He couldn't believe he was actually going through with it.

As he looked down at the paper he had printed out, he nearly tripped over the group of very young school girls all tied together and on their way to the museum across the street. Glancing around to make sure nobody had seen, he caught sight of a sign; The Chill. This is it, he told himself, straightening his back and marching through the door.

Walking through the ringing door, a wave of cold air and smooth rock hit him like a wave. Adjusting to the dim light, he took in the dark armchairs filled with young college students clicking away on sleek laptops, the Starbucks-style coffee bar, the modern wood seating areas scattered around the center, and the white French outdoor café style tables and chairs lined up along the full-length windows that gave an unblemished view of the busy New York City street.

There she was, sitting at a café table, dressed in a dark blue dress like she'd promised. Her chocolate-brown hair flowed loose and wild down her back, dark chocolate against her coffee skin. Graceful arms led to curved hands that supported a gentle face. Her ocean blue eyes were far away from the bustling city they both called home, the steaming drink and open book before her long forgotten. Her slender legs were crossed, and her whole body was tilted forward, as if prepared to jump up at the first whisper of a new adventure.

He almost regretted waking her from her reverie. "Hello?" She jumped, blinking those wide eyes several times as she tried to refocus on the real world once again. "You're Katara, right?"

She nodded once, then smiled. "You're late," she told him, her tone teasing as he took the seat across from her.

"I'm sorry about that. I got a little lost." He waved away the waitress that approached; he would not have anything distract him today.

She brought her mug to her lips, a smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Is that what you call tripping over toddlers?" Inwardly, Zuko groaned. Great. Somebody had seen his very close call with that school group. He hoped she hadn't already decided that he was just a bumbling idiot. "Don't worry, I haven't formed a solid opinion of you," she said, as if she could read his mind. "Yet. You're being late did not help you."

"It's not like this place is big on the map, you know," he retorted. He hated criticism, especially from strangers. "Besides, maybe you were just early."

She laughed at that. "I like that this place is small," she said, her eyes dancing. "It's like a well-kept secret."

They stared at each other, one leaning forward on her elbows with sparkling eyes, the other relaxed in his chair, one arm slung over the back, his golden gaze smoldering.

"What are you thinking?" she asked, breaking the silence.

He shrugged, smiling. "Nothing, really. What about you?"

"I was thinking that you have the most unique color of eyes I have ever stared into. They almost hurt, they're so much like the sun."

He blinked. That was not the answer he had been expecting. Most girls he asked said he was hot, or scary, or was trying too hard to go for a "punk-Asian" look, or asked how he'd gotten the scar that covered the entire left side of his face. "Umm, thanks?" he replied, for once unsure of what to say.

She smiled again, leaning back. "They're like two mini suns," she continued, her look suddenly switching from joking to contemplative. "Two small, brightly burning suns," she murmured, as if to herself. "You're Zuko." Her eyes widened with shock. "Zuko Long. From Graceport High!" She gasped, throwing one hand over her mouth as if she could stop what she had already said from coming out. "No! You can't be! But you have to be! Nobody else in the world has eyes like that!"

In a blink, he recognized her. The tiny Inuit girl who had moved into the small house down the street, with sea-deep eyes that reflected fear and sadness. The gangly child with the waist-long chocolate braid, ordering the neighborhood boys around, mothering them one minute and throwing them to the dirt the next, her personality as changing and unpredictable as the ocean itself. The young teenager sitting thoughtfully under the great weeping willow tree by the lake, her beauty just beginning to show. The strong-minded woman he had verbally sparred with his entire life, from middle school up until the day he'd left for college. It was his turn to smirk. "Thanks. So you're Katara Siku, huh? You've changed." His eyes dropped to her outfit as he recalled blue turtlenecks, blue shirts, blue pioneer dresses, and the occasional purple hoodie. "Still obsessed with blue, I see."

Her grin turned malicious. "Still as self-absorbed and haughty as ever, aren't you, Prince?" Her words sliced through him like a knife, cutting away the barriers he had built between his old and new self. He had moved beyond that person, buried him deep. "I guess this was just one big mistake, huh?" Her tone had turned from scathing to bitter, her ocean eyes glistening.

The old Zuko, the one they had called the Prince back when he had been required to attend school, would have told her to shove off and then stalked away just so he could say that he was the one who left.

But times had changed. He had changed. And he wasn't running away from this one. "I can see that you're still the same old Katara," he retorted, already knowing how she would respond. "You just tear up and run away if the littlest thing goes wrong. How's Aang, by the way? Has he hit puberty yet?"

Her eyes flashed dangerously. "Don't you dare bring him into this," she hissed. He'd never seen her so passionate about anything before; he found himself enjoying it. "Besides, I've hardly spoken a word to him since I graduated, thank you very much." She rose quickly, nearly toppling over the drink.

No! Zuko panicked, and when he panicked, he usually grabbed at something. This time, it was Katara's wrist. "Don't leave," he pleaded. "Please. Stay for just a little longer. I'm... I'm not the person I was before."

The moments she spent standing there, looking him up and down, stripping away his layers with her deep, dark eyes, were the longest of Zuko's twenty-three-year-long life. "All right, Zuko," she breathed, moving towards the chair again. "I'll stay." She sat, but his hand was still wrapped around her arm. "You can let go of me now."

He shook his head. "Not a chance. You might bolt on me. You used to be pretty fast, if I remember correctly." Judging by the blush on her face, she did, too. Flashes of a day gone by raced across his mind: the way the waves of heat had rippled in the air above the track; how he had taken off his shirt to cool down and caused a collective squeal of excitement from the girl's team; teasing Katara for wearing a t-shirt because she was 'flat as a plank'; being challenged to a race by a fierce blue-eyed woman in white spandex and a whiter sports bra with a chocolate-brown braid that fell below the enticing curve of her hips; having to work to keep up with the lean freshman; feeling sorry when he finally defeated her by inches. "So, no, I don't think I'm going to let you loose."

She glared at him. "You have some serious trust issues."

He grinned back. "I guess you could call it that." Inwardly, he admitted that he just wanted a reason to touch her, to feel that it really was the girl from his past, come back to haunt him. People like him didn't deserve second chances with people like her, and he was not about to let this chance slip out of his grasp. "So what have you been doing since you got out? You're, what, two years younger than me?" He knew how old she was compared to himself. Two years and five months, almost to the day. He'd always regretted being born so far apart from her.

"Something like that," she responded, tracing a free finger around the rim of the now-empty mug as she watched the rain collecting on the window. "I've been drawing. Painting. Modeling. Anything related to the arts. Anything to make enough to get by and still feel alive when you're done."

He nodded. Artsy things were definitely right up her alley. She'd spent nearly her entire high school career in the art room. "I just graduated from Harvard," he told her, "And I'm now here to sell my soul to the devil by working in an office cubicle."

She laughed, but it was more at him than with him. "I must admit, I've never imagined you in a suit and tie, walking to work through a crowd of people with your Starbucks in one hand and your briefcase and New York Times in the other. It's never seemed like you." She cocked her head, her eyes searching through his. "You must've really changed after you left."

He sighed. "I didn't really have much of a choice, you know. At least you're doing what you love."

Her sigh echoed his. "I guess." An indescribable look flashed across her face too quickly for Zuko to pin it down. "It's fun. And I like what I do."

"But there's something else?" he guessed. He was leaning over the table towards her now, like a sunflower drawn towards the light.

She sat up straighter, looking down at him. "You remember those classes we had together?" He nodded: chemistry and human anatomy. "Weren't you a little surprised that an art girl was taking those classes?"

Zuko shrugged, leaning on his elbows. "I just assumed it was because you were so smart. You passed those classes without even trying."

She gave a ghost of a smile. "It was because I've always wanted to be a doctor. I've always wanted to help people." Her eyes were locked on the tiled floor. He squeezed her hand. "We didn't have money for medical school," she whispered. "The only way I could even get into college after my brother was on an art scholarship."

Zuko felt a rush of sympathy for the woman sitting on the other side of the table. He knew what that was like, to be forced to abandon your dreams when you enter your adult life for harsh reality. A feeling of anger towards life, of wanting to somehow make the world right for her, of wanting to shelter her and hold her and tell her that it was going to be all right. Another memory flashed through his mind: the night of his senior prom. Fire and Ice, that had been the theme. She had looked stunning in midnight blue, despite the fact that she had come on the arm of Jet, the school bad boy and someone Zuko had never been able to trust. Just as he'd thought, they had gotten into a fight which ending in Katara storming out of the room and Jet shrugging and grabbing the next available girl. Zuko had managed to slip away from Mai (who had been sitting at the table with that same gloomy look on her face) and followed the crying younger girl out the front doors where it was beginning to drizzle. "You know, once you leave, there's no reentry," the man at the door had said. He'd only nodded, knowing that there was no going back. Her hands had been pressed against her face, hiding the tears coming from her ocean eyes. He had pulled her in, just holding her and allowing her to let go. Guiding her to his car, closing her door, the long silent drive to her house. Leading her to the front porch, a good-bye, and a tear-stained kiss. The hunger, the need, the longing, the urge that came over them both and spread as quickly as a wild fire. Her room, her bed, her beautiful bare body pressed against his. Her smiles, her touch, her lips all over him. Their short conversation still echoed through his mind:

"You've know all along, haven't you?"

"Yes. But I was afraid I was wrong."

"You are never wrong."

A pause.

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

"No, I mean that I love you for everything you are and aren't and will be and will never be and I don't think its possible for me to ever stop loving you this way."

"And you don't think I can feel the same way about you?"

More kisses, deeper and less hungry, had led the way to a dreamless sleep and an early morning. Zuko had vanished from her room, and Katara had vanished that night from her thoughts.

"You're thinking about prom night, aren't you?"

He blinked quickly, forgetting that she was actually sitting with him. "How could you tell?"

She grinned. "You're like an open book to me." He raised an eyebrow. "You were blushing and grinning," she explained. "What else could you be thinking about?"

He rubbed his thumb along the hand he still held captive. "That was the most incredible night of my life," he told her softly. "And I still mean everything that I said. All of it. You've never been far from my thoughts, Katara."

Her gaze grew soft. "So do I, Zuko. Not a day's gone by that you haven't crossed my mind."

An uncontrollable smile split across his face. "So where does that leave us?"

"Wherever we want to be."

Her grin was inviting, her eyes expectant, as Zuko reached across the table to press his lips to hers. They pulled away for a moment.

"I still love you."

"I still love you, too."

Unable to keep the smiles off their faces, they walked out of that little café into the pouring rain, their hands entwined and the world seemed, to them, a little less cruel and a bit more wondrous.

A/N: Sorry sorry sorry! This would've been finished on time, I SWEAR! But my parents invented 'No Computer Month' and I only use OpenOffice for my writings and I couldn't install it on another computer without them knowing it. So, yeah. But its finally done! It was NEVER supposed to be this long, or end the way it did, but that's the way of my stories. They take some random twist or turn, and we end up somewhere totally unexpected.

Day 7 will be up soon! I hope you liked this!