Five: A Team?

He had small flashes of occasional consciousness:

First there was blessed coolness, on his forehead and then his face (does she think scar ugly?) and neck.

Then a soft voice in his ear, asking him if it wasn't too much trouble, if it was still possible, could he maybe light a small fire? Just a small one, to help heat this water-

He dimly remembered raising one arm in the general direction she indicated, and trying so hard to summon the tiniest bit of energy, of precious heat; it must have worked because then she said yes that's it thank you so much.

A small hand behind his head, lifting his mouth up to drink something from a fuzzy brown shell, disgusting taste, indignant voice saying it's good for you! drink it!

It must have worked because the headache cleared and the darkness came again.

----

"Where were you?" he croaked, barely understandable. He was lying in the sand on his back, blinking groggily in the sunlight.

She stood over him, holding something in her hands. "Finally awake?"

"Where were you?"

Was it the sickness, she wondered, or did the Prince normally have such a one-track mind?

Probably the second option, what with his I Must Capture The Avatar crusade. Didn't he ever take a break?

"I bet you missed me," she replied, settling onto the sand next to him.

Zuko coughed before saying softly, "I got worried—"

Her eyebrows rose.

"—that maybe you were sick, or lost, or hurt—"

Was this the fever talking?

"—leaving me on this fucking island by myself with nobody to feed me."

She dropped the coconut shell filled with water on his face. "Whoops."

He sputtered and choked, some of the water having gone up his nose. "Hey!"

"You are a rude, unappreciative—"

"Where'd you get the fresh water?"

Katara stopped in the middle of her creative insult to roll her eyes. "I'm a Waterbender, you jerk. Don't you think I would have figured something out by now?"

He glared at her. "You mean, I was wandering this island for three days, dying of thirst, and you were being a selfish child and keeping all the drinkable water for yourself?"

She felt a stir of guilt before lifting her chin and glaring back. "Hey. I offered to cooperate. You refused and got what you deserved."

"So why'd you come back and help me?" he spat out. "I'm your worst enemy! Why would a Waterbender ever help a Firebender?"

"Because you are a human being before you are a Firebender."

He had no answer for that, so he satisfied himself with turning his face away from her, towards the blue waves of the ocean.

"You know, this changes nothing between us," he lied through his teeth.

"Of course," she lied back.

----

"So this is what will happen," Zuko said. He'd finally felt well enough to get up and walk again. "You give me food and water, and I'll give you fire."

She pursed her lips. "Seems like I'm getting the worse end of the deal. I give two, and recieve only one?"

"Fine," he rolled his eyes, "if you're going to be so picky, then I guess I'll—Um, I'll protect you!"

"From what, falling coconuts?"

He bristled, angry that his hard-thought offer had been shot down so quickly. "No! From—from wild animals!"

Silence.

Not even a fucking bird chirp.

"... right," she said, picking up and beginning to walk away towards the forest. "Whatever. As long as you don't kill me on accident, I guess it's the best you have to offer."

"Take it or leave it," he grumbled, following her. "You know you need the fire."

"Who says I need your stupid fire?"

"How'd you enjoy your raw clams?"

She turned back, indignant look on her face. "They were quite tasty, thank you very much."

"I'm sure they were, if you're used to eating things like slimey, slippery, tasteless lumps of seafood—"

"They were not tasteless!" she shot back, "slimey, yes, but they were salty and very filling." She smirked at him, one hand on her hip. "Which is more than you can probably say for your poisonous bush leaves."

"Slightly bitter, yes, but hardly poisonous—"

"Nobody vomits all over the beach like you did after eating bitter leaves," she said, and walking away from him again, snapped off a thin branch. "The juice from the Luoze plant is highly toxic, you know."

"Now I do," he muttered, then gave her a look as she bent down to pick up a rock with a sharp edge from the ground. She began to calmly scrape off the bark on one end of her stick, making it into a point. "What are you doing with that?"

"I'm going to spear you in your sleep," she rolled her eyes.

"I'd like to see you try—"

"I'm going fishing, you idiot."

----

Zuko watched from the beach, arms crossed over his chest, as Katara slowly waded out into the water, primitive spear in hand.

"It's not going to work," he called after her, for the hundredth time. "you're just going to scare them all away."

She didn't reply, and as soon as she was waist-deep in the water, stood stock-still with the wooden spear hovering over the waves.

Zuko waited.

Katara didn't move.

The heat from the sun began to glint off the water into his eyes. He put a hand over his forehead to shade his sight, and squinting, saw that she was still in that same position.

He sat down on the sand, taking off his metal armor. Damn it was hot.

Zuko was about to call to Katara to tell her to give it up already, when she moved, spear diving into the waves, body tense with contained energy. He squinted harder, standing up in a rush. There was something silvery moving at the end of her weapon, underwater. A fish, possibly?

Then a snap filled the air; all of a sudden, Katara was holding a broken spear, eyes widening in horror as a gigantic maw filled with sharp teeth and one bloody half of a spearhead rose out of the water straight at her.

She screamed.

----

Katara was frozen. One second she'd thought she'd caught herself a good dinner, and the next she was facing a cavern of wickedly sharp teeth. Her weapon was broken; useless. She tried to bend a water whip, anything to distract the horrid monster but it was coming straight for her—no time—I'm too young to die!

Then that Prince was in front of her, silver knife swiping through the air, cutting through one of the fish-monster's fins, eliciting a horrible roar and groan. Blinded by pain, it charged at them, bloody mouth open and gaping. Teeth shining, it snapped, catching the Prince across one shoulder.

Zuko snarled at the pain, then pushed her back with one arm, and with the other, sent a stream of fire straight into that wide mouth, blackening the inside. The monster reared, trying to escape the burning heat. Zuko continued after it, sending blasts at the parts of the monster above water, until it finally let out a moan of defeat, sliding noisily back underwater and out to sea.

----

They sloughed tiredly back to shore, drained of adrenaline and clumsy in their movements. He was still gripping her upper arm, trying to pull them both back before one of them collapsed.

"Just... just thought it was a big fish," she gasped, finally reaching the sandy beach. "looked like it would give us a lot to eat... didn't know... monster."

"Yeah, well," Zuko snapped, "look closer next time." They collapsed onto the bright sand, panting.

Katara glanced over at him next to her, and noticed the seeping wound in his shoulder. "That looks like it hurts."

He met her gaze for a moment before turning back to stare at the blue sky. "Not so much," he said, inserting a false note of self-confidence in his voice. They were far, far away from any type of civilization, without healers or medicine. What if it got infected...?

A small heartbeat of silence and then: "Thank you," she said softly.

"Told you you would be needing my help," he said gruffly, not meeting her eyes.

"Guess that means I owe you some food now. Or at least help with your shoulder."

Zuko was about to shrug before he caught himself, wincing slightly.

"Come on," she said, rising up from the sand. "Let's go back to the campfire."

----

"Take off your shirt," she said. He was kneeling next to the ashy remains of the fire from their first night here.

He cast her a quick glance while her back was turned. She'd said it without any sort of embarrassment or awkwardness; just polite courtesy and total neutrality. If you say so.

Zuko quickly pulled his shirt over his head; it was beginning to tatter at the edges from all the rough treatment and constant wear. He winced as the edge stuck to his wound pulled away from the drying blood. Then he waited for her to turn around. Would she be embarrassed? Awkward? Maybe possibly even... impressed?

When she did turn around and began to poke at his shoulder with her fingers, he heard no reaction. No intake of breath, no sudden flushing of the face.

How... disappointing.

He tried not to show it (So all those back-breaking training exercises with Iroh had been for nothing?)

"Hold still," she said, perfectly calmly. "There's some sand I have to get out."

Zuko held still, shoulders drooping.

He tried not to flinch as her light touch probed the open slash made by the fish-monster's teeth. Then she must have tried to pry out a particularly stubborn grain of sand; he reacted reflexively, snarling in pain and whipping around to snatch her hand away, almost crushing her slender fingers in his grip.

"Watch it!"

She tried to pull away but he wouldn't let go. Zuko was irked; his ego had taken a beating and now the very girl who refused to pay him any of the attention he deserved was trying to carve a hole through his arm.

"Are you going to let me help you?" Katara snapped, wrenching her hand away and nursing her bruisd fingers.

"If you promise not to amputate my arm from my shoulder in the process!"

Her eyes narrowed. "You wimp. It's a scrape from a fish. Get over it."

Wimp? Ouch. "You seem to have gotten over it fast, considering you were so scared when the fish attacked you that all you could do was stand there and scream!"

"Then good thing I had you there to protect me, Prince 'I-Can't-Even-Take-A-Flesh-Wound' Zuko!"

A heartbeat, and then: "You think I don't know what pain is?"

Just like that, the previous, mildly serious banter they'd had was gone. Zuko could see her eyes widen in shock, then feel her gaze linger over his scar; his dishonor.

All of a sudden, Zuko regretted taking the conversation towards such a dark subject. He was in a bad mood; that didn't mean he had to bring up darker matters that had no business here in the light of a bright island and a brighter girl.

----

She finished bandaging his shoulder with strips ripped from the hems of both their clothes. Katara sighed inwardly. Her own blue robe was fading from the constant dunking in seawater and beginning to fray and rip at the edges. She sent a silent plea to Aang and Sokka to rescue her before anything drastic happened.

"You're done," she said shortly to the Prince, before rising from the ground. She didn't expect a thank-you and there was none.

In this silence, the Prince lit a small fire when she asked politely, and they ate the baked clams leftover from her previous digging venture. The fire was nice; warm and useful. She sipped a bit of the precious freshwater from one of the coconut half-shells before passing it to Zuko.

He took it with a small nod, drank his share, and set it down on the ground again. "So how did you get the salt out?"

She shrugged. "It took me a few days to figure out, when I got really desperate. I'm not sure how the entire process worked, but I... I guess I dry the salt from the water and this is what's left over."

----

They lay down to sleep later; again, on opposite sides of the slowly dying fire.

Zuko gingerly settled onto the dirt, resting on his unhurt shoulder. He rotated it slightly, and was relieved to find that all the muscles there still worked. He touched the bandage carefully, a medley of blue and red cloth, expertly tied by Katara.

All of a sudden he felt a sudden urging in his throat, in his voice. A need to say something; anything to her, something along the lines of true gratitude.

And so he said something that sounded faintly like, "thankooforthahelptooda."

"What?" she asked.

"I said," he took a deep breath. "Thank you for your help today."

He was almost scared when she took a bit of time before answering.

"Wow," she said, slightly hesitant. "I'm surprised it didn't kill you to say that."

"Me too," he grumbled back.

"Well," she said, thoughtfully this time. "You're welcome."

A/N: You lucky biotches! You got two updates in the space of two days; one for LTE and one for this! These chapters keep getting longer even though I promised myself I'd keep them short. Darn.

FFN is treating me funky—my stats got reset (anyone else?) and my story alerts aren't going out, and neither are my review alerts. It bugs me. Is anybody else having this problem?

You grew up in Taiwan? What area? - Falke-ness
Taipei, capital; but I have relatives all along the island. Um, Tai-Zhong, Jiah-Yi, Ah-Lee-San, and Tai-Nan. (The author's notes for this story are kind of turning into a mini-autobiography. XD)

And thank you to Dragon Jadefire for her clarification on the actual goodness of raw clams, or, clams on the half-shell. Muchas gracias.

Thanks for 100 reviews. I remember when I wrote my first story, THATP, it took me until like chapter 9 to get 100. You guys are my internet soul mates.