Song Of A Free Heart: A lot of people have written their own interpretations of Katara's aggression to Zuko, so I'm glad that mine made sense to you.
NollasBlack: I'm glad you're good! And yes, I wanted to try Zutara from a different POV
chickenwang: It seems like forever ago that I wrote that drabble...
ssc: I'm happy it made you happy :)
He knows that she knows. She knows he knows that she knows.
Know. Know. No.
She tells him no. This isn't the time, and hardly the place. A sweltering beach, one week from Sozin's Comet, and consequently, one week from the world's impending doom? No. It won't work. Not yet.
It doesn't happen in words, but in actions, in tiny perceptions. When he's training with Aang, who eagerly questions the girl's opinion of his progression, and her back stiffens slightly. When he's serving tea, and their eyes meet, and he can read the warning in that deep, deep blue. When a young Avatar cracks and cries under the pressure of the world into the lap of a beautiful Water tribe girl, and Zuko doesn't even have to look to know that it's a mother's love mixed with a sister's desperation in which she comforts him.
When his eyes take in her soothing smile and gentle eyes, and he knows he's fallen hard (she knows it too), and those perfectly kissable lips mouth, "Wait." He would kill for them to instead whisper, "Now." And he thinks that once the war is over, once peace is restored, he has been crowned, and the Avatar has won, that they finally will.
But it's three years he must wade through before her permission is granted. Three long, hard, trying years. It is not until the peace is made constant, his throne is not threatened, and Aang knows where he stands in Katara's heart, that she finally smiles freely.
That she finally tells him yes.
Author's Note: I'm thinking that I'll stop this series at the fortieth drabble. I've really enjoyed writing these and reading your responses, but I don't want to drag this out too far, plus, I've been running out of motivation lately. Thanks for all of your reviews though! I finally got to one hundred! :)
MI3