling blood rushing to her checks. So much for bravely telling him.
"What do yo-oh. Oh," Zuko finally understood what she meant. A certain part of his body liked this option and he told it to calm down this was survival not fun. "Ok, um…what are we going to, uh, have between us and the ground?" He officially felt like a stumbling teenager again.
"We can take the side seams out of our jackets. Just one side. It will be annoying having half of it open when walking back but, well, they're the warmest things we have and we're going to want warm." Spirits this is hard to talk about?
Zuko just stared at her. His brain was currently still stuck on "body heat". Slowly he processed the rest. "We should do this now, it's getting darker."
Automatically Katara took off her outer coat. This isn't hard, she told herself. "Make a fire while I cut these." Zuko quickly took off his and gave it to her. As he held a flame in his hands she bent an ice dagger to cut the fabric. Right along the side each fell open. Wordlessly Zuko stood when she did to lay the coats down. Together they were both long enough for Zuko to not have to bend his legs and still have fur under him.
Slowly she exhaled a breath she didn't know she was holding. "So, now, uh, everything else. We can pile our other clothes on top of the blanket." She could do this, she could do this. No, she couldn't. "Zuko," he turned to look at her, his fingers working on untying the belt around his middle, "could you, I mean, well, turn around?" She hated how small her voice sounded.
"Oh, sure," he turned away from her, sad but feeling slightly better that he wouldn't see her. He wanted to, desperately, but now wasn't the time.
Katara thanked any Spirit she could name for the fading light has she shucked off her clothing. Quickly she grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around her as she settled on the makeshift bed. Zuko, very conscious of where he was about to settle himself, kept his clothes in front of him while he lowered himself down. Katara looked away and let the blanket give way as he settled next to her. Awkwardly they arranged themselves and their clothes until finally Katara was as close to him as possible without actually touching.
They said nothing, just hovering almost touching. Katara wanted to reach out, he was so warm, and he smelled good, and she wanted him. To hell with it she finally decided. We could die out here and we're both unattached. She broke their silent agreement about maintaining space and pressed herself up against his side.
Zuko immediately stiffened. That was Katara, against him, moving closer. Her breath tickled his ear and he swore someone was playing a trick with him. She couldn't want to. He looked down at her and she moved her head to see him better. Words weren't needed, her look told him everything.
They weren't sure who closed the distance first but they were kissing and he was pulling her on top of him and coaxing her mouth open. His tongue slipped into her mouth as she moaned at the contact of his chest below hers. Her hands found his hair as their tongues battled for sweet dominance.
Morning dawned bright and Katara burrowed closer into the warmth next to her. She wanted to stay here forever. Fate decided she couldn't.
"Katara, are you awake?" Zuko's sleepy voice penetrated her happy little world. Well, I guess I have to face this now. "Yes," she answered, but refused to open her eyes.
"Look at me," he commanded softly. Begrudgingly she opened her eyes and looked at him. He looked more relaxed than she had ever seen him but his eyes were guarded. "Where do we go from here?"
"Well we see if the storm has stopped-"
"I don't mean that."
She sighed. "I know. I don't want you to regret anything and I don't want this to ruin anything. We could be friends still." She didn't want that. She wanted this, this intimacy with him to last forever.
He heard the resignation in her voice. He didn't want that either. "We could. Or we could try this, being together."
Her eyes brightened. "Really?"
"You're already my best friend. I want to see if you can be more."
"That's the worst way to tell a girl you want her to be your girlfriend."
"So is that a yes?"
"Of course it is."