Katara stared down at the gowns that had been laid out for her, and to be honest, none of them really peaked her interest. They were beautiful gowns that anyone would have been more then happy to wear, but they just weren't her. She would much rather be in her normal Water Tribe clothing and leave it there. She was never one for these Grand Balls. She sighed because she knew she would have to get used to this. If she was with Aang, she would be attending a lot of these ridiculous parties, even if she wasn't quite up to it.

"So..." Toph muttered from the doorway. Katara turned to see the Earthbender leaning on the door frame. She was already dressed in a stunning green gown, but her hair and face were a disaster. Katara laughed at the sight of her young friend.

"Did you need some help?" Katara said with a laugh.

"Gee. What was your first clue?" Toph said.

Katara made a motion for Toph to sit in front of the vanity in the corner of the room, before tackling the mess that was Toph's hair. " I would do this myself normally," Toph said, " I mean it isn't that hard for me because I know what to do even though I can't see it. I would just rather have you do it, because you can actually see what you are doing."

"I am more then happy to help you," Katara said cheerfully as she continued on the mess of hair that adorned Toph's head.

"Are you nervous for tonight?" Toph asked quietly.

"Yes," Katara sighed. " I really just want this issue to be settled. I don't like what it is doing to Aang and the rest of us. It is just too much stress to be putting on someone so young. We are all too young to be dealing with something of this magnitude."

"That isn't what I meant Katara."

Katara went silent for a moment. She dropped the comb to the floor in shame. "What do you know exactly? I mean, how much do you know?"

"I don't know everything just that something happened between you two."

"How did you figure it out? No one knows."

"When ever they mention his name, your heartbeat shifts. It...skips a beat. I guess you could say. It didn't take me long to figure it out that something was going on between you two. So what are you going to do about it tonight?"

Katara sat down on the seat beside Toph, "Avoid him at all cost, I guess."

"What about Aang? You know you can't hide it from him forever."

"There is nothing to hide. It was a one time occurrence and it isn't going to happen again, so it might as well be like it never happened. And if it never happened, he doesn't need to know."

"I hope you are right."

"Toph...please don't say anything to anyone," she said darkly, "I can't have it getting out."

"I know," Toph muttered. She knew it wasn't her place to tell anyone, but she knew it wasn't right. She didn't have hard evidence, so she couldn't go to Aang. Even if she did, she wouldn't do it anyway. She didn't want to see the only family she had being ripped apart by what she was sure Katara saw as a mistake.

What she didn't know was that to Katara, it wasn't a mistake. She was confused about what she did, but she wasn't ashamed of it. She just put on that front for Toph's sake. Katara didn't want them knowing that she secretly liked what she had done. She wasn't sure why or why she did it, but what's done is done, and she could not change it, so why dwell on it?

Katara moved to finish her work on Toph, with an awkward silence between the two for the remainder of the time. When she was finished Toph left without saying anything more then thank you.

Once she was alone, Katara fell on the bed into the pile of dresses and sighed. She didn't know how to face this...or mostly him. She didn't want to have to face him for the first time in front of all these people, even though the more people that were around the better chance she had that he wouldn't try something. Hell, he probably would just ignore her completely considering the circumstances that surrounded this banquet.

She grabbed the dress closest to her and made her way to the wash room to change. Better just to get this night over with as soon as possible.