Work Text
Zuko put his car into park and cut the headlights, taking a moment to listen to the engine idle as he tried to shake off the evening. Before him, the garage door was closed, looming grayish white in the darkness of night. He hated opening it when he got home late. Izumi’s room was next to the garage, and waking her up hours after her bedtime made him feel like an irresponsible parent.Eyes falling closed, his head dropped against the headrest and he sighed. He pushed the heels of his palms against the steering wheel and flexed his hands, trying to stretch the jitters out of them. Still, when he went to rub away the tingle in his sternum, his fingers shook.
Fuck.
He could smell her.How could he smell her? She hadn’t even been in the car!But she was there somehow, sharp, cold air and pine, a hint of black tea…Groaning, Zuko cut the engine. The autumn air that greeted him when he stepped out of the car was crisp and carried the scent of dying leaves, but still he could smell Katara underneath it all, almost as if she was lingering just outside of his periphery as he locked the car and headed up the path to his front door. A slice of wind snapped through the air and Zuko shivered, pulling his jacket closer around his body. The memory of her grew stronger, more potent. Her perfume was all over his jacket, worked into the waffle weave of his shirt. And how could it not be? He’d spent so much time with her tonight, in her house, on her sofa, with her in his arms… Was a hug supposed to linger so long?The living room light was on and dread settled into Zuko’s stomach. Toph was going to give him so much shit.He dawdled in the entryway as long as he could, slowly untying his boots and stacking them next to one another. He fiddled with them, nudging them into place so the toes faced the baseboard but didn’t touch it. He shrugged off his denim jacket and draped it over an arm of the coat rack.Katara had complimented him on the jacket tonight, saying she liked the way it looked over his shirt.Zuko could hear the muted sounds of music drifting from the living room, the distinct clink of a wine glass meeting a coaster. Toph was being patient.“I know you’re home, Sparky.”No, she wasn’t.Zuko straightened his shoulders and pushed the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows as he did his best to enter his house in a breezy manner. Looking down into the living room, she could see that Toph was stretched across his couch, a Braille book laying open on her lap. There was a glass of cabernet on the coffee table as well as a half-eaten bar of dark chocolate.“You’re lucky I live next door,” she said goodnaturedly.“Is there more wine?” Zuko asked.There was no need to have asked, really. The decanter was sitting on his kitchen counter and he’d already spotted it. Toph only ever opened the bottle when she knew he was on his way home and always decanted enough so that they could each partake. He could hear her following him as he stepped into the kitchen to busy himself with pouring his own glass of wine.“How was your date?”“Good,” he said, reaching for a glass. “Fine.”“Must’ve been more than good or fine,” Toph said. “It’s almost two in the morning. You do know that you can stay over at girls’ places, right? I’m happy to stay with Izumi through the night.”Zuko swirled the wine around his glass, considering the color of the liquid for a moment before drinking. “Thanks, Toph.”The tick tick tick of the sunburst wall clock filled the room, drowning out the quiet music Toph was playing. When he set the wineglass down on the kitchen counter, the sound practically echoed. Zuko closed his eyes and Katara’s smile flashed through his mind. Maybe having a drink wasn’t a good idea. The two of them had been sober all night, had had such a good time together, and his feelings had still had a chokehold on his throat all night long. He’d wanted to say the words so badly. They’d almost come out when her fingers had brushed over the inside of his forearm as she spoke. He could feel them on the tip of his tongue as they’d sat face-to-face on her sofa, ignoring the movie they’d chosen in favor of conversation.The temptation to step back through her doorway and kiss her after they’d said goodnight had been so potent. She’d been standing there in her soft blue sweater, shoulder leaning against the door jamb, eyes like warm honey, looking so much like she could belong to him in that liminal space, and…Zuko shoved the glass of wine away, his stomach churning. If he had a drink, he might text her. And if he texted her, spirits only knew what he would say.“You didn’t go on the date, did you?” Toph said.The edge of the counter pressed hard into his palms as Zuko leaned on it. He dropped his head with a sigh. “No,” he said. “I canceled.”“Zuko—”“Don’t, Toph. I know, okay? I already know.”“No, you don’t already know.”“I do,” he said, looking at her sharply. She was unperturbed where she stood by the table, but her sightless eyes were focused almost directly on him. It was unnerving. “You’re going to tell me I’m an idiot.”“Well, that’s a given,” Toph said, waving the statement away with her hand. “No, I’m just saying that I don’t mind watching your kid as long as you do me the courtesy of being honest about where you’re going.”“I was on my way to the date,” Zuko said. “I swear. I was driving to the restaurant.”“But…?”“But Katara called and I…” He trailed off, shrugging.“You’ve known her for fifteen years, Zuko.”There was no pity in Toph’s voice. She was only making a statement. It was one of the things he treasured most about her. Toph didn’t judge, she didn’t make light of things, and she was on a relatively even keel. Talking to her was easy and plain. She never danced around the facts or tried to gloss over the tough stuff.“You’re almost thirty-five.”“I know.”“You have a kid.”“What does Izumi—”“Clearly, you aren’t totally inept with women.”Zuko blinked, momentarily taken aback. A furious flush spread up his neck and he was glad she couldn’t see it. “Katara isn’t just any woman,” he mumbled. “She’s my best friend, Toph.”She gasped, a hand flying to her chest. “I’m not your best friend?”Zuko froze. Toph smirked, a little snicker making him roll his eyes.“You’re not funny,” he snapped.“I’m hilarious and you know it.”“Whatever.”“Look, I get it,” Toph said. “We’re pals. But things are different with Katara. Things are different for me and Kanto, too.”“You’re married to him!”“And you could—”“It’s different, Toph,” Zuko said. “I have Izumi and Katara doesn’t have a clue about…how I feel.”“Hey,” Toph said, jabbing a finger in his direction, “don’t use your adorable and very kick-ass child as an excuse. Katara loves kids and she especially loves Iz. Don’t try to hide behind her.”Zuko bit his lower lip. As much as it pained him to admit, Toph was right. Katara loved kids. Hell, Katara wanted kids! It didn’t mean she wanted to get involved with a single dad, but it did make things easier.Maybe.Toph swallowed the last of her wine and then made her way through the kitchen to rinse the glass.“I can do that,” Zuko offered.She shrugged. “Did you at least have a good time tonight?” she asked gently.A smile touched his lips and he felt the tension evaporate from his body. “Isn’t it obvious?”“You can’t keep living like this, Zuko,” Toph said, drying her hands off on her pants. “Don’t you just want to tell her? Don’t the words ever just almost come out of your mouth?”“No,” he said. “Not really.”Toph shook her head. “I don’t know if it’s worse that you’re lying to me or that you’re lying to yourself.”“I’m fine, Toph. Really.”She pressed her lips into a thin line and shook her head. “I’m going home,” she said. “You,” she wiggled her fingers in his direction and yawned, “think about if you’re going to let fifteen years go to waste.”“It’s not that easy,” Zuko insisted, trailing after her to the front door. Along the way, she picked her book up off the couch and disconnected her phone from his sound system. “And it’s not like those fifteen years went to waste, Toph. Unless you’re saying my kid—”“Oh, ha ha. As if I would ever say that about your kid, Sparky.”“It’s not a waste. Katara and I are really good friends.”“It’s a waste of potential,” Toph said tiredly. She stepped into her shoes and made a noise of gratitude when Zuko helped her into her coat. “I know that you’ve been burned in love. And I know you felt what happened with Iz’s mom as a fourth degree burn—”Zuko opened his mouth to respond, or maybe to ask her not to mention Mai in his house, but she held up her hand and cut him off.“You’re afraid to take a risk. I get that. But Katara isn’t a risk. She’s the type of woman who won’t let down you or Izumi if you ask her to take a chance on you and it doesn’t work out. Besides, I think you’ll come to realize that what happened may have left a mark, but in the end, it’ll feel like it was more of a mild sunburn than anything.”Zuko snorted.“Maybe a second degree burn,” Toph conceded. “But nothing you won’t recover from with the right TLC. Go chase that waterfall, kid.”“I appreciate the pun. I don’t appreciate you calling me kid.”“Stop acting like one, then.”“Get out of my house.”“Already am, Sparky,” Toph said, with a gesture of her middle finger that made him chuckle.Zuko watched as she tramped across his front lawn and then her own, footsteps wide and comical so that she didn’t trip over her untied laces. Once she was safely through her own front door, he closed his and locked it with a sigh. With Toph gone and Izumi long asleep, he was left only with the quiet of the night and thoughts of Katara. Night was a lonely prison. It made him vulnerable and thoughtful. It stirred within him a longing for someone with whom he could close up the house and get ready for bed.He wanted someone who would warm her cold feet up on his calves at night. He wanted someone who would help him make pancakes for Izumi on weekends. He didn’t want to be turning off the living room lights alone and tripping over the coffee table with no one to giggle at his swearing.As he quietly cracked the door to Izumi’s room to check on her, he wished there was someone next to him who would care about her as much as he did. Someone who would see her fast asleep beneath her glow-in-the-dark constellations and surrounded by her stuffed animals and be just as overwhelmed by love for her as he was.Zuko brushed his teeth alone. He changed into his pajama pants alone. He pulled his shoulder-length hair into a ponytail without anyone to comment that it was getting long.Turning off the light in the bathroom, he stared at his bed, deflated.He wanted Izumi to know that a happy family didn’t have to just be the two of them. He wanted her to know that love was possible, even after a terrible hurt.As Zuko flipped back the blankets on his side of the bed (an absurd thing to have, really, when the whole bed was his), his phone, lying face up in the middle of the mattress, lit up. He froze, staring at it.It was nearly three in the morning. He could see missed notifications from his dating app, likely from the woman he’d canceled on at the last minute, chewing him out before unmatching. There was also a notification from one of his investment apps. But the one that had just come in was a message from Katara.Zuko slid under the covers and reached for his phone, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. His hands shook as he unlocked his phone and opened the message.
Still awake?
He stared at it. What the fuck was that supposed to mean?
Zuko?
He wasn’t going to answer her. It was almost three in the morning, he was almost thirty-five, and he had a child who liked to wake up at hours so early it was almost ungodly.He wasn’t going to answer and he was almost certain of that.Zuko cut the lights and put his phone face down on the nightstand. Eyes drifting closed, he settled against the pillows, felt a breath of deep relaxation hit him, and the gentle lull of sleep began a slow roll over his body.His phone buzzed in its spot on his nightstand. Then again in quick succession. His hand snaked out to answer the call of its own volition.“H’llo?” he mumbled.“Oh, good,” came Katara’s sleepy voice. “You’re still alive.”Squinting open his eyes, Zuko put the call on speaker and rolled to drop the phone on the pillow he didn’t sleep on. The one that wasn’t on his side of the bed.“Yeah,” he said. “Still alive.”A yawn stretched out of him, his eyes refusing to open afterward. He curled on his side, one hand outstretched to the empty side of the bed.“Thanks for keeping me company tonight.”Her voice was distant and small. Was she also nodding off or was it just him?“Mmhm. ‘F course.”For a time, Zuko only heard the sounds of slow, even breathing.“You asleep, K’tara?”“No,” she said. “Are you?”“No,” he said. “Not at all.”Katara woke to the sound of someone snoring. It was strange. Like a recording. Had she fallen asleep with the TV on? She rolled over, using the movement as a way to stretch her legs. She really had to stop watching movies late at night.“Daddy?” a little voice said, coming in over the snores.
What?
Dragging herself into a seated position, Katara opened her eyes and looked in the direction of her TV. It was off.“Good morning, Daddy.”“What…?” Katara muttered, casting about for the noise. Her phone was lying next to her on the bed and the voice was coming from it. Was it a podcast?She tapped on the screen to wake her phone up and had to slap a hand over her mouth to stifle the gasp that erupted from her body.Zuko was on speakerphone. She hadn’t hung up the phone last night! A call time of over four hours kept rolling on as she stared down at her phone.Thank La for unlimited data.Reaching out to terminate the call, Katara was stopped short by Zuko’s groggy morning voice coming through next.“Hey, Izzy,” he said and her heart fluttered before skipping a beat.It should’ve been illegal for him to sound that way—his already gravelly voice deepened from sleep yet tender the way it always was when he talked to Izumi. Katara scrambled to sit against her headboard, hugging her knees to her chest and burying her face in them. Was it safe for someone’s heart to spasm like that repeatedly? Because she couldn’t get a grip. “It’s pancake day,” Izumi said. “Are you ready?”Zuko yawned. “I was born ready, Izzy. Why don’t you brush your teeth? I’ll be out in a minute.”Katara knew she shouldn’t be listening in. First of all, it was none of her business. Secondly, it wasn’t going to do her any good. She’d sworn to herself that this would be the year she got over her irrational attachment to Zuko. But here it was, mid-autumn, and she was falling asleep on the phone with him!A door slammed on the other end of the phone, presumably Izumi running off to brush her teeth. It was followed by the sound of rustling sheets and Katara found herself doing her level best not to imagine Zuko. In his bed. Lying on the mattress she had helped pick out because that’s what friends were for. She failed at not imagining him.Spectacularly.“Oh, fuck,” he whispered on his end of the line. Oh, fuck, Katara thought, her whole body breaking out into what she could only describe as hot chills.She needed to hang up the phone. She needed to hang it up now. There were a few seconds of static. Then, Zuko’s voice came clearly through her phone. “Katara?”Katara froze as her insides turned to liquid at the sound of her name spoken in his morning voice.“Hey,” he said, “did I wake you?”She pressed her face harder into her knees, willing herself not to engage. To do so would only end in very delightful disaster, she was certain of it. Total ruination of their decade and a half of friendship.Zuko sighed. “Sweet dreams, Katara,” he said, and then the call ended.Katara listened to the dull tones that indicated he’d hung up and, once they were over, grabbed her pillow and screamed into it until she was breathless.Suddenly, her room was too suffocating. She needed to get out of it, to escape the place where she’d just been turned into a flaming hot puddle of ice.“Not even making sense,” she muttered to herself as she walked down the stairs of her condo and out into the living room. “Get a fucking grip, Katara.”The living room was no better, though. Zuko’s presence was still so tangible she could see him clearly. He was there on her sofa, looking so at home and so cozy in that soft, clinging shirt he’d been wearing, a relaxed smile on his face. The sofa was amply cushioned, perfect for napping, for reading, for having every intention of watching a movie with your oldest friend—and then ignoring the movie entirely, rapt in conversation with one another, drifting closer and closer until you found yourself sitting there, bodies angled toward one another, desperate to reach across the inches between you two and just touch him.Katara turned away from her sofa and marched smartly into her kitchen with no real intention other than to escape the mirage of Zuko. But he was there, too, laughing in the refrigerator light, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, completely oblivious to the one intentionally exploratory touch she’d dared to make—a light touch of her fingers to his forearm as she’d spoken. She’d tried so hard to make it look unintentional, casual, and he’d had no reaction. It was as if he hadn’t even noticed. It was all pain. Sweet misery. All of it rooted in deep, genuine friendship. They loved each other, but as Katara had leaned against the jamb of her front door, studying the way strands of hair fell about his face, loosened from his half topknot, she’d found herself wishing harder than ever before that he could find it to be in love with her.And now the whole house was too small for her. In a matter of minutes, Katara had her teeth brushed, her running shoes on, and her earphones in. She wasn’t ordinarily one to get less than eight hours of sleep. She also wasn’t one to voluntarily wake up before seven-thirty in the morning on the weekend.There was a first time for everything.“Zuko.”His name was accompanied by two taps on his open office door. Uncle’s voice was unmistakable. Zuko didn’t even have to look up from the document he’d been reading in order to confirm it.“Uncle.”“This isn’t a familial visit.”Looking up, Zuko eyed his uncle warily. He didn’t often make in-person visits related to work. If he needed something from Zuko that had to do with White Lotus Associates, he sent it via email or made a phone call. When he came to Zuko’s office, it was usually social, for a bit of uncle and nephew bonding. Unless he needed a work favor.“Uncle, it’s Friday. I have to pick Izumi up from school in three hours.”Iroh stepped fully into Zuko’s office, closing the door behind himself. “I would not ask if the circumstances weren’t extraordinary,” he said.Zuko raised an eyebrow and watched as Iroh began to pace his office slowly.“I have a prospective client coming in tonight who needs our help.”“Most of the people coming into our offices do,” Zuko said dryly.Iroh shot him an unamused look and sighed.“Sorry.”“I am asking you to attend the meeting because I strongly suspect that the criminal defense will be represented by Azula.”“Isn’t that a conflict of interest, Uncle?”“Jee will be in charge of the prosecution, Zuko. However, I would like you to join his team. He will need your help. No one knows better than you how your sister will attack this case.”Zuko sighed. “Who’s the person we’d be representing?”“Someone that the world would regard as unimportant in the grand scheme of things,” Iroh said. “But someone who has been hurt greatly.”“By whom?”“Zhao.”Zuko scowled. “Piece of shit,” he muttered.“Zuko,” Iroh said admonishingly.Glancing out the window, Zuko considered what his uncle was asking of him. It was true that he would be Jee’s best ally against Azula in the courtroom. He knew Azula. He knew her tactics. She always lied and the people she represented were always guilty. Zhao, he knew from firsthand experience, was certainly guilty of whatever it was he was being accused of.“What time is the meeting?” he said.“Four-thirty.”“You’ll be there?”“Of course.”Zuko shook his head. “You and I are the only people authorized to pick Izumi up from school, Uncle. I’ll need to get her. And I’ll need to find a sitter.”“We can push it to six.”“Okay,” Zuko said. “I can be there then.”“Thank you, Nephew,” Iroh said graciously. “I will be sure to treat you and my granddaughter to a delicious meal later this weekend to make up for it.”“You don’t have to do that.”Iroh winked. “Do not deny this old man the chance to spend time with his two favorite people.”Zuko watched his uncle leave, reaching for his phone. “I wouldn’t dare,” he said.Toph answered his call just as he was about to give up and text her. He could hear the unmistakable sounds of her pottery studio in the background: music, the whir of her wheel because she liked to leave her phone on it, the clatter of a tool as she set it aside.“What’s up, Sparky?”“Toph, are you able to watch Izumi tonight?”“Why? Got another date you’re gonna stand up in favor of Katara?”“Toph!”Frantic, face burning, Zuko leapt out of his chair to close his office door. She wasn’t on speaker, but he didn’t need to risk Uncle wandering back in here and overhearing something he ought not. On the other end of the line, everything went quiet as Toph put her latest project on hold.“It’s an honest question.”“I have to come back to work tonight,” Zuko said. “Uncle wants me to help Jee represent someone. Azula’s the defense.”Toph was silent for a long moment. Zuko clicked his pen nervously as he waited.“Look,” she said at last. “As much as I’d love to pitch in so you can kick your sister’s ass, my answer is no.”“Toph—”“It’s Friday night.”“Kanto has the night shift.”“I have a social life, Zuko. I don’t just sit around at home pining for my working husband.”Zuko groaned. She was lying and he could hear it in her voice. Worse than that, the lie was a manipulation. She was trying to get him to do something.“Don’t play games with me, Toph Beifong. Are you forgetting who I grew up with?”“I don’t know what to tell you, Zuko. I’m busy tonight. Ask Suki.”“Suki.”“Yeah.”“You have plans with Suki.”“Yep.”“She’s leaving Sokka home alone with the twins. Both sets of them.”“Sokka is a perfectly capable parent, Zuko. Don’t be such a sexist.”Zuko wanted to throw his phone so hard that it would rocket through the reinforced window of his sixth-floor office and shatter into a million pieces upon impact with the ground. He grit his teeth and pinched his brow between his thumb and forefinger.“And I’m sure you’re not in your private group chat with Sokka and Suki right now, bullying them into going along with what you’re saying to me,” he ground out.“I don’t have a private group chat with Sokka and Suki,” Toph said innocently.
“Toph.”
“Zuko, how would I even be texting them while we talk? I’m blind.” He froze and nearly found himself apologizing. But he choked on the words before they could come out, reminding himself that she was deliberately being devious.“Stop trying to manipulate me,” he said.“I would never.”Zuko growled. He regretted ever telling her that he considered her his real sister.“I’m not asking Katara, Toph.”“Are you saying she wouldn’t do a good job? That you would worry about Iz in her care?”“Of course I wouldn’t!” Zuko exploded. “Katara used to watch Izumi all the time!”She did. Back when Izumi was still only a handful of months old and Zuko was still so heartbroken that he was immune to the fact that Katara was amazing with her. As he’d moved on and grown past everything that had happened with Mai, it had become harder and harder to be around Katara, his old feelings resurfacing and strengthening. And then three-year-old Izumi had called Katara ‘Mama’ once and Zuko had had to stop asking Katara for help. He couldn’t bear the thought of his always elusive what if imploding. It would destroy him. Worse, it would destroy his daughter.“Toph,” he pleaded. “I can’t.” “Why?” she said.“You know why,” he choked out, feeling his face burn.“I’ll do it for you.” She sang it at him in a teasing way.And for some reason, it was that sentence, spoken in that exact way, that snapped his willpower, and he bit out, “I don’t need you to do it for me! I can do it myself!”The assertion lingered there and Zuko froze as he listened to Toph’s gentle snicker.“It’s not that you can’t, Zuko,” she said smugly. “It’s that you don’t want to. Because you’re a chicken.”And then she clucked at him—she actually clucked at him!—before hanging up the phone.Zuko spent the next ten minutes cussing her out loudly, pacing back and forth across his office like a lion that was ravenous and furious at being unfairly penned in a cage. Over the course of those ten minutes, he swore to himself that Toph Beifong was no longer his friend, that she had fallen from her place as his chosen sister, that he would never, ever speak to her again. He cursed her for knowing him so well. He cursed her for being able to push his buttons. And he cursed her for being right.When those ten minutes had elapsed, the next half hour found him sitting at his desk, slumped over, face buried in his hands as he tried to convince himself to call Katara.In the end, it was Kanto sending him a gif of a chicken that convinced him to do it.Mortified that all of his married friends seemed to be talking about him and aware of his feelings for Katara, Zuko found himself in a confidence deficit by the time she answered the call. Face flushed, heart racing, embarrassed beyond all reason, he had to clear his throat twice before he could answer her friendly chirp of “Hey, Zuko! What’s up?”“Hey,” he said, his voice breaking with nerves. “Um.” He cleared his throat a third time. “Zuko here.”“Yeah,” Katara said slowly, almost sounding amused. “I know. That’s why I said, ‘Hey, Zuko,’ when I answered the phone. Are you okay?” There was a glass of water on his desk. He’d taken a drink from it in hopes of helping his suddenly parched throat, and choked.“Fine,” he said, still coughing. “Yeah. Water just… Went down the wrong way.”He was going to die of embarrassment, he was convinced of it. He just hoped that before he did, he had time to kill Toph Beifong out of revenge.Katara didn’t say anything until he stopped coughing. When he’d caught his breath at last, she said, “All good?”“Yeah. I just…” He paused, wincing. He and Katara hung out all the time. He’d asked to make plans with her hundreds of times. This was not a big deal. “I was calling to ask you for a favor.”“Sure, what’s up?”“It’s a big favor,” he said. “I have to come back to work tonight for a meeting, and I was wondering if you’d want to watch Izumi.”There was a long pause. He could hear the muffled sounds of an announcement being made over the hospital P.A. system.“Really?” Katara said at last, sounding somewhat distant.Panic rose as a chill up Zuko’s spine. “I know it’s insanely last minute,” he rushed to say. “I’m so sorry about that. And I understand if you can’t. It’s last minute and it’s Friday night. You might have a date or—”“I don’t have a date,” Katara said quickly.“I…” He stopped short, not knowing what to say.“You really want me to watch Izumi?” she asked after a long moment of silence.“Yeah.”“Usually you ask Toph. You haven’t asked me in a really long time.”“Toph lives next door,” Zuko said weakly.“Right.”Chewing his lip, Zuko searched his brain for what to say next. On the other end of the line, Katara sniffed.“I’ll make sure she eats dinner,” he said. “And she’s so easy, I swear. You can watch a movie with her or whatever else the two of you want to do. You’ll only have to get her to bed. And she’s not fussy about that.”“Zuko, you don’t have to convince me. I’m really touched that you trust me with her.”It hit Zuko at that moment that he’d gone about the last three years wrong. He’d been horribly selfish in trying to protect himself from his own feelings. Katara, like all his friends, loved Izumi. From the beginning, she’d been among his closest allies in his journey of fatherhood. She’d been there when Mai had told Zuko she was pregnant. She’d been the one to convince Kanto to try to track Mai down when she’d disappeared seven months into the pregnancy. When Kanto hadn’t been able to find her, she’d sat with Zuko nearly every night as he’d agonized over whether his partner and his child were even alive.Katara had been the one who answered the door of his house, got him out of bed, and made him presentable the day Mai finally returned. Izumi had only been a week old. Zuko had been able to hold her along one arm, her head cradled in his palm.And then Mai had vanished again, leaving Izumi and her scant number of belongings with Zuko. Katara and Suki had brought over a crib that had been in storage in Sokka and Suki’s basement. They’d taken turns staying the night at Zuko’s place for the first month, helping him adjust. Sokka had baby-proofed the whole place.Zuko had never heard from Mai again. It wasn’t until Toph and Kanto knocked on his door during a middle of the night feeding, rain thundering down, Kanto still in uniform, that Zuko ever got something related to closure on Mai. Kanto hadn’t been the officer who reported to the scene of the accident, but he’d just been getting off duty and heard the call come in. He’d driven by, egged on by a nasty suspicion.After that, all of them had rallied around Zuko and Izumi, a forcefield of strength and love to ward off the cruelty of the world.Katara had done nothing but support him and love Izumi, and he’d been so terrified of loving her that he’d built a wall between them. All because Izumi had accidentally called her ‘Mama.’He could hear it now in her voice, the hurt that she was trying to hide.He hated himself for it.Before he could even address it, however, Katara was speaking again.“If you want, I can pick her up from school so that you don’t have to make multiple trips.”“Uncle and I are the only ones authorized to pick her up,” Zuko said quietly.“Oh. Right. Well… I guess I’ll just meet you at your place when I’m off work, then. And, um.” She paused. “I can make her dinner.”“Really?”“Yeah.” Her voice grew stronger, more certain. “That way you don’t have to rush. I’ll have to eat anyway. Might as well feed Iz and myself at the same time.”“When are you coming home?” Izumi asked from the backseat of the car.Parental guilt made Zuko cringe. Ozai had been an on and off absent and abusive father, leaving him with both physical and mental scars. Baggage. When Mai had told him she was pregnant, he’d been terrified. He’d almost asked her if she’d be willing to terminate. Kids had never been in the future they imagined for themselves, both of them opposed to the idea for varying reasons. Zuko had an irrational fear of turning into his father, of hurting a child the way he’d been hurt. Those nine months had been hell, made all the worse when Mai had walked out of his life while still pregnant. The moment he’d held Izumi, though, he knew there was no turning back for him. Not ever.Determination to be a good father, however, did not mean that the fear didn’t occasionally rear its ugly head, hissing years of hurt and anger at him. Being asked by his daughter when he would be home meant he was a terrible father, an absent father. It meant he was Ozai.His knuckles were white on the steering wheel.Drawing in a shaky breath, Zuko focused on the moment at hand. He was not his father. He was a single dad with a job.“Probably not until after your bedtime, Izzy,” he said.“Will Aunt Toph let me try to stay up so I can see you?”“Aunt Toph isn’t going to stay with you tonight.”In his rearview mirror, Izumi’s eyes lit up. “Do I get to stay with Aunt Suki and Uncle Sokka and my cousins?” she asked, her little feet kicking against the back of the passenger’s seat.“Actually,” Zuko said, thankful for the red light so he could gauge her reaction without risking an accident, “Katara is going to come hang out with you.”“Katara?”For the longest time after the Incident, Zuko had tried to instill in Izumi very clear roles for the adults in her life. Aunt Suki and Uncle Sokka. Aunt Toph and Uncle Kanto. Aunt Katara.No matter how hard he tried, though, he couldn’t get Izumi to refer to Katara that way. When asked why, Izumi said, “She doesn’t have an uncle.”Zuko had understood the logic. What he didn’t understand was when Izumi told him later that day that Katara didn’t seem like an aunt. He’d asked her why once more, but Izumi had only shrugged and gone back to playing with her dolls as if she’d never made the comment at all.Aside from the Incident, she’d only ever referred to Katara by her first name. Zuko supposed he should be thankful that he hadn’t had to spend months or years trying to make sure the Incident didn’t become a habit.“Is that okay?” he asked.Izumi nodded thoughtfully, focused on the trees outside her window. “I like Katara,” she said.The person in the car behind Zuko honked and he hurried to go, waving at them in apology for almost missing the green light.“You like Katara?” he said.“Mmhm.”“What do you like about her?”“She doesn’t have a mommy either,” Izumi said. It sounded so matter-of-fact, so mature for a six-year-old. It made Zuko’s eyes sting. “Sometimes grownups make me feel sad about not having a mommy.”“Do your aunts and uncles make you feel that way?” Zuko asked sharply.“No.”“Uncle Sokka doesn’t have a mom. He’s Katara’s big brother.”“I know.”Zuko flipped on his signal and turned onto their street, driving slowly in the hopes of digging a little bit further into Izumi’s rationale. Kid logic could be a weird thing.“You like Uncle Sokka, right?”“I like Katara more,” Izumi said. “Don’t tell Uncle Sokka, though! You have to promise!”“I promise,” Zuko said, hoping she couldn’t see his smile. “Why do you like Katara more, though, Izzy? You see Uncle Sokka more. And he’s fun.”“Uncle Sokka’s silly. He likes to ‘speriment. That’s fun.”“But?”“Katara sees here,” Izumi said. Zuko watched in the rearview as she tapped over her heart. “Like you. She’s special.”It left Zuko speechless and sad. At six, Izumi was relatively well-adjusted in his eyes. She rarely brought up the fact that she only had one parent. She’d asked what happened to Mai once when she’d first started preschool but never again. Always quiet and thoughtful, she never appeared to show outward signs of being affected. It worried him now, though. Did she look at Sokka and Suki’s kids or her friends and wonder why she had to be different?Maybe he’d been doing both Katara and Izumi an injustice. Katara had clearly thought he didn’t trust her and Izumi obviously liked her. She was older now, too. She knew better the definitive lines of her family. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to ask Katara to come around more.Maybe he could withstand it.Katara had always loved Zuko and Toph’s houses—two neat homes placed so precisely in one of the northern neighborhoods of the city that their proximity to both downtown and the quieter suburbs would always be an advantage. Her own two-story condo near the city center was an anomaly, a little slice of quiet adulthood, but something about their neighborhood felt homey and familial. Likely the fact that they and all of their neighbors were thirty-somethings. A lot of people in Katara’s building were college kids renting condos for the school year.Zuko had parked on the street in front of his house, leaving the driveway open for her. It was a small gesture but a kind one. Parallel parking wasn’t Katara’s favorite activity.As she’d been leaving work, Zuko had texted that the front door would be unlocked and that she could come in without knocking. At the time, she hadn’t thought too much about it. It was a different story as she locked her car and shouldered her bag, though. Nervous jitters fluttered in her sternum.Katara had never had aunts and her own mother had passed away when she was eight. She’d almost called Suki for advice on what to do with a six-year-old, but caught herself. Suki and Sokka had four kids and Katara watched them frequently. She was a good aunt, a great one even!Still, the idea of watching Izumi after so many years was daunting. She didn’t want to fail Zuko. She didn’t want Izumi to think she was boring. Koa was five and he often told Katara she was boring. Granted, that was usually around nap time, but still. Toph had been watching Izumi for years now and she was far from boring.It felt strange walking into someone else’s house without knocking. It felt stranger still to walk into a domestic scene that wasn’t taking place in her brother’s house. With two sets of twins under ten, Sokka and Suki lived in carefully orchestrated chaos. Zuko’s house was not like that.The little entranceway was neatly organized, coats hung up on the rack, Zuko’s shoes stacked next to Izumi’s on shelves. One of Izumi’s shoes had fallen off the shelf, or perhaps not made it at all. It was a tiny pink and white high top and Katara felt a strange sense of intrusion as she placed it where it belonged and then stacked her own shoes amongst those of father and daughter. She wondered if Toph felt the same sense of infringement, but it probably didn’t bother her at all.In truth, Katara had never felt this way any other time she’d been at Zuko’s house. And she’d been here plenty.“Izzy!” Zuko was calling as she entered the house. “Do you have homework?”He was standing there at the kitchen counter, rifling through a small pink backpack. It would’ve been a comical contrast to his sharp navy suit if it wasn’t so damn endearing.“No,” came the quiet reply from down the hall she knew led to the bedrooms.“No homework,” Zuko muttered to himself.“Am I too early?” Katara asked.He looked up as he pulled a series of colorful folders out of Izumi’s backpack. “No, you’re fine,” he said. “Make yourself at home. I just have some stuff to check before I leave.”Katara eyed the folders as she sat down in a chair at the table. “Important documents to read over?”“The most important ones in my life,” Zuko said. He shot her a smile, though.She watched as he pulled out a bunch of papers and began sorting through them. One by one, he pulled papers and drawings from his fridge and began to replace them with the ones from Izumi’s school bag. Not for the first time in her life, Katara found herself wondering how Mai could have ever walked out on him.“Hey, Iz,” Zuko called again, pausing on one of the papers. “Come talk to me about this!”There was the sound of little feet pounding across the wooden floors and then Izumi appeared at the other side of the kitchen, eyes wide, ponytail a mess.“What?” she said.Zuko held the paper out to her and she padded across the kitchen to take it, her eyes lighting up.“That’s my spelling test,” she said.“I see that. How come you didn’t tell me you got one-hundred percent?” Zuko asked, crouching down to his daughter’s level. “I’m so proud of you!”He held his arms out and Izumi darted in to hug him. Katara melted. Over his shoulder, her eyes met Izumi’s. The little girl grinned.“I got one-hundred, Katara!” she exclaimed.“I heard!” Before she even really knew what she was doing, Katara was across the room, taking a knee next to Zuko. She took Izumi’s little hand in hers and squeezed, offering her best, proudest smile. “You should be so proud of your hard work. You must have studied so hard.”“I even got the bonus words,” Izumi said, showing Katara the paper. “Those are second grade words.”“Second grade?” Katara said. She made a big deal out of reading over the paper and looking impressed. “You’re barely a first grader. How do you know such big words?”Her only answer was a shy, toothy smile.“I know we usually do something special when you bring home good work,” Zuko said to Izumi, shifting his weight. His shoulder pressed against Katara's, but he didn’t move. She hoped he didn’t hear the way her breath caught in her throat. “I’m not going to be home until very late tonight.”Izumi’s smile fell.“But maybe you and Katara can go get a treat tonight,” he said, looking over at her. “If that’s okay with you.”Katara, feeling rather flustered by his proximity, and somewhat put on the spot, looked at Izumi. “Would that be okay?” she asked.Izumi had Zuko’s eyes. They looked from Katara to her father several times. She pursed her little mouth. Maybe Koa was right, Katara thought, slightly mortified. Maybe she was boring.“Can’t we all go together?” Izumi asked.Katara looked at Zuko. He looked back, face inscrutable.“Izzy,” he sighed, “I really do have to go back to work.”“Then I want to stay awake until you come home,” she said.Katara felt her eyebrow leap upward of its own volition. As Zuko stood, she hastily followed his lead. He looked down at Izumi, arms folded over his chest as she stared stubbornly up at him, lower lip sticking out in a pout.“You think you can stay up that late, huh?”“I’m a big kid!”“That's fine with me,” Zuko said, “but the moment you start getting crabby, Katara’s going to put you to bed.”“Okay!” Izumi said brightly and then she dashed off.“She’ll never make it,” Zuko told Katara. He took Izumi’s spelling test from her hand and stuck it to the fridge with a magnet, a fond smile on his face. “She’s a morning person.”“I know,” Katara said.“What?”He turned to her, eyes sharp. She licked her lips, breathed deep, and encouraged herself to remain calm so that her face wouldn’t flush. She could feel it creeping up her chest and hoped that Zuko couldn’t tell. Why hadn’t she worn a crew neck?“None of us ever had a problem getting her to sleep,” she said, waving her hand. “I remember Suki being jealous because Iz slept through the night before Kaikoa and Iara.”“Oh.” He brought up a hand to rifle through the hair at the nape of his neck. “Yeah. I think it must be a family trait. Uncle and Azula are the exact same way.”Katara breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “I think it’s more something she got from you,” she joked, leaning back against the counter. “You’re the insufferable morning person in the group.”“Insufferable!” he said, looking mildly offended.“Zuko, nobody wants to be awake before eight on the weekends.”“You’re just projecting your own problems on other people.”“I don’t have problems getting up in the morning.”“Oh yeah?” he challenged, leaning close. “Name the last time you were awake before eight on a day off.”He’d caught her. Somehow, he knew she’d been awake the other morning. They stood there, eyes locked, his palm planted just so on the counter that she could practically feel the heat of his body. He was inches away and she could feel the heat of her blush coloring her whole body. His eyes flashed over her face, daring her to say something.“I can’t,” she said. It wasn’t technically a lie. It wasn’t that she couldn’t, it was that she couldn’t without embarrassing herself and destroying their friendship. If neither of them said anything about it, then they could just go on as they always had and she wouldn’t lose her best friend.Zuko opened his mouth as if he might say something and then closed it abruptly, tilting his head to the side the smallest fraction. Up close, she was privy to the more intimate details of his face. The subtle crow’s feet around his right eye, the scar his father had inflicted upon his left. He had a small freckle just below his bottom lip. His eyes were golden honey with little flecks of amber sunlight and right now, they were burning with a hot intensity. She knew all of these pieces of him from a distance, but standing this close in such a quiet moment, he felt like someone new.Distantly, she heard the jingle of music. Maybe Izumi had turned on the TV.Zuko shifted, his other arm coming around her, hand reaching for the counter like the one he’d been leaning on. Katara shifted back, heart in her throat, but there was nowhere to move. He had her pinned.Belatedly, she realized he’d been reaching for his phone. She stood there as he stepped away to answer the call, disappointment creeping over her. With nothing to do, but sit there with her secret shame, Katara busied herself with looking into his fridge. She was going to have to cook tonight, there was no better time than now to come up with a plan of attack. She tuned out the call, shoved away the moment, and made herself focus on the shelves in front of her.They were practically empty.The door was full of condiments, but the shelves were home to a carton of eggs (there turned out to be only one left upon further inspection), a nearly empty gallon of milk, half a bag of spinach, and a bag of apples.“Yeah,” he said and Katara looked up. He was standing on the other side of the door, slightly shamefaced. “I don’t really cook on the weekends. I usually take Izzy out for dinner or we go to my mom’s.” What about pancakes? she wanted to say.“Here.” He held his credit card out to her.“Zuko—”“Really,” he said. “She’ll be so excited. She really likes you.”Katara took the card wordlessly.“Um. Can I borrow your keys? I’ll put her booster seat in your car before I head out.”“They’re in my purse. It’s on your coat rack.”“Do you mind if I…?”“No, go ahead.”Katara waited until she heard the front door close before she let out the sigh she’d been holding in. There had to be a way to move past her crush on Zuko. So far, though, she hadn’t found one. Dating other men hadn’t helped. Fucking other men hadn’t helped. Almost getting engaged to another man hadn’t even done the trick. Not speaking to him anymore might be a cure, but it was impossible. She’d been single for two years now and the last guy she’d managed to go on a few dates with months ago had cut things off because he didn’t like that she was such good friends with another man and unwilling to change that.She wasn’t giving up her best friend of fifteen years. They had seen each other through too much.Sometimes she posed hypothetical questions to her colleagues or patients. How would they feel about dating a successful prosecutor? What if his last significant other had died in a car accident hardly two months after giving birth to his child? What if said significant other had abandoned him during the pregnancy and then later abandoned him and their child?Baggage, her colleagues said. Too much baggage. Katara was a young, pretty, surgeon who had just finished residency. Why would she spend her valuable time and energy on a man who was going to need more from her than he was capable of giving back?But what if they’d known the man in question for half of their life? What if they knew he was intelligent, kind, and deeply resilient?Her colleagues said it was still too much. Her patients had varying opinions.What if he was their best friend? That question earned her knowing looks from her elderly patients and endless eye rolling from her peers.One of the nurses at work had told Katara that all she needed to do was hook up with Jet, the hot, cocky ortho resident, in the on-call room. But the problem with that was that Jet had asked her out and she’d turned him down. She couldn’t exactly use him for a quickie like they were characters on a medical drama that had been running for far too many seasons.Katara tapped Zuko’s credit card against her hand and then slipped it into her back pocket. She needed to focus on the fact that he still trusted her with Izumi. Or that he was giving her another chance. It had been years since he’d asked her to help with Izumi. If Toph and Kanto weren’t available, he was more likely to drop her off with Sokka and Suki out in the suburbs or to rearrange his plans altogether than he was to reach out to Katara. She’d tried to attribute it to her busy residency program, but that had been over for a year now and still he’d been relying on Toph.Looking across the kitchen and dining room and into the sunken living room, Katara saw that she was alone. She peeked around the corner of the kitchen and listened. Whatever Izumi was doing, she was being quiet. It was quite the difference from Sokka and Suki’s house where at least one of the four kids was making noise somewhere.Zuko’s house sat in a T-shape, the bedrooms all along one hallway. Izumi’s was the first one and when Katara approached, she found the little girl laying on her bed with a book.“Hi,” she said and Izumi looked up. “What are you up to?”Izumi held up her book, a child’s edition of basic astronomy. “Daddy said the stars on my ceiling are real.”Katara looked up where the glow-in-the-dark stars were just beginning to emit light. She couldn’t help but smile. “They are,” she said.“How do you know?”“I helped him put those up.”Izumi scrambled to her knees, eyes shining. “Can you help me?” she asked, holding her book out.It was a little past midnight by the time Zuko left his meeting with Iroh and Jee. Their client had left around nine, but Jee had been eager to begin strategizing and planning. Perhaps they could have wrapped things up sooner, but Zuko had been distracted all night. Uncle had assumed he was exhausted and Zuko didn’t correct him. It was better than telling him that he couldn’t stop thinking about Katara.When he’d left home, Katara and Izumi had been laying shoulder to shoulder on the floor of Izumi’s room, an astronomy book open on Katara’s stomach. She’d been helping his daughter trace the lines of the constellations on the ceiling and telling the story of the polar fox. Izumi had been laughing, her favorite stuffed dragon clutched in her arms.And now he was going home and she was going to be there. In his house. With his daughter.The thought of it felt domestic and soft. It made him feel warm and hopeful. In truth, the very notion felt a lot like love.For a long time, he hesitated at the stop sign to turn onto his street, fear gripping him by the throat. The fact that he’d thought he could withstand this earlier was laughable. His feelings for Katara had already nearly gotten him into hot water. Izumi’s spelling test was one thing. That he’d been so bold as to actually lean into Katara as if they were one proud parental front had already been one step way too far over the line. But then he’d almost kissed her right there in his kitchen. He truly might have if Uncle hadn’t called and asked if he was on his way back to the office.And he’d had the suspicion that she wouldn’t have been opposed.But Zuko didn’t operate on suspicions. He liked facts, clear delineations. And the one simple fact that would have stopped him had Uncle’s call not done so was that he and Katara were just friends.With a deep breath, Zuko straightened his shoulders and turned onto his street. That reminder would be enough to get him through until Katara left for the night.It would have to be.She’d parked on the street in front of his house, a shoddy parallel parking job that made him smile fondly. Katara hated parallel parking. It made her nervous.Zuko left his car in the driveway again, knowing that there was no way Izumi had made it past nine o’clock and not wanting to disturb her. His keys shook in his hand as he unlocked the front door, and he had to dawdle in the foyer, steeling his nerves and taking a few deep breaths before he ventured in further to confront the Katara of it all.The house was mostly dark, save for one lamp in the living room. Zuko paused next to the dining room table to drape his suit jacket over a chair and loosen his tie. Noise from the TV drifted up from the living room, but Katara hadn’t said anything. As he walked down the pair of steps into the living room, he discovered why.She waved to him from the sofa and then pressed a finger to her lips when he opened his mouth to say hello. Izumi was sound asleep, her head in Katara’s lap. And if that alone hadn’t been enough to make his heart skip a beat, the tender way in which she reached down to brush Izumi’s bangs out of her eyes definitely did. Zuko sat heavily down on the coffee table, transfixed.“Sorry,” Katara said, and the word was barely a whisper. “I would’ve put her to bed, but she just sort of fell asleep on me. She was really hoping to see you when you got home.”Zuko shook his head. Katara had pulled the throw over Izumi and he reached out to tug the blanket higher, running a thumb over his daughter’s cheek.“I don’t care,” he said just as quietly, his voice hoarse. “It’s fine.”“She brushed her teeth and everything. She just really wanted to see you and I thought you might want to see her.”“Katara.” He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “You did great. Thank you. Really.”When he dared to look up, her eyes were impossibly blue in the soft lamplight. Her pretty face was inscrutable and... Oh, spirits, he loved her. He loved her in a really big, irrevocable way. Thumb brushing over the back of her hand, he opened his mouth to speak again, panic rising up his back because he didn’t know what was about to come out.He was saved the agony of ruining everything when Izumi’s stuffed dragon rolled out of her arms and hit the floor. As he stood, surprised, Katara pulled her hand away.“Um,” he said and Katara’s eyes darted back to him. “I guess I’ll…” He gestured toward Izumi.“Right. Yeah.”Katara drew the blanket away and Zuko lifted his daughter into his arms, doing his best to touch as little of Katara as possible in the process. He had a feeling he would always remember the brush of the back of his hand across her thigh as he moved to cradle Izumi’s head.Izumi didn’t stir as he carried her across the house and tucked her into bed. It wasn’t until he realized that he’d left her dragon behind that he caught Katara lingering in the doorway. She held the stuffed toy out and he took it wordlessly, tucking it under Izumi’s arm.“Goodnight, Izzy,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead.Katara was still there when he reached the door. An arrow of impossible longing hit his heart as she stood there with him in the doorway, both of them watching as Izumi nestled into her bed.“She’s such a miracle, Zuko,” Katara whispered, her hand brushing across his shoulders.He closed his eyes, wishing he could hate her for this moment—the only moment he had ever wanted so much it hurt. Instead, he felt himself give in and return her touch, a gentle brush of his fingers across her back. For one bare instant, she pressed into his side and he could see it all clearly, how crossing that line might be worth risking fifteen years of friendship.“Thank you for trusting me with her again.”The words were sincere, but they were an ice cold bucket of reality that washed over him as he turned to watch her head back towards the kitchen. He’d hurt her for years because he’d been weak.“Katara,” he said, following after her. “Katara!”She paused in the dark alley of his kitchen, a hand on the open shelving that sat between them and the back wall of windows.“I've always trusted you with Izzy.”Slowly, she turned around, her head cocked to the side as she brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Do you know you haven’t asked me to watch her in years?” she asked.“I know,” he said miserably.“Why?”“Toph—”She was across the room and in his personal space in a flash. “Don’t,” she hissed, jabbing a finger into his sternum. “Don’t even, Zuko. You know you’re not the only one who can tell when someone is lying. I can read you just as well as you can read me!”“Katara—”“Just…” She was vulnerable and soft beneath the steel of her accusatory finger and flashing eyes. He caught a lightning fast glimpse of it when he reached out to take her hand. “We’re best friends, Zuko. You saw me through all that shit with Aang and I stayed up at night with you for months after Mai left you and Iz. We don’t have secrets.”“I know, Katara.”“Then why—”Zuko pressed the index finger of his free hand to her lips. They were delightfully plump and supple. He almost wished he’d risked kissing her instead. But Katara was not the kind of woman who took kindly to being silenced and he could see thunder building behind her eyes.“I don’t want to wake Izumi up,” he said, tugging her towards the living room. She let him guide her to the sofa and sat when he gestured toward it, but the way she looked at him when he sat across from her on the coffee table again was wary.“I just don’t get it,” she said.Zuko sighed.“If I did something wrong—”“You never did anything wrong, Katara,” he said earnestly. “It was because of Mai.”She blinked. “Zuko, Mai’s been gone for years.”“I know. I just… Do you know how much Izumi loves you? She’s… She’s formed this bond with you. She identifies with you. She doesn’t have a mom and she knows that your mom passed away, and that really means something to her.”Katara’s shoulders softened and she reached a hesitant hand out to touch his knee. “You know I would never break her heart, right?” she said.“I know, Katara,” he said, taking her hand in both of his. “But do you remember when Sokka and Suki were still holding those weekly dinners for all of us? They had them right up until Suki had Yura and Siku. And we were at one of them—maybe even the last one—and you handed Izumi some food and she looked at you and said—”“‘Thank you, Mama,’” Katara finished.“Yeah.”“Zuko.” Katara scooted to the end of the couch and wedged one of her knees between both of his, squeezing his hand until he met her eyes. “Do you know how often Sokka’s kids call me Mom? It’s like when you’re a kid in school and you accidentally call your teacher Mom. It just happens sometimes. She never did it again.”“Because I panicked!” Zuko blurted out.Katara raised one amused eyebrow and he felt himself color. “Zuko! Is that why she started calling everyone Aunt and Uncle?”“Everyone but you,” he muttered.“Yeah, why is that?”“She says it’s because you don’t have an uncle.”“Solid logic,” Katara said. “Slightly hurtful, but solid.”He sighed. “I do trust you, Katara. I just didn’t want Izumi getting confused.”“Zuko,” she said, leaning close, “I would never try to take Mai’s place in either your life or Izumi’s.”He let out a bitter laugh. “Let’s be honest, Katara. Mai never wanted a place in either of our lives.”“We can’t speak for the dead, Zuko.”“She left!” “Well, I'm not going to. No matter what happens, you and Izzy will always have me. You just have to stop shutting me out. I can help you with things like this.”“What would you have done differently?”She shrugged. “I don’t know! We could’ve talked to her together and…and explained the nature of our relationship.”“The nature of our relationship,” Zuko repeated flatly.Katara shrugged again, looking rather lost.He looked at her as she sat there in the dim light of his living room, both of her hands wrapped around one of his, the way she had insinuated her knee between his legs. He thought of falling asleep on the phone together after spending all night talking to one another in person on her couch. He thought of the way she’d touched his arm and of the way he was almost positive she’d been awake the other morning when he’d ended their all-night call.He thought about being the one to tell her—to beg her, really—not to marry Aang. He thought about the way she’d helped him find a name for his nameless daughter after Mai walked out.He thought back to nights late in college or during law school when they’d fall asleep in the same bed.“Can you explain the nature of our relationship to me then?” he asked, the words slipping out before he could stop them.“I…” But nothing came to her. She only stared at him, her perfect lips a soft o . Her hands slipped away and he moved to hold them, all that had been pent up now capable of doing nothing but spilling out between them.“Katara, I don’t think that best friends have what we have.”“Doesn’t that scare you?” she whispered and his heart leapt.“It terrifies me.”She was scared too. And if she was scared too, that meant he couldn’t possibly be alone in this circle of hell that was longing and want. He could feel the knife edge they were balancing on. It hovered between them, steady but thin as black ice.“We wouldn’t be talking about this if it wasn’t late and I hadn’t been watching your daughter tonight,” she said, abruptly standing up. She didn’t move to leave, though, her hands still held in his.“Do you really think it would’ve never come up?”“Zuko…”“You wanted to know why I avoided asking you to look after her. Don’t you get it?”“Of course I get it. But… Zuko, you’re my best friend. I already told you that I’ll never be the one to walk away and I can’t lose you. How are we supposed to risk that?”“What if it works?” he countered quietly.Katara went very, very still, her blue eyes wide.“What if we’re both just afraid of this being real and working?” “How often have you thought about this?”“At least as often as you have.”Katara scoffed and Zuko rose to his feet, dropping her hands. “How are you so sure I’ve thought about it?” she said.“Because if you hadn’t, you would’ve put a stop to this conversation already. I know you, Katara.”She cast her eyes to the side, rolling her lower lip between her teeth. Still, she didn’t move to leave. Thoughts were racing through her mind, he could see it in the small adjustments to her posture and her face.An eternity passed before she finally looked back up at him, her eyes fathomless and breathtaking.“You’re saying you have feelings for me.”It wasn’t a question.“Yes,” Zuko said. The word was quiet and plaintive, almost a plea. The honesty of it stunned him, sticking his feet to the floor.This was not how he had envisioned the night going.And then his arms were full of her as they had been so, so, so many times before, and… Something was different. Perhaps it was his admission lingering in the air around them. Or maybe it was that he could feel her trying to say something with her body that her mouth was afraid to say. The two of them were no strangers to casual touch. They hugged often.But there was something to say about intention.It was in the way her fingers had skimmed flirtatiously over the fragile skin of his inner forearm. It was in the way he had deliberately leaned into her in support of Izumi earlier that day. And now it was in the way her fingertips brushed through his hair to the nape of his neck and the way he felt both of them come alive as he slowly slid his palms around her sides and splayed them across her back, holding her closer than he’d ever dared before. Her breath hitched into a little gasp that reached his ears and lit him on fire.“How would we…?”Zuko pulled back far enough to gaze down into her upturned face, brushing a lock of hair out of her face. She was beautiful, her eyes shining with honest earnestness. Her fingers were playing gently with his hair.“I don’t know,” he said. “The way everyone else does, I guess.”“Is it that simple?”“Probably not. But maybe.”She made a small, soft noise and her fingertips fluttered across his neck in a way that made his eyes slip half shut.“Zuko?” His name was barely a noise as it slipped past her lips. He doubted he would have heard her had they not been standing nearly nose to nose.The distance was agony, too far and too close all at once.And then it wasn’t there at all as Katara rocked onto her toes, every curve of her body pressing into him as her lips caught his in a tentative kiss that lingered with uncertain exploration and anticipatory heat. The slide of his hand across her cheek and the gentle press of his thumb to her jaw was enough to stop her slow retreat, and Zuko pursued her for a second kiss, this one a collision of open mouths that made her hand tighten in his hair.It lingered but didn’t deepen. He could feel the tremble of Katara’s body as she clung to him so hard that not a whisper of air could slip between them. Every inch of her was alive with emotion and he could feel the crackle of electricity. In that moment, his fears slipped away, stunning certainty rooting into their vacant place and arousing the first stirrings of hunger.He wanted more.He wanted to kiss her again, his tongue a teasing preview of what else they could do.Katara sank back to flat feet, though, drawing away from the kiss but not from his arms. His hands drifted to the curves of her waist, giving her the option to draw away from him. Still, she stayed. Zuko opened his eyes. She was looking up at him, her blue eyes wide and dark, her lips parted in such a way that he almost moved to kiss her again.But he saw it—the fear lingering within her.“I should leave,” she said, making no move to do so.“Katara,” he said. “It’s okay if—”“I need to think. And if I stay here any longer, I’m not going to think, I’m…” She trailed off, shaking her head.Still, she stayed close to him, her fingers carding through the hair at the nape of his neck. Zuko swallowed. He stepped back, his hands drifting away from her sides as hers fell away from him. The loss of her proximity struck his gut with a keen sharpness that twisted and seared.He wished she would stay and that they could forget about thinking. But they weren’t young, foolish kids, and if she needed space, he would grant her that without following after her in the hotheaded way he would have if this had happened ten or fifteen years ago. He’d made his argument with his mouth in a new kind of way.“I…” She tried again, stepping to fill the space he’d put between them. “Zuko, that was…”“Katara,” he said, voice rough, “if you need to think, then you should leave. As much as I wish you wouldn’t.”Her chest rose with a deep inhale, but she didn’t say anything.“I don’t need to think anymore, Katara. If you do, that’s fine. But if you’re trying to think out loud here in my living room, it’s only going to make me want to persuade you. And I’m not interested in trying to talk you into something you might not want.”She nodded and looked towards the front door, hesitation in the way she hugged herself.“It’s okay,” Zuko said.“Okay,” she whispered.He walked her to the door, hands in the pockets of his navy blue suit pants as he watched her slip into her boots and jacket. She was quiet as she shouldered her purse. When he opened the door for her, she turned to look at him, her eyes deep, mysterious fathoms of emotion and he couldn’t resist the temptation to touch her cheek tenderly.“At least let me know when you get home,” he said.She nodded. “I will.”She stepped off into the autumn evening, feet carrying her towards her car. Not for the first time, she took his heart with her. It was permanent now, he knew. She held his heart in her hands and he would never be able to take it back.Katara sat at her kitchen island, feet scrunched up onto the barstool with the rest of her, a cup of hot black tea cradled in her hands. She was staring at her phone which was open to her texts with Zuko.
We can forget it happened if you want.
He’d sent that in response to her message that she’d gotten home the night before. She hadn’t replied.Forgetting was not an option. In fact, she’d stayed awake for hours last night recalling the tempting slide of his hands around her waist, the way in which he’d chased her kiss with one of his own, and the steady, unyielding certainty in his eyes when he’d looked at her in the aftermath.It had all felt hypothetical until she’d kissed him. She’d kissed him. She’d kissed Zuko, her best friend, her touchstone.For the better part of fifteen years, he had been her paragon of her ideal man, whether she’d been aware of it or not. And for a long time, she hadn’t been. It had been around the time she met Aang that she’d started to realize she was making comparisons that weren’t necessarily fair to the men she was seeing. How was anyone supposed to be the one person who would never see her as more than a friend or a sister?And so she’d put her all into dating Aang. Even when things were lopsided. Even when she was crying at parties and sacrificing the things and people she loved. She had compromised so many of her ideals and seen herself as the problem. When things weren’t working with Aang it was because she was too hung up on Zuko.Aang had wanted her to marry him. He had never truly proposed, but he talked about it like it was a certainty. He would call Katara his forever girl and sling his arm possessively around her shoulders.It was around that time that she’d experimented with how he fit into the group and brought him to one of Sokka and Suki’s weekly dinners. Toph hadn’t met Kanto yet. Zuko was with Mai, who would announce her pregnancy a few weeks later. Sokka and Suki were only parents to Kaikoa and Iara at the time. Katara couldn’t even remember what Aang had said, but it had turned Zuko shockingly pale and made her brother go quiet—the scary kind of quiet that told her he was angry.Later that night, Zuko had pulled her into the guest room at Sokka’s house and told her that marrying Aang would be a mistake. The two of them had fought in furious, hushed whispers so that nobody else heard. She’d wanted to remain blind to what Zuko saw. Zuko had been painfully earnest and honest.He’d said please too many times. He’d told her exactly what he thought she was worth.It had been the kind of situation where they had come so, so close to crossing the line. She’d wanted to kiss him. She would have kissed him.But there had been Aang.And Katara had had to swallow down the electrical current between them, frying her heart within an inch of its life because Zuko was with Mai, so there was no way he could have been saying those things to her out of anything other than friendship.Two weeks later, Zuko had picked her up off the floor in the middle of the night after she’d broken up with Aang.A week later, he’d called to tell her that Mai was pregnant.And that had been that.Sometimes it felt like a cliche. “The Five Times Katara Didn’t Kiss Zuko (And The One Time She Did).” Only “The One Time She Did” never came about.Until last night.Katara took a sip of her tea, staring at his text.
We can forget it happened if you want.
Did he want to forget?When she really let herself slip into the memory, she could feel the ghost of the kiss whispering over her lips. He’d held her like a lifeline, touched her face in reverence. When she’d leaned up on her toes to press her mouth to his, the echoing thunder of her heartbeat had faded away. The kiss had been a question she posed not only to Zuko, but to herself. She’d been searching and hesitant and found in him a steady certainty that she hadn’t been expecting. In herself, she found the same.That scared her more than the idea that a relationship with him would work.Having found what she’d been looking for and not wanting to push him, she’d moved to pull away from his lips. Somehow she hadn’t expected him to answer her unspoken questions.Thumb angling her jaw just so , fingers curled gently around her ear, he’d kissed her in return, mouth open, hot, and hungry underneath his reassurance. Katara had felt herself evolving into a wanton thing in his arms, turned on by the sheer electric chemistry that sizzled between them and his insinuated promise that it would work. And she’d known, as her world dwindled to a point, that it would. Her own certainty reignited her fear which reared its head ferociously, grounding her and ending the moment.And Zuko had opened his burning golden eyes, telling her everything without words. He would take the leap in that moment without looking back and without another thought. She didn’t know how to tell him that the leap felt too monumental to take in one vault. At the time, she felt like they hadn’t even taken a running start.In the light of late morning, she felt like they’d been careening towards this side by side but separately for years. All Zuko had done last night was offer his hand so that they might land safely on the other side—together.No, he didn’t want to forget.He was offering her an out.They could return to the way things had been before last night. He would probably never ask for her help with Izumi again. They would continue to be best friends. But…Katara set her mug on the counter and stared down at the message.But the knowledge of what they were avoiding would linger. It would fester. The rotten friendship would have to be surgically removed. She didn’t think she would survive without him if that was the case. It would be like pulling the heart out of a patient’s chest and telling them not to bleed out and just find an alternate solution for the missing organ.Abruptly, the screen was interrupted by an incoming call, Zuko’s name filling the caller I.D. Katara froze, the breath she’d been taking arrested in her windpipe. Fear slithered up her spine.Oh, spirits. Oh, fuck. He was calling to tell her to forget that last night had happened!She wanted to vomit her heart up.Fingers trembling, she reached out to answer the call, rising to her feet so that she might pace and burn off the anxiety.“Hello?” The word shook.“Um.” Zuko said. “I…” A sigh. “Hold on.”Oh, fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. He sounded awkward. Her eyes were smarting, her vision gone blurry. She was about to lose her best friend!“Katara?”“Yeah?” Her voice shook harder, threatening to shatter.“Sorry to bother you. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”“No.”“Good. Um.” She could envision him scratching the back of his neck. “Listen.”
Shit.
“I don’t want to derail whatever you have planned today, but I told Iz I’d take her out as a reward for her spelling test and I think you still have her car seat.”The path Katara had been beating across the first floor of her condo came to a halt. She could have laughed in astonishment.“Oh!” she said and the sound of it was almost bright.“Would you mind bringing it by?”“No,” Katara said, clearing her throat and wiping hasty tears off her cheeks. “Of course not.”“Thank you,” Zuko said, sounding relieved. “Whenever you’re free.”“I just need to shower and change. I can be on my way in about an hour.”Silence met her words in response.The fear that had slithered up her spine tapped her on the shoulder.“Zuko…?”“Sounds good,” he said. “That’s… Yep. See you soon.”“Okay.”Showering and putting on clothes presented a new kind of agony, though, that Katara wished she could say she didn’t succumb to. They’d been friends for fifteen years. Zuko had seen her at every possible human moment she’d had. In scrubs during long shifts at work, in beautiful dresses for weddings, in grungy at home clothes, with makeup and without, early in the morning and late at night, food poisoning, breakups, personal victories, deep losses… He had been there through everything and seen nearly every possible iteration of her. And he’d kissed her back last night. He’d admitted to having feelings for her at her most average—a simple blue sweater and jeans, her hair curly and tossed into a sloppy late-night ponytail.Still, every decision she made now was riddled with second guessing. Should she dry her hair straight? If she was only dropping off Izumi’s car seat, did she need eyeliner?In the end, she scrambled to put on anything, grateful that her favorite vintage jeans which made her bum and legs look great were clean. She tossed an oversized flannel over a turtleneck, dried her hair, and slipped on a pair of sneakers. Makeup was nothing more than mascara and lipgloss. Then, she was dashing out the door, grabbing her jacket and texting Zuko her apologies for being two minutes late.Agonizing over herself, however, saved her from the agony of wondering how things would be between her and Zuko. By the time she stepped out of her car in front of his house, she was only just beginning to think about it.He was balancing Izumi on his shoulders, laughing as the little girl reached for a branch of the tree in their front yard. Autumn leaves tumbling down around them and scattered across the yard made the scene cozy. The sight of it all was so domestic and struck a deep nerve within her. It was something she’d wanted for a long time: a partner who would be a good father, children who were happy, love in every corner of the house.Katara’s condo was neat and orderly, but there was no one to come home to. Her home life often felt as clinically sterile as her working environment. Zuko had a fridge covered in Izumi’s drawings and homework; his house, though well-styled, felt lived in; despite all that he’d lost, he’d made a life for himself that had meaning beyond work.And he’d offered her a place in that life.The leap had never felt more gargantuan.“Katara!” Izumi shouted with a wave and a smile.She was Aunt Katara, boring or fun depending on which niece or nephew you asked. Soon Izumi would be seven and then eight, and Katara had lost her own mother at eight. She didn’t know how to be a mother figure to a little girl any older than that. Somehow, that thought had never dawned on her when she thought about having children. The fear of hurting Izumi, though, of making some horrible misstep that would burden her with baggage, was all too real.Zuko’s attention shifted from his daughter to Katara, and she saw the way his smile faltered with uncertainty. Was he also wondering how he could possibly trust her with his own heart, much less his daughter’s? How had he been so certain last night that being more than friends would work?“Hey,” he said and his voice took on a quality that sounded like the night before when said that he had feelings for her. It was the same self-assured tone she’d heard when he told her it was okay if she needed time to think.He wasn’t going to push her, that much she knew. But he wasn’t going anywhere, either, as steady and as sure as the walls of Ba Sing Se.Zuko pretty much always kept his shoulder-length hair tied in a neat half knot at the back of his head. Today was no different. But Katara watched as the style backfired on him when Izumi grabbed a good chunk of the part he’d left down in her fist and tugged—hard. “Izzy!” he yelped.Izumi was hanging her face in his now, bent over to make eye contact with him as she babbled something Katara couldn’t hear. Zuko’s eyes found hers from across the front lawn.“That’s something you’ll have to ask her yourself.”He knelt to let Izumi off his shoulders and Katara watched as Izumi ran towards her, knowing that no matter what the little girl asked, her answer would be yes. Not only because she’d promised Zuko to never break Izumi’s heart and that the two of them would always have her, but because she knew that if she was giving Zuko’s offer an honest thought, she had to truly see how everything would work. That included the three of them as a unit.Izumi tugged at the hem of Katara’s flannel and beckoned for her to kneel down. Katara did so, acutely aware of the way Zuko’s eyes did not leave them. Cupping both of her hands around Katara’s ear, Izumi leaned close, her breath hot and sticky the way only a kid’s breath was.“Can you come to the movies and the restaurant with us?” she asked.Katara bit back a smile, amused at why this was a secret question. “You and I went out for dinner yesterday,” she replied. “Are you sure you want me to come?”Izumi nodded.“Izzy, this is something special you do with your daddy.”“You’re special, too,” the little girl said with a shy smile.“I am?”Nodding, Izumi leaned in to whisper in Katara’s ear once more. “You belong to the No Moms Club like me.”Katara couldn’t help the way her eyes darted to Zuko’s and he raised a curious eyebrow. She gave a subtle shake of her head and turned her attention back to Izumi.“It means you can see here,” Izumi said, tapping her chest over her heart. “Daddy can too even though he doesn’t belong to the club. He’s super special.”“Dads are like that,” Katara said. “They have superpowers.”“Do moms?”“Yes.”Izumi considered this, picking a fallen leaf up off the ground and twirling it between her fingers. She turned her golden eyes to Katara and tilted her head to the side. “Do you have superpowers?” she asked.“I don’t know. I’m not a mom.”Izumi’s lips pulled into a thin line the way Zuko’s did when he was deep in thought. “I think so,” she said with finality.“Do you?”“Yep!”“Is that why you’re inviting me? Because we’re in the same club and I might have superpowers? Because Uncle Sokka is also a dad and he also is in our club.”Izumi huffed an irritated sigh, blowing her bangs with impatience. “I already told Daddy,” she said. “I like you better than Uncle Sokka. And you’re not allowed to say!”“Cross my heart,” Katara said.“Can I tell you a secret?”“Yes.”Katara was subjected to a third round of humid whispers in her ear as Izumi leaned in again. “You’re Daddy’s favorite.”“How do you know that?”“You can’t tell him,” Izumi said with a giggle, “but I sneaked out of bed and heard him telling Aunt Toph that he didn’t go on a date so he could see you. And one time he told a fib to Uncle Kanto and said he was sick, but then you came to our house and Uncle Kanto saw you and he told Daddy that he needed to make a move and I asked Uncle Kanto if he wanted us to move away and he said that it meant that Daddy was being mis’rable on purpose and I don’t know what that meant cuz Daddy wouldn’t let him tell me any more.”Katara breathed deep and exhaled slowly, glancing first to the bright autumn blue sky and then to Zuko who was doing a terrible job of trying to feign interest in the bark of the tree in his front yard. That had been a lot of information to receive in two minutes.“Izumi, honey,” she said, resting her hands gently on the little girl’s shoulders. “You can’t eavesdrop on grownups’ conversations like that.”“But I have to.”“Why?”“So I can make sure Daddy is okay,” was the small, quiet response.“Oh, sweetheart,” Katara said, a hand fluttering to her throat, “that’s not your job.”“But Aunt Toph goes together with Uncle Kanto and Uncle Sokka goes with Aunt Suki. Daddy is like you. He doesn’t have anyone he goes with. Who makes sure you and Daddy are okay?”“We’re grownups, honey. We can do that for ourselves even if we don’t have a person to go with.”Izumi’s only response was a stubborn shake of her head.“Okay, what about this?” Katara said. “What if I make sure your daddy is okay so that you don’t have to. Would that be okay?”“But who makes sure you’re okay?”“Still me.”“Or maybe Daddy could.”“Yeah, maybe.”“You have to pinkie swear,” Izumi said, holding out the smallest finger of her hand. Katara linked their pinkies. “I swear,” she said.“Will you still come to eat and the movies with us?”“Yes.”The agreement was met by a jolly cry of triumph and then Izumi sprinted off towards the house, shouting that she was going to bring her stuffed dragon, Druk. Katara rose to her feet, incredibly aware of the few steps Zuko took in her direction.“That was a long conversation for one question,” he said.“She pleaded her case well,” Katara replied. “Must run in the family like being an obnoxious morning person.”“Obnoxious?”She grinned at him.He looked over his shoulder at the front door before coming closer. “Please don’t feel like you have to come,” he said. “It’s okay to tell her no. She can’t expect you to drop everything for her.”“I’m not dropping anything.”“Katara—”“Honestly. I was…going to sit with my thoughts today.”He looked at her carefully. “Are you sure being around us won’t…sway you?” he asked.“What?” Katara scoffed. “Do you honestly think the two of you are that cute and irresistible?”Zuko crossed his arms over his chest, refusing to rise to the bait. “I told you last night that I’m not interested in trying to convince you—”“It’s not about convincing, Zuko,” Katara said. “I need to process. Last night was… Don’t you think that was a big deal?”“Of course I do, but…”“But you would take the leap without needing to think. You’ve always been more impulsive than me.”“It doesn’t feel that impulsive to me,” he said quietly.“And maybe it’s not.” She shrugged. “I’m just asking you to trust me while I process. I need time to find faith in myself. Because there is so much at stake here and if I do something wrong…” Her voice broke and she pressed her lips together, looking away and willing herself not to cry.“Katara…”Zuko crossed the distance between them in two long strides and wrapped her in his arms. She buried her face in the planes of his chest, breathing deep to stabilize herself. The grey long sleeved tee he wore under his leather jacket was unbelievably soft, and he was warm and steady, his heart a reassuring thumpthump against her ear.“I won’t go anywhere,” he promised. “Even if it’s too big of a risk for you.”It was easy, she thought, for the two of them to make such promises. Especially at this point. And now there was everything Izumi had said to consider as well. Zuko was standing up dates to see her?! How often had he been doing that? And why hadn’t Toph told her? And Kanto knew?!At that moment, Katara felt a little as though Zuko had taken the leap from friends to more without her and was just waiting on the other side to see if she would join him. And he hadn’t even said anything until last night! “Are you sure you want to come?” he asked, pulling back to look at her. His hands lingered on her waist, a reminder of the night before. As she looked into his eyes, she found herself longing for a repeat.The screen on Zuko’s front door slammed open, announcing the arrival of Izumi, and Katara backed away, tucking her hair behind her ears and clearing her throat.“I found Druk!” Izumi yelled from the front door. “Can we go yet?”Zuko looked at Katara once more, eyebrows raised.“Yeah,” she said, “I’m coming. But you should know that your daughter listens at doors.”Dinner, Sokka had said. A real, adults only dinner. Dad was in town and he wanted to have the kids for the weekend. He’d even rented a house on the beach for the express purpose of having fun.“Sokka,” Katara said to her brother who was on speakerphone, “are you sure Dad will be okay with both sets of twins?”“Well, he sent proof that they were all alive ten minutes ago, so I think it’s gonna be fine, Katara.”“I’m just saying,” she replied. “Dad isn’t young anymore and he’s alone.”She was walking back and forth between her bedroom and her closet. Clothes were scattered across the floor, her bed, and her dresser. She’d changed from one outfit to the next, spiraling further into dissatisfaction with each option. Nothing looked good. Nothing felt appropriate for the situation.Tonight would be the six of them. Toph and Kanto, Sokka and Suki, her and…Zuko.They’d done this before. So many times before. They’d had dinners before Toph got married. They’d had dinners where Katara brought Aang and Zuko brought Mai. And for the past few years, any dinner they could arrange was the six of them. Two married couples and a set of best friends. It had all been fine and normal.But tonight marked a week since she’d kissed Zuko. Their excursion to dinner and the movies with Izumi had been surprisingly normal after the initial emotional tension. Izumi had been a great buffer, commanding the attention, sitting between them at the theater, and insisting on sitting with Katara at dinner. On Sunday, it seemed that they’d come to a silent agreement to let each other be. Then, the work week had begun. Katara had been consumed by surgeries and Zuko had been wrapped up in the upcoming trial against Azula. They’d exchanged texts, several of them, she thought, slightly flirtatious, but that had been the extent of their contact.Tonight would be the first time they’d be seeing each other since his feelings had been brought to light. She was incredibly aware that she hadn’t told him she felt the same. Their friends were unaware of what had transpired (although, she was starting to think they all talked about her and Zuko behind their backs).Katara had no idea what to wear under the circumstances.“Actually,” Sokka said, “Dad isn’t alone with the kids. Iroh took Izumi out there and I guess Ursa is driving down to join them. Iroh said they were going to have a grand weekend.”“What?” Katara said.“A grand weekend?” Sokka reiterated. “Get it? Cuz… Grandkids, grandparents…”“No,” Katara said. “I get that. Hilarious.”“I thought so.”“I just…” She tugged a sweater dress over her head and winced when her hair came out of it full of static and standing on end. “I didn’t know that Iroh had Izumi.”“Why does that matter?”Katara began squirming her way out of the sweater dress. “I guess it doesn’t,” she said. “Zuko just didn’t mention it when we talked today.”“You talked to Zuko?”“We texted. Why?”“He didn’t answer my texts.”“Well, Sokka,” Katara said, considering what was left in her closet, “maybe that’s because your texts are annoying.”There was a loud, over-dramatic gasp from Sokka’s end of the line.“Hey, what’s Suki wearing tonight?”“I don’t know,” Sokka said. “It’s green.”“‘It?’ What is ‘it’?”“I don’t know what it’s called. It’s like a onesie for adults.”Katara snorted. “Are you talking about a jumpsuit?” she said.“Could be right,” Sokka said. “Whatever it is, she looks…” He whistled. “Impeccable.”“Okay, but that’s a really nice jumpsuit,” Katara said. “What’s the dress code for this place?”“Check the website, yourself.”“Sokka, I’m trying to find something to wear and the others are supposed to be here soon to pick me up. I’m standing here in my under—”
“LALALALALAAAA!”
“Sokka, be nice to your sister,” Suki’s voice cut in. There was the sound of a scuffle as she clearly wrested the phone out of her husband’s hands. “Hey, sis.”“Hi.”“How deep into the closet are we?”Katara looked out at the clothes scattered across her bedroom and grimaced. “It’s not great,” she said.“The site says cocktail attire. I’m sure you’ve got something.”There were a few dresses, but Katara hadn’t had a reason to wear most of them in years. Glancing at the time, she began picking up the clothes strewn across her room and hanging them as best as she could. As she tidied, she considered her remaining options.“Long day?” Suki asked.“Spirits, you have no idea,” Katara groaned. “I had five back-to-back surgeries and Pakku, that nasty old epitome of the patriarchy in my department, tried to pick a fight with me and Yugoda because he says I’m not ready to operate on my own.”“You’re a board certified surgeon, but okay.”“He doesn’t want women in the operating room, that’s all it is. He explains these antiquated surgical procedures he uses to Yugoda too and she’s the department maverick. She’s actually making medical advances while he’s… Ugh.”“Do you want me to come fight him?”Katara laughed.“I’ll do it. And then you can be the surgeon who stitches him back up. We’ll show him what women can do.”“I appreciate the support,” Katara said, amused.“How about I just buy you a drink tonight?”“Whiskey,” Katara said. “Please.” “You got it. Any closer to picking something to wear?”Flipping some clothes back and forth on the rack, Katara sighed as she mentally lectured herself for putting off picking clothes until the last minute. Sokka had texted everyone about these reservations on Monday, so she’d had time to find something.“I’ve got two different shades of blue and black,” she said. “But the black is more of a summer dress.”“Well, you always look great in blue,” Suki said. “Though I don’t really get what the fuss is. It’s just dinner with friends.”“No, Suki, it’s the world’s most awkward double date with a couple of single fifth and sixth wheels. And how did Sokka get reservations at such a nice place on short notice anyway?”“You know your brother and food.”Katara grumbled agreement and held the two blue dresses up under scrutinizing eyes. One was royal, the other ice, and neither felt fitting. She supposed that given the time of day, she’d go with the darker color and be done with it. But as she was stepping into the dress, a flash of velvet caught her eye, buried behind the dresses she’d worn in weddings. Shoving the royal blue dress back where it had come from, Katara reached for her new discovery, wondering eagerly if it would still fit.“It’s been a long time since you’ve been on a date,” Suki said. “Maybe you should try again. I know you’ve been busy and residency took up a lot of your time for a few years. And…” She paused. “You haven’t really dated much since Aang.”“I’m not interested in wasting time.”The dress was at least five years old. She hadn’t worn it since a White Lotus New Year’s celebration back in… Spirits, had she even graduated med school at the time? Body hugging velvet in a rich maroon, the dress was long sleeved and bared her shoulders. If it still fit, it would be perfect.“What about dating apps?”“Talk about a waste of time,” Katara griped, swapping her bra and underwear for some that would fit better under the dress.“Is there anyone at work?”“Jet asked me out a while ago.”“Is that the ortho res the nurses always chat about?” Suki asked.“Yeah, but he’s a player, so I told him no.”“I’m not saying you should date,” Suki said, “I just know you wanted kids and stuff a while back. If you changed your mind—”She was cut off by the loud peal of Katara’s doorbell. Katara swore.“That’s Toph here to pick me up,” she told her sister-in-law. “I’m only half ready. I’ll see you at the restaurant, okay?”She hung up the phone without waiting for Suki’s answer and then thundered down the stairs, trying desperately to zip her dress as she shouted that she was coming. The dress fit, by some spirits damned miracle, but she couldn’t get the back zip all the way. Why weren’t human arms capable of bending the way they were needed?!“Thank the spirits you’re here, Toph,” she said loudly, approaching the door. “Can you… zip me?”Toph Beifong was not standing at Katara’s front door.“Zuko,” she breathed.His navy blue suit was tailored to perfection, his white button down so crisply pressed that the collar looked like it might cut her. He wasn’t wearing a tie, the top buttons of his shirt left open. A few strands of hair had escaped his signature half topknot and were grazing his forehead.And she was standing there, her dress half on and not even ready to go.“Hi,” he said, looking rightfully taken aback.“You’re not Toph,” Katara said, feeling her entire body flush with embarrassment.“No,” he said. “Um. I think she and Kanto were…otherwise occupied when I went to see if they were ready to leave, so I thought I would just come get you without… Do you need help?”Katara froze mid-wiggle and felt the flush burn hotter across her skin. “I can’t get the zipper,” she explained.“Do you want help?” Zuko offered again.“Sure.”She turned and took a few steps further into her condo so that he could step over the threshold. As she moved her hair over her shoulder and out of his way, she was acutely aware of the door closing behind him. The place felt too quiet and almost too dimly lit as he slid the zipper up.“You haven’t worn this dress in a really long time,” he commented.“You remember it?”“Vividly.”His fingers were warm where they brushed against the skin of her upper back as he did up the hook and eye closure. She almost wanted to complain about how tight that small adjustment had made the dress across her chest, but her mouth had gone inexplicably dry.“It’s old,” she commented off-handedly when she was able to muster the courage to turn around and face him.Zuko’s eyes raked over her with an appreciative hunger so apparent, she felt the walls of her sex clench in response.“You look phenomenal,” he said, voice raspy.“You’re one to talk.”He reached a hand out to run his fingers down the sleeve of her dress, his gaze lingering south of her neck. Katara had one moment to register the experimental hesitancy of his touch before his eyes found hers again and she found herself distracted entirely.She couldn’t say who instigated the kiss, but she supposed it didn’t matter given that they were both enthusiastic participants. Arms twined around his neck, she rose up on her toes for better leverage, their tongues meeting teasingly as his hands slid down her back to her ass. With a noise of appreciation, she nipped at his lower lip, a dizzying array of stars exploding behind her eyelids as he squeezed. “Fuck,” he muttered against her lips and she whined, pulling him back in for another kiss.And then he moved, turning and guiding her until she found herself pressed up against the wall of her entryway, one of her thighs held up in his hand, his long fingers digging hotly into her flesh. Pressed between the hard lines of Zuko’s body and the wall, Katara felt herself turning into liquid want.One of her hands slid into his hair, the other down the column of his exposed neck to tease along his clavicle. A thought flitted through her mind on fleeting toes and she toyed with a button of his shirt, almost getting it thumbed through the buttonhole. But Zuko’s lips found a new home just below her ear and she forgot about the button, head falling back against the wall as she gasped. His hand left her thigh to trace back up her side and she wrapped her leg around his hips as his thumb grazed the side of her breast. The kiss he worked into her neck was hot and wet. When she turned her head, seeking his lips out once more, he met her without hesitation.A thrill rushed through her as Zuko shifted closer, the brush of his tongue against hers followed by a sharp, quick bite to her upper lip. The hand she’d tangled in his hair tightened. The sting of the bite sizzled through her and she pressed her hips lightly to his, a curious experiment. His hand slipped away from her side and slammed into the wall, the weight of his body falling heavier against her. Zuko’s free hand found her neck, his thumb pressing up into her jaw to determine the angle of their kisses. The hand Katara had anchored to his chest flexed against solid muscle before a shiver of arousal caused her nails to dig in. He growled into her mouth. Her response was a sharp pull to his hair.“Fuck, baby,” Zuko muttered. “Yes.” The moment shattered into a million splintered pieces that skidded across the floor and into the safety of the shadowed corners of her home. Both of them froze. Katara’s leg dropped away from Zuko’s waist. He sighed, his eyes closed.A thousand thoughts were racing through Katara’s mind, none of them discernible in the chaotic abruptness of the shift in tone.“I’ll wait outside,” he said, stepping away from her.“Zuko…”But the front door was already closing behind him. Katara groaned and buried her face in her hands as she slid down the wall, landing on the floor with a soft thump. How was she supposed to talk to him about this if he was going to run away?Zuko had fucked up royally. He had never been more sure of anything in his entire life. And it felt as though the universe was trying to punish him for it.Typical group dinners left him sitting across from Katara as their married friends preferred sitting next to one another. Tonight, however, Sokka had made a fuss about having to sit across from Suki instead. His last-minute reservation at such a high end restaurant had come with a price, too. They’d been shoehorned into a booth near the kitchen that Zuko wasn’t entirely sure was meant for six people.Katara was practically sitting in his lap.Wedged into the corner of the booth, Zuko couldn’t possibly give either of them more space. Her thigh was pressed against his. When she moved, he was acutely aware of each curve of her body. All he could think about was the movement of her against him earlier in the night. The food in front of him was the last thing on his mind.He was gone the moment she opened the door.The dress she was wearing tonight was one he hadn’t seen on her in years, but it had haunted him since the first time she’d worn it, starring in dreams where he peeled it off of her.He’d zipped her into it tonight, watching as the velvet molded itself around the hourglass curves of her waist and hid the smooth skin of her back. Her bra was deep red lace, a fact he never expected to be privy to.He hadn’t been able to resist kissing her.But then he’d fucked up.He’d called her baby. It had just sort of slipped out. Zuko had never called a woman baby. He couldn’t even remember the last woman he’d used a term of endearment for. Mai certainly hadn’t encouraged the practice.Zuko looked down at Katara out of the corner of his eye. If anything, she was a walking goddess tonight.She’d never been tall. There was little under a foot’s worth of height difference between them. Whenever she wore this dress, though, she always seemed to be in possession of mile long legs that teased his imagination. It exposed her shoulders, too, and he’d never considered an eyeful of clavicle a turn on until this dress had disrupted his life. And all of that exposed skin was nothing compared to what the dress hid beneath body-hugging velvet in a purpley shade of red.When she’d answered her door with the damn thing half-zipped, he’d briefly wondered if she was trying to murder him by causing his heart to explode and his brain to short circuit. Fucking vixen, he thought bitterly, hating himself just the slightest bit for not pushing her to make a decision on where they stood.It was the right thing to do. It was the gentlemanly thing to do. But Zuko was rapidly approaching a point of no return where he was never going to be able to act like the things that had transpired between them recently hadn’t. They were not just friends. He was starting to realize that they hadn’t been for a long time.Or possibly ever.The fact that she had clearly decided to explore how things would work between the two of them with Izzy as a factor wasn’t helping. He’d expected her to turn down his daughter’s invitation last weekend, having felt as though he’d pushed too far the night before. But she hadn’t. She’d come to the movies and dinner, and they’d been a little unit of fun and laughter and affection. The waitress had even commented that they were a cute family and Katara had only smiled before going back to helping Izumi with the word search on her placemat.He wanted that family to be real so bad it hurt deep in his sternum, the pain of it radiating out from his heart.“Zuko?”“Huh?”Katara was blinking her fathomless blue eyes up at him, a dessert menu on offer in her hands. “Do you want to share anything?” she said, clearly repeating herself by the amount of amused patience in her voice.It was the first thing she’d said to him since she’d emerged from her place, bundled in a coat and scarf and said she was ready to go. He’d given her no leeway on the way down to his car or on the way to the restaurant, either, chatting nervously about anything under the sun and asking no questions that she could answer and use as a means of directing the conversation to the moment he’d pressed her up against the wall and practically begged to fuck her.Zuko licked his lips, feeling put on the spot. He wanted to share a lot of things with her and none of them were on that menu. Most of them were tame, but a lot of them were not and would’ve been decidedly unwelcome in any kind of public setting.“Sure,” he said.“Do you want to pick?”“No, that’s okay. It’s your choice.”The pout she sent his way was dubious. He got the distinct impression that she was telling him that he was making everything her choice these days. But what else was he supposed to do when she was clearly terrified of everything that could go wrong? He’d put what he wanted out there. He wasn’t going to make her love him or marry him or be Izumi’s mother.Somehow he muddled through dessert, distracted from the way Katara was eating their shared bowl of fancy, refined ice cream by Sokka and Kanto loudly beginning to debate the merits of the practical effects versus visual effects in a movie franchise they both liked. It was a debate that carried them all through paying the bill (Zuko had gotten the waiter to put Katara’s food and drink on his tab and it had gone unnoticed thanks to what was now escalating into a good-natured argument between Suki and Toph’s husbands) and to the coat check.As they sorted through the pile of outerwear, Suki, who had maybe had one glass of wine too many, realized that Katara needed a ride home and became quite preoccupied with the matter.“Who’s taking her?” she demanded of the group at large. “‘S gotta be someone responsible because I need her to get home in one piece. She’s my bes’friend.”“Well, it’s obviously not gonna be you,” Sokka said with mild amusement. He kissed her cheek and tugged her jacket around her shoulders.“I’ll do it,” Toph deadpanned and Suki snorted.It seemed that Katara registered the stink eye the coat check girl was giving Suki at the same time as Zuko, because their eyes met and she nodded shortly at him. It was his cue to start herding the group out onto the sidewalk.“She's only tipsy,” he heard Katara snark to the employee as he opened the door and began beckoning their friends out of the restaurant. “And she deserves it. She’s got four kids and she’s married to my brother. You’d get tipsy on a fun night out, too.”“We can take Katara home,” Kanto offered to Zuko quietly.Zuko shook his head. “It’s fine,” he replied. “I’d planned on it anyway. It’s your night off. Enjoy your time with Toph.”Abruptly, he found that he’d been seized by the front of his shirt and hauled down to Suki’s eye level. She leaned in, grey eyes narrowed and face serious.“Take care of my girl,” she said, “or I’ll find you.” “Do you doubt that I will?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.Suki softened, releasing his shirt and reaching out to pat his shoulder. “Of course not,” she said. “I’m jus’ messing with you.”“Is that so?”“Yup.” Then she leaned in close again, this time to his ear, and whispered. “Because I know.”Zuko pulled away from Suki, at somewhat of a loss for what to say or do. He didn’t doubt her ability to eviscerate him, but the fact that she’d openly alluded to what he’d only suspected was mildly unnerving.“I know everything,” Suki said with a firm nod of her head.“Okay, Queen of all Knowledge and also my heart,” Sokka said, gently taking her hand. “Let’s get you home. You can have a bath and then we’ll look at pictures of the kids and cry about how much we miss them.” Good nights and see you laters rose through the crisp autumn night as their friends drifted away into the streets of the city to find their cars arm in arm and hand in hand. Zuko and Katara, lingering under a street lamp, looked at each other, a friendly distance between them. It may as well have been an ocean. Katara was fiddling with her scarf, head tilted to the side as she considered him.“Are you ready to go home?” Zuko asked.“Yeah,” she said quietly. “Let’s go.”They didn’t have far to go. Zuko, for all of his terrible luck, had an uncanny knack for finding parking spaces right in front of the place he was going. He held the car door open for Katara as she slid into the seat and then closed it, taking the time it took to walk to the driver’s side to take a few deep breaths and mentally prepare himself for the drive back to her place.For a while, they were silent, the sound of an indie Fire Nation band he knew she liked the soft backing soundtrack to their drive. Katara sat next to him, twisting her scarf in her hands as she gazed out the window.“I didn’t ask how your day was,” Zuko ventured after a while.“Eh,” she replied. “Some appendectomies, a couple of hysterectomies. Watched my mentor almost fight a man who said women don’t belong in the operating room. Pretty typical day.”“Yugoda tried to fight someone?” Zuko said, alarmed. The woman was at least seventy.“It was Pakku.”“Oh.” She’d vented about Pakku a lot. He sounded like a dick. “I take it she didn’t.”“Yeah.” Katara sighed. “She told me that she thinks I’d be a great pediatric surgeon.”“Would you want to change specialties?”“No,” she said. “I like general surgery. Peds would be impossible for me. I wouldn’t look at my patients and see them as patients. I’d see Koa and Iara and Siku and Yura and Izzy and it would just…destroy me.”“I guess general surgery would be easier to handle,” Zuko said. He hated the idea of Izumi on an operating table. The thought of it made him nauseous with anxiety.“Sometimes. But sometimes we get an emergency surgery and all I can see is my mom there in front of me.”The waver of emotion in her voice was painful and Zuko regretted even asking how her day had been. Hesitantly, he reached out and took her hand. She squeezed his in return and he felt the gratitude that she imbued in the gesture.“How has helping Jee prepare for trial against your sister been going?” she asked.Zuko sighed and shifted his grip on the steering wheel. “I feel like we’ve hardly done any work on the case itself,” he said. “So far, all our meetings have been about Azula.”“Are you nervous about presenting against her?”“No, but the court date isn’t for months and Jee’s the lead prosecutor on the case. As long as I’m there to pay attention to Azula, he’ll have no problems getting a guilty verdict. He’s an excellent lawyer. And nobody knows my sister the way I do.”“You sound confident.”“I guess I am.”“That’s good.”Her thumb brushed idly over the back of his hand, back and forth in a slow sweep as he kept driving. The silence that they’d lapsed into lingered and then grew, swelling to the point where Zuko was afraid to say anything at all for fear of saying the wrong thing. Katara didn’t let go of his hand as they finished the drive to her building, but when he dropped her at the vestibule door in her building’s secured garage, the silence had grown so large and so oppressive that he almost couldn’t return her quiet goodnight.Zuko watched as Katara pressed the button to call the elevator and waited for her to step inside before slumping forward and hitting his head against the steering wheel. He was pathetic. With a groan, he reached down to shift his car into drive and caught sight of a length of plum-colored fabric draped across the passenger’s seat.Katara unbuttoned her coat and fished her keys out of her purse as she walked down the hall to her door. The keyring had become entangled with a few other items which fell across the floor. She stopped to pick them up with a sigh.Zuko was panicking so hard that he was starting to emotionally turtle. Something had to give. She had to find a way to get him to relax enough that she could tell him how she felt and they could figure out what to do next.As she unlocked her door, she pulled out her phone and brought up her texts with Zuko, starting to type out a message.“Katara, wait!”She looked up.Zuko was jogging down the hallway, her scarf in his hand. She hadn’t even realized she’d left it behind. His approach slowed and she stood in place at her front door.“Thank you,” she said softly as he draped the scarf around her neck, his eyes bright and focused on her face.“Yeah.”“Zuko.”His gaze dropped to the floor, mouth twitching into a brief frown as his brows pinched.“Zuko,” she tried again, placing her hand on his cheek and stepping close.He looked up and she offered him a gentle smile. His mouth dropped open so that he could speak, but Katara was faster.She kissed him, soft and sweet, her hand sure against his cheek.“Katara,” he said, pulling away. “We’re running out of chances to act like none of this ever happened.”“How many chances do you think two people get?” she asked.Zuko blinked at her in clear confusion. “Katara, I’m trying to—”“I know what you’re trying to do, Zuko. But I think we used up our only chance to forget this the first time we kissed. Maybe even before that. Maybe you and I aren’t meant to act like there isn’t something here between us. I mean… Could you honestly do that? Because I don’t think I can and…” She swallowed her nerves down. “More importantly, I don’t want to.” His eyes went wide.“You keep running whenever I try to talk to you or whenever there’s a moment we cross a line,” Katara pressed on. “If you would just hold on for one second and let me talk, then…” She shrugged.After a moment, he said softly, “I’m listening.”Katara looked around at the hallway of closed doors they stood in, very aware of the fact that Hama, who lived three doors down, made a hobby of sitting by her door and listening to whatever happened on the public side of it.“Will you come in?” she asked Zuko, gesturing to her place. “So we can talk.”He nodded and she pulled her key out of the open lock, opening the door and beckoning him to follow. She hung her coat in the foyer closet and Zuko followed suit before slipping his shoes off. In the kitchen, Katara plunked herself onto a barstool and set about unbuckling the straps on her wedge heels. Zuko lingered in the doorway of the kitchen.“I don’t know where to start,” he said.Dropping her second shoe to the floor, Katara looked up at him and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Sit,” she said, gesturing to one of the other stools.He did and she scooted her own seat closer, reaching out to place her hand on his knee.“I have feelings for you, Zuko,” she said. “Honestly, they go so far back that I can’t even really figure out when it started for me. I just woke up one day and you’d made a home in my heart. And… It’s not just you. I care about Izumi so much. I wanted to be sure that it made sense for me to be part of both of your lives in a big way.“Zuko, I think that if there is anyone I’m meant to have everything with, it’s you. If you see a space in your little family for me… Spirits, if you honestly see that, Zuko, I want it. I want to be with you and I want to be there for Izzy. Whatever the three of us can have together, whatever you and I can have together, I think we should go for it.”He took her hand, lifting it away from his knee, and running his thumb thoughtfully over her knuckles. For what felt like twenty minutes, he was quiet and considering. Anxiety was prompting Katara to speak again—to possibly try taking it all back—when he finally spoke.“Do you know,” he said, “that what I want for Izumi is someone who’ll love her as much as I do? And when she gets older, I want her to know that it’s possible to be hurt—really almost irreparably hurt—but to still be able to love someone and be happy. It’s not just that there’s a place for you in our family, Katara. I think that you would make our family whole.”Katara couldn’t find it in herself to stifle the smile that spread wide across her face. “So are we dating then?” she asked.Zuko leaned in and kissed her hungrily, grabbing her by the hips and tugging her to the edge of her seat. It took her half a second to catch up. When she did, he was already pulling away. He didn’t back off for long, though. He only gave himself enough time to rasp out, “I intend to do everything with you,” before his lips were on hers again.Katara, at that moment, had never been so turned on in her life. The confidence and surety with which he’d spoken shot straight to her core. She kissed him back with fervor and intention, eager to get back to the task of unbuttoning his shirt which she’d been forced to abandon earlier in the night. His mouth was hot and slick against hers as he rose to his feet, hands cupping her face to leverage the kiss. Legs falling open, Katara abandoned the buttons on his shirt long enough to pull him into the cradle of her thighs.Tracing her fingers down his sternum to figure out where she’d left off in her task of undressing him, a soft moan escaped her throat at the feel of his heated skin beneath her fingertips.“Katara…” he said warningly.She slid off the barstool, deliberately rubbing against him as she did so. Pressing close, she looked up at him with a smirk, delighting in the way his face had gone vaguely slack.“You’re the one who zipped me into this dress tonight,” she murmured, drawing a slow, teasing line down his torso and noting the way the muscles in his abdomen twitched under the influence of her touch. She hooked a finger into his belt loop and took a few steps towards the stairs that led to her bedroom, power surging through her veins as he followed. “Why don’t you get me out of it, too?”Their ascent up the stairs was slow and not altogether graceful. Which wasn’t to say it didn’t have its merits. Zuko, who was not as familiar with the stairs as she was, tripped up them going backwards, pulling Katara down with him. She landed in his lap, her hips astride his, derailing their journey for a good few minutes with a slow, dirty grind of hips that rubbed the lace of her panties against her clit and had her crying his name as he kissed a bruising mark into her neck.Somehow, they made it to the top of the stairs where Zuko turned her away from him, his hips thrusting lightly against her ass as he kissed her behind the ear, his hands sliding teasingly over her breasts.“Please,” she keened and he grunted, nipping at her earlobe.His hands made quick work of the zipper on her dress and he slid his hands beneath the fabric, working it off her body as he whispered, “You have no idea how often I’ve dreamed about taking this fucking dress off of you.”Everywhere his skin met hers, a new fire blazed to life. The dress hit the floor and Katara turned back to face him as she stepped away from it. Zuko’s eyes raked over her slowly.“Did you have to wear red?” he asked in regard to her underwear, sounding vaguely broken as he stared at her breasts.“It’s your favorite color, isn’t it?” she teased.“You had this planned?”“No. But you can’t blame a girl for hoping something might happen, can you?” she asked.Then she tugged him down by the collar to kiss him again.His shirt was thrown in the direction of the stairs and Katara took a slow, delicious moment to map the defined musculature of his torso with her hands before allowing herself to focus on unbuckling his belt. She was slipping it free from his belt loops when his nimble fingers unhooked her bra and made her lose all focus as they sought out her nipples, tugging gently. Katara arched into Zuko’s hands with a moan which he swallowed with a kiss before palming her breasts.Together, they staggered toward her bed, Zuko nearly tripping over his pants and Katara stripped him of them as well as his underwear. Her bottom hit the mattress and she found herself staring directly at the hard, heavy length of his cock. Biting her lip, she watched it twitch in response.“You don’t have to—” Zuko began, but he choked on his words when she took him in hand, his hips thrusting forward.She stroked him experimentally, watching his face closely to read the exact twist he liked from her hands and the degree of pressure that resonated best.“Can I give you head?” she asked and his mouth dropped open before he nodded eagerly.She went slow at first, eyes rolling back as she took him into her mouth. His member was thick and long. She had to compensate for the inches she couldn’t fit into her mouth with a wet palm. The moan her tongue and lips ripped out of him was unholy and she felt his fingers flex where they rested on her shoulders. Hips working against the mattress, seeking out friction for where he currently wasn’t, Katara guided one of his hands to the back of her head and sucked hard.“Fu-uck, baby, yes,” he hissed. His fingers twisted in her hair and she cried out around him, taking him deeper into her mouth until he hit the back of her throat. The index finger of his free hand brushed over her cheek, calling her eyes to his. He gave a questioning twitch of his hips and she nodded shallowly.He went slow and languid, eyes locked on hers as he fucked into her mouth. She tightened her fingers around the base of his cock and he groaned.“Yeah. Like that. Just like that, baby.”Katara squirmed as she worked her mouth over him. The size of him was impressive, and the thought of how he would stretch her open had her panties soaked. It had been a long time since she’d slept with anyone and never with anyone who had been this well endowed. The lace which had, moments ago, provided such delicious stimulation against her clit now wasn’t enough. Her walls were clenching in anticipation around nothing. It was driving her wild.As he pulled back on a thrust, she sucked on the head of his cock hard, tongue swirling to catch the precum that she’d pulled from him.Zuko swore, pulling entirely free from her mouth as his fingers twisted harder in her hair.“If you do that,” he said lowly, “I’m not gonna make it, Katara.”“We have all night,” she replied, stroking him with her hand.He looked at her. His eyes were eclipses, pupils blown wide so that his golden irises were thin rings. Leaning down, he kissed her and then said very seriously, “When I come with you for the first time, I’m coming with you, Katara.”Releasing her hair, he kissed her again, this time sweetly. They fell against the mattress together, the kiss building and shifting rapidly in its intent. Katara’s hands slid over his shoulders and down his back, nails digging into his skin as he pushed her legs open and settled his hips against hers. His lips found the line of her throat, lingered at the hollow between her clavicles, and then drifted to her left breast.She gasped, feet planting themselves against the bed as she pressed her nipple into his mouth. Her hips thrust upward and she cried out at the feel of his cock dragging over her clit through the soaked lace of her panties. His teeth teased her nipple followed by a soothing flick of his tongue, a pattern that he repeated over and over as he rolled her right nipple between his fingers. Her moans turned into sharp cries as he teased her.“Zuko, please,” she pleaded as she rolled her hips into his, lifting them both off the bed.Mercifully, he pulled away, eyes intent on the apex of her thighs as he tugged her panties off. His hands squeezed their thighs before sweeping up to her hips.“Can I touch you?”“Yes,” Katara nearly growled.His fingers were warm and gentle as they swept through her folds to her clit.“You’re so fucking wet already,” he muttered. “Can’t fucking believe you’re this wet for me. Tell me what you like, baby. What’s gonna make you come for me? Do you want my fingers?”“And your mouth,” Katara answered breathlessly.She watched as he sucked on two of his fingers before flicking them teasingly over her clit and back through her folds. He sank his middle finger into her and they both moaned. “So fucking wet,” he said again before curling his finger inside of her and lowering his mouth to her clit.Katara bit back a sharp cry, her hands fisting in the blankets as she felt herself growing hotter and wetter as he stroked her with his finger. Zuko moaned against her in response and the sound vibrated through her body. Her thighs were shaking from the restraint and anticipation and he brushed his free hand over her stomach.“Let go, Katara,” he said, dusting a kiss over her inner thigh. “I want to hear you.”And then he slipped a second finger inside her, experimenting with a shallow thrust of his hand.
“Ye-esss.”
She almost didn’t recognize her own voice. Her eyes rolled shut.“Is that good?”She nodded. “Faster,” she gasped. “Harder.”Zuko obliged, his lips and tongue joining in with his fingers once more. Electric want was building within her as he stroked her walls and flicked his tongue teasingly over her clit. And then his fingers hit a particularly sensitive spot and she screamed, thrusting her hips into his face.“Again,” Katara commanded when his eyes caught hers questioningly. “Do that again.”He did, fingers pressing and curling against that spot again and again as she fucked herself against his hand and cried out, inhibitions completely forgotten.His thumb nudged against her clit and Katara’s orgasm hit her without warning, her thighs clamping around his hand as she shook with the force of it, a long cry cutting through the darkness of the room. Zuko worked her through it, his fingers drawing her pleasure out until she was boneless where she lay.When it had subsided, he found his way back to her lips, kissing her gently until she’d recovered enough energy to respond. The tension between them built quicker than before, twisting itself up as they rolled through the sheets, twisting themselves hopelessly in the fabric and each other.“Are you sure?” Zuko asked from where he lay beneath her. His hands were skimming her body, fingers tracing dizzyingly distracting patterns into her skin as she searched her bedside table for a condom.The question gave her pause and she settled back on her heels to look at him. His erection, trapped between his belly and the cradle of her hips, slid temptingly against her as she moved. Twisting her fingers into the sheets, she forced herself to stay still, her willpower nearly shattering when his face slackened and hips flexed beneath her.“I’m sure,” she said. “Are you not?”“No,” came his quick response, “I’m fucking… Spirits, I’m fucking sure.” His hips pressed lightly upward again and Katara whimpered. “But if you feel like it’s too fast—”Katara leaned down, pressing a searing, open mouthed kiss to his lips, reveling in the feel of his body against hers. “I’ve waited fifteen years for you,” she said before kissing him again. “I don’t want to wait anymore.”Zuko surged upward on one elbow, his free hand tangling in her hair as his tongue slid against hers and their lips collided. The tip of his erection nudged her clit and she whined into his mouth, grinding downward. The movement shifted them, teasing him along her entrance and she froze.The condoms had expired a month ago and she’d thrown them out.“What’s wrong?” Zuko asked.“Did you bring a condom?” she replied.He pulled back, blinking at her. “No. You don’t have one?”“They expired. You’re sure you don’t have one?”“I’m not exactly the kind of guy to get my hopes up, Katara. And it’s not like we were on a date tonight.”She had to give him that.“I can go get some,” he offered.Katara bit her lip, considering the situation. “I’m on the pill,” she said quietly. “And I’m clean.”She watched the movement of his throat as he swallowed. “So am I,” he said.“I haven’t been with anyone else in over a year and I have no desire to be with anybody else. But if you, um… If you feel differently, we can go get—”Zuko sat up fully, his hands on her hips to keep her steady in his lap as he moved. He kissed her, sweet and soft. “There’s nobody else, Katara. There won’t be. Ever.” Ease was a word foreign to Zuko. Despite his assurances to Katara that a romantic relationship between the two of them would work—assurances that he'd made in good faith and believed himself—he hadn’t expected it to work as well as it did immediately. Any relationship took a period of adjustment. Maybe knowing each other for as long as they had had turned out to be a benefit or maybe it was simply that he and Katara were a good match, but… She fit. They fit.Busy schedules made it easy to keep quiet around their friends and gave them time to truly test the waters beyond explorative kisses and truly mind blowing sex. They both knew that if the group as a whole knew that they were exploring a relationship, the questions wouldn’t stop and the insistences on group dates would be relentless. It was nice to feel things out at their own chosen pace, especially with Izumi as a factor.Zuko felt that it was important for Izumi to get used to Katara’s increasingly prominent presence in their lives before shaking up her world and changing her relationship with Katara as well. She came around more, of course. It was only natural. If Zuko needed a sitter and Katara wasn’t on call, he asked her before he asked Toph. And if anyone were to ask why she had a key to his house, it was because she was helping him and had nothing to do with the express purpose of her sneaking in after a late shift at the hospital.He grew to love waking up in the middle of the night because it meant Katara was crawling into bed next to him—on the side that now belonged so much to her that he could catch a gentle memory of her scent even after the sheets were changed. Sometimes her head hit the pillow hard, sometimes he woke up to kisses pressed to his shoulder blades and wandering hands. However she woke him up, he found himself wrapped around her in the end, a smile on his face as light little snores cut through the silence of the room.He loved coming home on a day when she’d watched Izumi and it was still early enough for his daughter to be awake. He would find them together, dancing to music videos in the living room, braiding each other’s hair in the bathroom, concocting something in the kitchen, or reading stories by the fireplace. One night, Zuko had come home to both of them red nosed and teary-eyed, Izumi on timeout in her room, Katara mired in misery on the sofa because Izumi had misbehaved with her for the first time ever and she’d had to set out the punishment. There had been a great big discussion on feelings and why it was important to follow instructions, and by the end of the night, the two were thick as thieves again.It had rankled Katara, though, who was worried that she had overstepped a boundary or hurt Izumi in a way that would leave her with an emotional scar of some sort. She explained all of this to Zuko as she brushed her teeth and washed her face in his bathroom, one of his shirts acting as her sleeping attire for the night. She’d apologized for what she termed her ineptitude and Zuko had said, “I think we’re all inept when it comes to parenthood, Katara. As long as we can all talk about it and everyone still loves each other at the end of the day, it’s going to be okay.”He’d said it without thinking of the implications, really, his only aim to comfort her. But her eyes had drifted up to meet his slowly in the mirror and the words had lingered thick in the air between them. Long after Katara had fallen asleep, long after they’d made love (and he really thought it could be called that for the first time, at least on his part), Zuko had lain awake, staring at the ceiling and mentally berating himself for speaking before thinking. It wasn’t until Katara had rolled over, slinging her arm over his torso, and muttered, “Stop overthinking, firecracker,” that he’d been able to relax.And before he knew it, he’d stopped being able to count all the things that he was growing to love because he simply loved her. The one thing Zuko couldn’t grow to love was waking Katara up early on Saturday mornings so that she could slip out before Izumi woke up for their traditional pancake breakfast. He hated sending her away only to have her come back later in the day, a new bag of clothes for the week in the trunk of her car that she would sneak in after Izumi’s bedtime. She said it was fine, that it gave her time to herself so she could check on her place and collect her mail. It was a sacred father-daughter tradition, she’d said, something she didn’t want to disrupt.But Zuko was longing for the day it could be the three of them. Truthfully, he was baffled how they’d gotten three months deep into a relationship and Izumi hadn’t even caught on.“Katara,” he whispered one midwinter night as the wind howled around the eaves of his house. She let out an unintelligible groan and turned her head away from him, snuggling deeper under the covers. “Snowflake,” he tried again, sliding a hand over her back and digging his thumb gently into her tense muscles.There was a grumpy and muffled answer from her side of the bed.“Hey.”“I’m so tired,” she whined.“I know. I just have a question.” Zuko leaned over and kissed her neck, biting back a laugh when he heard her huff a sigh.“You should be asleep,” she said. “You have a big day in court on Monday.”“Azula’s case is lost,” he told her. “We’ve got the jury now. There’s nothing she could pull that would change it.”Katara yawned. “That’s great.” He watched her nuzzle her head into her pillow.“No, don’t go back to sleep! That wasn’t my question. It…wasn’t even a question at all, actually.”With a loud half-growl, Katara sat up, her wavy hair mussed, her grumpy face softened by the sleepy blink of her eyes. “I’m awake,” she snapped.Zuko propped himself up on an elbow, reaching out with a free hand to tuck her hair behind her ear, his hand lingering on her cheek. She melted just a little at his touch.“Will you stay for pancakes tomorrow?”Just as quickly as she’d softened up, she went very, very still. “Have you run that by Izzy?” Her words were careful and measured.“No.”“She might not want me there.”“We both know the odds of that are so low it’s not even worth mentioning.”Zuko sat up completely, seeking her hands out and holding them in his. She looked down and he could hear the way her breath shook as she inhaled. A cold chill that had nothing to do with the winter night settled in his stomach.“Zuko,” she whispered, pulling her hands back. But before his heart could shatter, she leaned in to kiss him, her lips gentle and true as her hands cupped his face, and then she spoke again. “I love you.”His heart burst in an entirely different way than he’d anticipated, skipping several beats before picking up a thunderous pace full of elation. In that moment, a breathless laugh escaping him, he hardly recognized himself.“I love you, Katara,” he told her.“Are you sure—”“Of course I’m—”“No,” she said with a small chuckle, “I… I know you’re sure about that. I am, too. I just… Are you sure you’re ready to tell Izzy?”“Oh,” Zuko said, thankful for the cover of night to hide the way he was blushing. What was he—seventeen and inept at love all over again? He sighed. “Katara, I hate watching you sneak out of here every morning like we have something terrible to hide. I’d like you to be able to keep your toothbrush out in the open and maybe keep some clothes in the closet instead of smuggling a bag in after dark. I’m not saying move in right now or anything, but I think it’s time we talked to Izumi about the three of us being… I dunno. Like a family. At some point. And maybe we should tell the others.”“Kanto knows already,” Katara said quietly.“What?”“You live next to a detective, Zuko. Did you honestly think he wasn’t going to catch on?”“He hasn’t said anything!”“He won’t, either. I think there’s something to be said about having a friend in our group who kind of…came from the outside of the group. He respects our business.”The two of them lapsed into silence for a few moments before Katara shifted in the bed, wrapping an arm around her knee.“Are you sure it’s okay to spring this on Izzy? Maybe we should plan for next week so that you can talk to her first.”“Fair point.”Katara hummed and then reached out to run a hand up his thigh. “Besides,” she said, “that gives us a whole week to be in love, just the two of us, before we have to start answering to people.”Then, her hand wandered a little higher and her mouth found his again, and the matter slipped Zuko’s mind altogether.Katara woke to warm fingers teasing her stomach in a gentle stroke, heated kisses being worked into her neck, and a sizable erection nudging her rear.“Are you awake?” Zuko murmured, his hand drifting higher to brush against the underside of her breast before it skimmed down her stomach again.She shifted her pelvis to tease him back, a soft moan leaving her mouth when she realized how wet she was already, the length of him sliding easily through her folds. He grunted, hips giving a thrust that nearly had him inside of her, the tip of his cock teasing her entrance. A louder moan was her answer, and his fingers fluttered across her clit.“Tell me,” Zuko said.Katara gasped, eyes slamming shut as she arched into his touch.“What do you want?”“Want you inside me.”“Yeah?”His fingers swirled and she cried out, turning to muffle the sound in her pillow. It took every ounce of her willpower not to reach back and guide him into her without ceremony. Thighs trembling in anticipation, she waited for him, knowing that if they were too hasty with it, they were both liable to get too loud. They hadn’t spent the night together at her place since that first weekend and sex had quickly turned into a muted affair with the lock set on his bedroom door.“Feel so good already,” Zuko muttered, thrusting shallowly against her once more.“Zuko, please.”“You ready?” His fingers left the apex of her thighs to tug roughly at her nipple.
“You’re teasing.”
Still, she waited for him, hot all over, and desperate for the feel of his cock sliding into her.“You know,” and now his voice was a seductive purr that made her whine, “I was only waking you up so we could make pancakes.” His hand swept over her side, along the curve of her ass, and then between her legs where he slipped a finger inside of her. “But now there’s something else I want to make.”Make what? Make love? Make her come? Make a…? But her mouth couldn’t retrieve any sort of question. He was stroking deliberately at that one delicious spot inside her, a throaty hum vibrating in her ear as her walls clenched around his finger and she grew impossibly wetter.“Zuko—”He moved fast, leaving not even a split second between the withdrawal of his finger and the thrust of his hips as he finally sank into her. But the sudden move was at odds with how they fell together. They made love slow with wandering hands and whispers of I love you in between explicit exchanges. It wasn’t a sentiment Zuko was prone to using liberally. Not yet. And perhaps he never would. Every time he said it, though, it was with all the weighty awe of a revelation.By the time they were trembling together in pursuit of their final high, his face buried in her neck as he thrust into her a little harder and a little faster, the sun was just beginning to crest the horizon. After the climax subsided in soft moans and shivers, he clung to her in the soft purplish light of the morning, face buried in the curves of her neck, one hand pressed gently against her stomach to keep her close. Katara, already not much of a morning person, and now boneless and sated, felt the call of sleep keenly as it rolled over her in a warm wave.“Don’t do it,” Zuko said warningly, his fingers creeping to her ribs. “Don’t go back to sleep, snowflake.”“I swear to La, if you tickle me, Zuko…”“Come on,” he said, rolling away. The mattress shifted as he left the bed. “Izzy won’t be asleep for much longer and she likes her pancakes in a timely manner.”Katara groaned. “Can’t believe I love morning people.”She pulled herself out of bed despite her complaints, however, wrangled herself into some clothes, and was in the kitchen with Zuko making breakfast when Izumi crept shyly into the kitchen. The little girl was still sleepy but this did nothing to dampen her apprehension. Her stuffed dragon was in her arms and she clutched it hard. Zuko hadn’t told her that he and Katara were a couple, telling Katara that he thought it was best if the news came from both of them. Extending an invite to anyone who was not Iroh or Ursa, however, was enough to alert Izumi that something was different now.Offering the little girl a smile, Katara reached out to fix some of her disheveled hair, and hoped she didn’t appear too relieved when Izumi offered a small smile of her own.“Good morning, Izzy.”“Hi, Katara.”Izumi made a beeline for her father, hugging him tightly about the waist. Zuko was manning the griddle and passed Katara the spatula so that he could hug his daughter back. There was a whispered exchange that Katara did her best not to listen to, and then Izumi set about carrying the plates and utensils Zuko had set out on the counter to the table.Katara flipped a couple of pancakes and cast a questioning look Zuko’s way. He shrugged and smiled softly, looking quickly over his shoulder in Izumi’s direction before pressing a kiss to Katara’s temple.“She’s fine,” he said, rubbing a hand between her shoulder blades. “Just sleepy.”“Daddy, why did you kiss Katara?”The look on Zuko’s face was almost comical. Katara had to press her lips shut when she caught his wide eyes so that she wouldn’t laugh. Truthfully, it wasn’t very funny. They’d wanted to tell Izumi calmly over breakfast so that they could field any questions in a somewhat controlled atmosphere. But… A smirk snuck its way across Katara’s lips. It was kind of funny.“She’s like Uncle Iroh,” Zuko grumbled. “She sees everything I do even when I think she’s not looking.”Katara nudged him in the side with her elbow. “Talk to her,” she said.Izumi was standing between the double-sided fireplace and the dining room table, watching the two of them with wary eyes. Her little stuffed red dragon, Druk, was sitting in his own chair like a person, front feet on the table to keep him balanced.“Um.” Zuko cleared his throat. “Right. Izzy, Katara and I are…dating.”There was silence. Katara moved some finished pancakes to the plate Zuko had been using for stacking them up. When she looked back at Zuko’s daughter, the girl’s head was tilted to the side in consideration.“Why?” she asked.“Well, we love each other.”Izumi blinked.Katara slid the last few pancakes onto the stack and then turned off the griddle. She handed the platter off to Zuko and then grabbed the bottle of syrup and bowl of fruit. He trailed in her wake to the table where they set the food down and then stood before Izumi, waiting for her to speak again.“Is Katara going to live with us?”Zuko turned a very pale pink. “Probably,” he said. “Maybe. We haven’t talked about that.”“Why not?”“There are lots of reasons,” Katara said, cautiously taking a seat at the table.Izumi followed her lead. “Like what?” she wanted to know.“I have my own house too,” Katara said. “And we haven’t been dating very long. We also want to know what you think and how you feel. That’s very important to us.”“I get to decide?”“No,” Zuko said. “Katara and I get to make the final decision, but you should be able to tell us how you feel about all of this. We want you to be happy, too. But Katara will be at our house a lot more from now on. You might see her at bedtime or before school.”Izumi pursed her lips and looked from Zuko to Katara. She didn’t look upset, but Katara found her little face extremely difficult to read. “I would like a pancake please,” she said.As Zuko set about divvying up the pancakes and the three of them passed around syrup and fruit, Katara racked her brain looking for something to say.“Izzy,” she offered up slowly, “do you remember what you and I talked about when the three of us went to the movies and got dinner to celebrate your spelling test?”Izumi nodded.“I’m keeping our pinky promise.”Izumi took a bite of her breakfast, her golden eyes thoughtful as she chewed. “Will you be my mom?”“I would like that very much,” Katara said. “But only if that’s something all three of us want. And only when all three of us are ready.”“Okay.”“Are you okay with us dating?” Zuko asked.Izumi nodded and Katara felt a great well of relief flood her body. “Yeah. I like Katara,” the little girl said.Katara smiled at Izumi who smiled back. But as Katara reached for her fork and Zuko his juice, Izumi spoke again.“Can I have a little sister?”Zuko choked on his juice.