Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender.

Notes: I know what you're thinking. "Hasn't it been a over year since she updated this?" Why yes, fair reader, yes it has.

Chapter: 5/6

year five

the time he doesn't kiss her under the fireworks

The sky is exploding with color above them―flowers and dragons and odd little stars coming out to play. Children shriek with delight and shove each other as they try for a nonexistent better view. Adults alternate between fondly watching the children and gazing with jaded eyes at the fireworks. Teenagers make out like the world is coming to an absolute end. Zuko weaves skillfully through the crowd―the children and the adults and the teenagers―and thanks Agni that he thought to put on a cloak that keeps him from being mobbed by fangirls.

Just as he finishes his prayer of gratitude, a rather feminine hand grabs his upper arm. It's a strong enough grip to stop his progress. Which is worrisome, really. He glances at the hand holding his bicep, and instantly recognizes the long pale fingers of his ex girlfriend.

"Mai," he exclaims, turning in the direction of the arm so delicately attached to the hand still on his bicep. She is half hidden by the shifting crowd. She tugs on his arm, and he obligingly follows. She leads him through the crowd, out toward the very edges of the gathering.

When she stops, the noise is not quite so overpowering and the crush of people is not nearly as bad. The lighting is worse, but he can see her well enough. A little taller than she last was, a little less angular. Her celebratory Fire Nation style dress is a brilliant emerald green that looks very flattering on her. "Why are you wearing green?" he asks before he can stop himself.

What happens next almost gives him a heart attack. She laughs. Not a little dry chuckle like she used to sometimes give him, but a full blown laugh. He's never heard anything like that come out of her mouth ever before, not even when they were small children who had all the reason in the world to laugh, and it stuns him. "Uh…" he says.

She shakes her head and releases his arm. Her laughter finally dies, but now that he's looking he can see that she does not fade back to blank. There is still amusement tugging at her lips and lighting up her eyes. It's so strange.

"What a nice way to greet me after six years apart," Mai says. Her voice and humor are as dry as ever. But there's no mistaking how teasing she looks, or the very soft lilt to her voice that bespeaks of a very human quality she used to lack.

"You're…uh…" Zuko tries.

"In green."

"Happy."

She looks a little self conscious at that. "I guess…Haru…he's been good for me. Really patient."

Zuko understands the unspoken. Haru had managed to wait her out, to gently provoke emotion instead of overtly demanding it like Zuko had done. Instead of feeling jealous, Zuko feels glad that Mai has found someone who apparently understands her so well.

"That's good," he says. More to reassure her than himself. No hard feelings. He can't make himself say those words but he thinks them at her as surely as he can.

"I figured it would be," she says. He cocks his head to the side in silent question. Her smile is slow and smug, curling up at the edges into something that is nearly predatory. "Everyone in the Four Nations is taking bets about how long it will be before you finally crack and marry Katara."

Zuko blinks a couple of times in utter disbelief. His mind seems to misfire a few times, trying to come up with some suitable response to this announcement. Despite his brilliance, despite his training, despite everything, all he can come up with is incoherent "huhwha?" style answers. "What?" he squeaks. He thinks to himself that at least that sounded coherent, if not particularly impressive.

One of Mai's elegant black eyebrows rises tauntingly. "Oh? You mean you hadn't heard? The rumor mill is quite full of news about your relationship with her and how it might or might not be progressing. In the Earth Kingdom they're just waiting for the news of the engagement to come. I do believe that some people actually have party supplies on hand for it."

"No, no, no, no," Zuko says quickly, waving his hands in front of his chest. His mind unwillingly blinks over every scenario it can come up with that involves Katara and marriage. Most of them, he'll add, are not fit for polite company. "We're not like that."

Mai's eyebrows rise past her bangs, something that Zuko only recalls happening once before when he forgot his own birthday. "Not getting engaged yet?" she asks.

"No, not, um," he pauses, a blush suffusing his cheeks, "romantic."

"Why not?" Mai asks, all polite, friendly curiousity even as her eyebrows seem to inch ever higher. "You two have always been very well suited."

"Who's always been well suited?" And Zuko knows that voice, instinctively, distorted through the crowds and the roar of the fireworks and distracted as he is by Mai. Katara. He sends up prayers to Agni, as many as he can manage as quickly as he can, that Mai will not answer that question.

She doesn't. Instead, she distracts Katara with small talk about what they've both been up to the past few years. The chatting is light and breezy as can be, but Zuko notices the wariness in Katara's gaze. Barely a minute into the talk she wraps her arms around Zuko's waist and lays her head against his chest. This gives him something to do, so Zuko just drapes an arm over her shoulder and listens to the meandering chat, adding in noncommittal grunts when needed. It works quite well for him.

Right up until Mai gives him an all knowing smirk and says, "Well, I have to be going. The last fireworks are supposed to start soon. Haru and I never miss them. It's so romantic."

Katara smiles sweetly, wishes Mai well, and then tugs Zuko away into the crowds. Zuko follows, because what else can he do? She drags him straight through the crowds to a pavilion on the other side, a pavilion that is mostly empty since it affords no view of the fireworks.

He notices the light scowl too late. By then, she is already turning and scowling. "Why were you talking to her?" Katara snaps. "I thought you were over her."

"I am," Zuko says defensively. "We haven't been together for six years, Katara. We were just catching up."

That doesn't calm her and she crosses her arms, eyes narrowing further. "So who are you well suited for, then? If not her? Hah. I bet she was trying to convince you to go kiss Ty Lee under the fireworks, wasn't she?"

The ridiculousness of Katara's wild accusations is not lost on Zuko. But he honestly doesn't get why she's so up in arms about it. "She wasn't…" Zuko starts. He should make an attempt at protecting his ex girlfriend, he thinks. Too bad that his mind is still misfiring on just what he could say, not to mention that Katara doesn't really seem to care about whatever explanation he could bother to come up with.

"Ugh, stupid ostrich horse," Katara snaps, shoving at his shoulders. Then she's spinning and stalking away. Zuko gets a very strange sense of déjà vu as he chases after her. "I don't know why I put up with you and your stupidity. You'd think after eight years you'd notice, but no, of course not. You're still panting after Mai who thinks you're suited for Ty Lee. You aren't though so don't go getting any ideas."

Her stalking away leads them into the alley just behind the pavilion. He snags the sleeve of her blue kimono and forces her to a halt. "Katara," he says as patiently as he can, "I don't want Mai, or Ty Lee."

Katara eyes him suspiciously. "Who do you want then?"

Zuko isn't answering that. "I'm not answering that."

She growls and stomps her foot. "Then let go of me, you stupid ostrich horse."

"Stop calling me that."

"No, I won't. Not until you tell me who she was talking about! Ostrich horse, ostrich horse, ostrich hor―"

"You! She was talking about you, damn it. Now stop calling me that." Zuko likes to think he managed all that with great aplomb. The truth of the matter is he's bright red and shifty eyed when he spouts all that, his voice a little wobbly but defiant nonetheless.

"Oh," she says, all fire gone from her voice. He chances a glance at her and finds her looking at him with soft eyes, a becoming blush tinting her cheeks, lips tilted into a gentle smile. It's still kind of scary to him how she can go from hellfire to burbling stream in the space of about ten seconds.

"Yeah," he says, voice even wobblier with the extreme awkwardness of the moment.

Above them, the biggest, brightest, best, last fireworks begin to explode in brilliant color. Katara glances up and then back down at him, her blush intensifying. Is it Zuko's imagination or did she just inch closer?

Her blue eyes are practically glowing under the light of a thousand million fireworks. Zuko thinks that she might be the most beautiful thing he's ever seen even if she is completely terrifying.

"Um, hey, you want to go get some shaved ice?" he squeaks.

Her scowl is back in an instant. "Stupid ostrich horse," she says, but then she softens again. The fireworks still light her up and make her eyes glow, but she seems…defeated, instead of hopeful. Zuko wonders what exactly is going on with her. He doesn't get too much time to wonder though, because she just smiles a bit, holds out her hand, and says, "Yeah, c'mon, let's get some shaved ice."