" CHANGE OF PACE "

06: "AS THE HOUR MET THE MINUTE HAND"

"My hair's bleeding."

Zuko stopped and turned her, a bit puzzled. He'd been leading the way, finally. It took arguing with her for a good twenty minutes about not knowing anything about the wildlife or vegetation in this area, not to mention her lack of a properly formed plan, to get her to agree to follow him. He'd almost stormed away from her. Twice. The thought of her alone in the jungle, albeit adept at protecting herself, didn't sit right with him and compelled him to stay.

The jungle was thicker now, the branches and leaves of the canopy entwining together to form a thick, green blanket that blotted out the sun in some areas and made it appear as if it were dusk instead of noon. He knew it wasn't evening, though. He could feel the sun sitting high in the middle of the sky, even underneath all these trees.

At least Katara stayed quiet. For the most part. He wasn't too fond of chatty travel companions.

"Hair doesn't bleed," he told her.

Katara's eyes narrowed and she held out a hand for him to inspect. There was blood on her fingers.

"I meant," she clarified, "that I'm bleeding. In my hair."

He remembered, now. The branch, the blood in the water and on it. It had been the reason, more than the fall itself, that Katara had nearly drowned. If Zuko hadn't woken up when he did and taken notice of her motionless form, she would have. And all chances of him ever joining up with the Avatar would have vanished. Surely, if the young boy found him alive after Katara's death and somehow learned he'd been around the temple and in contact with her this whole time...the blame would have been placed on him.

"You hit your head on a branch."

She sighed. "Figures."

"...figures?"

Katara didn't answer him, brushing past him--though without the force she'd used in the hours before--and strayed from the hunting trails into the denser part of the forest. She pushed back a larger leaf of a banana-plum tree and made a triumphant noise of, ah-ha!

Zuko stood watching her. "What are you doing?"

She turned and he understood. Water covered one hand like an invisible glove--she'd found a water source, more than likely rain water sitting on the up-turned leaf of the banana-plum tree or something on the other side of it. Katara emerged fully, returning to the path, and kneeled down before him.

Confused once more, Zuko blinked down at her. His male mind was, yet again, coming to a conclusion it really shouldn't have been. Being seventeen, male, and around a girl who did the strangest things without warning was not helping. "Uh..."

Katara scoffed in annoyance, as if he was supposed to somehow know what she wanted him to do. She held the hand that was coated in water up. "Find the cut and put my hand on it so I can heal it."

Oh. Right. She was going to heal herself. That...made much more sense. Find the wound. He could do that.

Bending over some, Zuko put his hands in Katara's hair, moving her tangled locks this way and that, to expose the wound more so she'd have better access to it. He heard her suck air in sharply between her teeth and stopped, but she urged him to finish. Quickly, he did, and took hold of her wrist, guiding that hand to the gash, which looked pretty nasty.

He watched in amazement as the water glowed a pure blue, unlike any other shade he'd ever seen. This was how she did it. How she healed. If the Avatar and his uncle hadn't broken into the caverns so soon, this was what would've happened to him. For a moment, he wondered what would've happened if she'd gotten the chance to free him of his mark.

"Did I get it all?" She asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Zuko brought his face closer, moving her hand away by the wrist so that he could get a better look at her handiwork. She hadn't healed herself right away, so there was some faint scarring, but the wound was completely gone. It looked as if she'd received it years ago, not hours.

"Yeah, you did."

"Zuko?"

"Hm?"

"Let go of my wrist."

He hadn't realized he was still holding it, letting go and taking a step back. Zuko watched her as she put her hands in her hair to feel the repaired skin and rearrange her hair into something more manageable. She looked annoyed and he imagined she was miffed about loosing her hair ties in the rushing water that had almost claimed her life.

Without really thinking about it, Zuko bent and seized the hem of his tunic and with a sudden ripping sound that made Katara jump, tore off a thin section of fabric. He held it out to her.

"I healed my head, Zuko. I don't need to bandage it."

Zuko rolled his eyes. "It's not for your head. It's for your hair."

Realization filtered across her features and hesitating for a moment, watching him as if his offer was some sort of trap she was about to spring, took the strip of cloth from his hand. He watched as she gathered her hair, running her fingers through it in attempt to vanquish the tangles, then plaited it into the sloppiest braid he'd ever seen--a thought he decided wasn't best to share with her.

Katara tied the braid off at the end with the cloth strip from Zuko's tunic, pushing the braid back over her shoulder. She regarded him strangely then said, "...thanks."

"Don't mention it."

She gestured for him to lead the way again and was a bit surprised to find that she was walking next to him instead of behind him. He didn't mind, but he didn't know what to say or do when she was being civil. At least when she was tossing insults at him, he knew how to respond.

"You told me that you didn't want your sister to die in Ba Sing Se," she began. He looked over at her questioningly. "Say that you do join up with us--which is a maybe. I haven't made up my mind on that."

Her mind? Since when was she in charge of the Avatar's group? Wasn't it the tattooed boy who decided who could and could not be a part of his forces and not this bratty girl who he couldn't seem to get rid of? Who was she to dictate any of that?

Zuko snorted, but she seemingly chose to ignore that.

"If you come up against Azula again. Will you fight her or turn on m--us again?"

He stopped walking. Zuko...hadn't thought about that. Facing Azula again. He thought back to Ember Island, the first time since childhood in which Azula had acted like something resembling a sister instead of a superior. For the first time in years, he hadn't felt like challenging her or trying to be better in order to show off for an invisible audience. But, perhaps he'd been too blinded by his own romantic troubles with Mai and the anger he felt towards himself and his mistakes to see that Azula was still the same as ever. Only more subtler, since she had made the decision not to tell those idiots, Chan and Ruon-Jian, that they were the Prince and Princess of the Fire Nation.

While he pondered it, Katara continued talking.

"...I understand that she's your sister and you don't want her to die, but if you're going to fight with us, I--we need to know that you're not going to turn on us again."

We. He caught that andd his good eyebrow shot up in interest.

"What are you saying?"

Katara huffed and crossed her arms. "It's just a question, Zuko."

For the moment, he chose not to answer her, even though he did have one. Instead, he smirked at her and declared, "Now you're the one who doesn't know what she wants."

Her jaw dropped, but she quickly recovered. "What? I know what I want! I want this war to be over! I want--"

Zuko cut her off with a dismissive wave of his hand. "That's not what I meant. You don't know if you want me." Katara's cheeks flared and he realized how that must've sounded and found himself waving both of his hands in front of him and chanting, "Not like that! Not like that." He sighed. "In your group. You don't know if you want me to be a part of your group. The Avatar's forces. The...gang or whatever."

"Team Avatar," she corrected, the color still apparent on her cheeks. This seemed to annoy her, even more so by his staring--he hadn't meant to stare and quickly averted his eyes.

"Team Avatar," he echoed with a nod, feeling awkward once more. It was that awkwardness that had filled the air when she told him she didn't care for the Avatar in the way the young boy did, when he pressed his lips to hers in a kiss that wasn't a kiss just hours earlier, and when she'd touched his scar down in those caverns in Ba Sing Se. This waterbender, with as much as she pissed him off and made him want to indulge in the temper he had worked so hard at keeping under control, somehow had the ability to make him feel as if a thousand pairs of eyes were watching him, even though there was no one else--

There was a crinkling of leaves and without giving Katara any sort of warning, Zuko seized her to him and she tumbled into the bushes with him. The two fell awkwardly, the prince's usual grace hampered by the struggling waterbender in his grasp. She managed to knee him in the side, but he quickly grabbed hold of her hands and flipped them both about, so that he was now holding her arms at her side and pinning her legs with his own.

"What--Zuko, get off! Let me go!"

"Quiet!" He told her. "There's someone nearby."

Katara's eyes narrowed with doubt and she blew loose strands of hair out of her eyes. "I highly doubt--"

This time, it was the waterbender's time to be silenced, as a giggle that sounded oddly familiar to Zuko's ears sounded from the trail. Pushing himself up, he looked over and froze at what his eyes landed upon, jumping off Katara so quickly it made the younger girl yelp in surprise.

"What are you doing out here, Lee?"

"Lee?" Katara echoed in question, sitting up.

Before the pair stood someone Zuko thought he'd never see again outside of Ba Sing Se--and after he helped Azula take down Aang and imprison his uncle, he swore he'd never willing return to that awful, walled city. Yet, here stood someone who had, for a brief time, been the object of his affections. He'd gone on a date with her once, shortly before he was reminded in the harshest way possible that he wasn't an ordinary teenage boy like she thought, but the banished crown prince of the Fire Nation. She didn't know that, of course, and he struggled for an answer to her question.

Jin seemed to find this amusing and laughed behind a hand she held to her face, fingers outward and curled in towards her palm in a move that Zuko found to be more girly than was necessary. "Who's your friend? Someone from the circus again?"

"Circus!?" Came Katara's outrage, and Zuko shouted, "Yes!" before the waterbender had time to protest further. She glared at him, but he ignored her.

Jin looked on with interest, leaning over a bush to eye Katara with those big, gray eyes of hers. "Another knife thrower?"

In a quick decision that he should've thought about more carefully before opening his mouth, he shoved his sheathed swords into Katara's hands and declared, "She's the sword-swallower."

TO BE CONTINUED...

"Avatar: the Last Airbender" is © Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. Also, this fic is being written for the 30 KISSES challenge community on InsaneJournal, so the chapters follow the themes listed in their userinfo's alternate column. The previous chapter was perhaps my shortest and worst for this fic, but it was a necessary to end it there, in order to fit the themes for the challenge this is being written for. Hopefully the length and quality of this chapter makes up for the epic fail of the former.

08/13/2008