Don't cry for me tonight
Chapter 7
He took her hand so she wouldn't fall behind. They ran together until they reached the end of the festival grounds.
"Ok. So we start here." Zuko said putting his arm around her shoulder.
"Why so far?" Katara asked.
"Why not? Well like you said. If anyone sees us and think we are a couple what makes you think mom, Hakota or Sokka wont?"
"Its not like we are going to kiss or stuff." Katara asked.
Zuko chuckled. "True."
She rested her head on his arm. "Good."
He laughed again. "It's things like that, that will make people think Kat."
"Well as long as we know nothing is going on, that's fine. Right?" Katara asked pulling him away and looking into his eyes.
He fell into the sea that was her eyes. He was drowning but was saved when she looked at the floor.
"Damn it Katara." He said walking away.
"Hey? What did I do?" Katara asked running to him.
He turned around and took her hand. He led her behind a booth and down the empty road. He sat her down on the side of the street with grass.
"I said what did I do?" she repeated.
"Nothing. You're just making everything so hard!" Zuko said.
Katara looked angry. She remembered then what Zuko said before.
"Why occasionally do you call me 'little sister'?"
"All I'll tell you now is that I say that to remind me."
"You can call it a date."
"Is that even ok to joke about? We are going to be siblings and—".
"Is it ok? Kat we aren't even blood. They aren't married yet either. Its ok."
Katara felt a strange pain in her stomach. "You're the one making things weird, you know. I don't think Mai would like it."
"Why would you bring Mai into this?" He raised an eyebrow.
Katara felt embarrassed and looked away. "No it's not possible" she thought to herself, "he doesn't like me. Of course not!"
"Why aren't you answering me? Tell me."
"Why should I? It's not like you tell me anything when I ask."
"Ok, that's a lie." Zuko said in a stern voice.
"Then what about when you said it would be better if we were siblings a long time ago? You never answered that one."
He held his words back. His reasons were too embarrassing to say to someone like Katara who couldn't understand. "I need to change the topic." He thought to himself. At that moment something in his mind clicked. "You think I like you, do you?"
This caught her off guard. "Wh-what? Don't say stupid things." She looked away.
He smirked. "Or maybe, you like me? That's it isn't it? You're taking advantage of my kindness!"
She smacked his arm. "That's sick! I'm already dating Aang. I wouldn't do something like to him."
He laughed. "Alright, alright! You get mad too easily. I was only joking."
She pouted. "That wasn't funny."
He laughed again. This time she found it to be sort of cute. "You're not bad Katara. I think if our parents marry we'll get along just fine."
"There you go again. You know what I realized about you? You're all talk. You keep saying 'if they get married' and 'oh I'll stop the wedding blah blah' but you only tried once and failed miserably. Just give it a rest." She stood from where they sat looking down on him.
"Hey, I already said that I'd wait for the right moment. It just hasn't presented itself yet." He said defensibly.
"Yeah well the love of two people cant break as easily as you think. You have a girlfriend so you should know that." Katara folded her arms.
"Love can break love. Just like a diamond can cut a diamond when nothing else can." Zuko said. His last sentence came out slower as he thought of each word carefully.
"What are you talking about now?"
"I've been trying to use the love between me and my mom against Hakota. It seemed like I could do it, especially if you helped me. Now I think about it I think I was approaching it from the wrong angle." he ranted.
Her face showed all her confusion. "What are you plotting?"
He smiled largely. "I got it!"
"Got what?" She was losing her patience for this prince.
"What if we pretended to fall in love?" Zuko stood up and grabbed both of her shoulders.
Her mouth dropped. "What?"
"Just listen. If we made it seem that we are in love maybe then our parents would end the marriage!"
"I don't understand." She understood. She knew what he was getting at. It was her heart that didn't want to understand.
"don't you think that for our love our parents would end their marriage so that we could be together?"
She shook her head. "No. No. No! No! Zuko are you listening to yourself?" She pushed him away. "You've done terrible things in your life but this-this is the worse."
"Ok. Ok. I'm sorry to have upset you this much. Forget everything I said tonight."
She was too angry to answer him.
The sound of a boom came up from behind. The fireworks were starting.
"Maybe we should head back now." Zuko suggested.
"Ok." they began walking quietly.
They sat together in the stone of the Firefall lost in thought about their conversation.
"I wont say anything about what happened." Katara promised. "but never bring it up again."
Zuko nodded. "I'm sorry."
Katara made a small whimper. Zuko looked over and found that she had been crying. Startled he gave her a one arm hug to comfort her. "I'm sorry."
"I know." She cried.
The fireworks finished with an awesome finale; not like Zuko or Katara noticed. Sokka, and Aang met at the meeting place finding Katara resting her head on Zuko.
"Katara? What are you doing?" Sokka asked concerned.
"She's tired. Let's go." Zuko answered for the sleepy girl.
Aang looked over at her face. "Katara? Were you crying?"
Katara wiped her tears and smiled. "Don't worry Aang. I'm ok now."
"What happened?" Sokka asked concerned. He gave a short glance to Zuko.
She forced a chuckle, "I hurt my neck and the pain was really bad that I cried and was on Zuko's shoulder but I'm ok now."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Just don't mention this to dad. I don't want him to worry." She told them. They met up with the adults at the gate of the palace and walk in together.
"Katara do you need getting to your room?" Aang asked.
"Um well…"
"I think she does. Aang why don't you go to bed now? Sokka and I will help her since our rooms are in the same hallway." Zuko suggested.
"Are you sure?" Aang looked at Katara. Her face looked drained.
"Yeah. See you at breakfast." Sokka said holding Katara's shoulder.
"Is something wrong with Katara?" Bato asked watching the children go upstairs.
Sokka gently helped Katara on her bed and Zuko put the covers over her. Once her head hit the pillow she knocked out.
"So were you with her the whole time?" Sokka asked.
"Yeah. She was depressed for a while about losing the bet. She complained about how you started before it began."
Sokka laughed.
Katara's dream:
She walked down on the same path she had been on for the past few nights. She was still alone in the beginning until a dark, shadowy figure. He was tall and muscular. He stood still with no movement. Katara walked to his side to look at his face.
"About time, little sister."
Katara woke with a start. What did these dreams mean? She just couldn't understand. She noticed someone was with her in the room.
"Sokka? What are you doing here?" Katara asked her brother who was lying down on the far side of the bed.
"Just waiting for you. I was talking to Gran-Gran and I think you should go rub her feet now. She said they are aching." Sokka said making fun of her.
"Why before breakfast?"
"So she will have a good start today. Nothing says good morning like a good foot rub." Sokka laughed.
"Leave me alone! I don't want to." She pulled the blanket over her head.
"A deal's a deal! Go now!" he dragged her out of bed.
Sokka knocked on the door to Gran-Gran's bedroom. "Come in." a tired old voice called out.
Sokka pushed her inside and shut the door. "Hey Gran-Gran." Katara said.
"Oh Katara! Sokka told me you would rub my feet, what happened? Lose a bet?" Gran-Gran laughed.
"How did you know?" Katara asked.
"Lucky guess. Why else would you want to?"
"I guess that's true." She agreed.
"If you don't want to I wont force you."
"I will Gran-Gran. I would want Sokka to if he lost."
Kana pulled her legs down off the bed. "Just be easy ok?"
"Ok. So did you have fun last night?" Katara asked.
"It was—pleasant. Did you have fun with Ursa's boy?" Kana's face was serious.
"Why do you ask?"
"I saw you two hugging near the fall."
"Gran-Gran why were you spying on me?" Katara sounded angry.
"I wasn't. You just seemed so upset for some reason and ran off. I followed you and when I arrived you where in his arms. To me it seemed as if you two ran off to be together so we couldn't see you. Katara how could you do this?"
"I didn't do anything! He was just making me feel better about a problem I have! He treats me as a sister!" Katara began to raise her voice.
"Katara you and him are spending a large amount of time together. I am afraid if you would fall in love with him if you haven't already."
"I haven't spent a lot of time with him! I'm not in love with him! I wouldn't do that to dad or Aang." Katara stood and headed to the door.
"Where are you going?"
"I forgot something. I'll be right back."
She pinned herself to the wall. "What have I done?" she asked herself. She went to see if Zuko was in his room. She needed to talk to him about this.
"Zuko? Open up!" She said quietly. She turned the knob to find it was unlock. She stepped inside the dark room and shut the door. She walked to the bed and he was there—sleeping. Katara shook him. "Zuko? We need to talk."
"Hm? Kat? What is it? I'm trying to sleep." Zuko moaned.
"Zuko, Gran-Gran saw us hugging. I told her that you were comforting me. Zuko your getting me in trouble."
He sat up. "Nothing happened. Why are you taking this so badly?"
She couldn't believe how easily he was taking it. "Because of all those stupid things you were saying last night."
"Katara you cant be like this. I didn't mean what I said. Now go back and calmly explain if you don't want people to have misunderstandings."
She didn't speak. This wasn't much help. She quickly walked out of the room and back to her grandmother.
Zuko laid back down and sighed.
Edit:
As maybe some of you would know this chapter was almost if not all completely destroyed and redone. Also this story will be heading in an almost different direction than I had originally planned but I like it better since I have to deal with Mai and Aang.
I hope you liked it.
Review