Title: Did Someone Lace the Tea with Cactus Juice?

Author: SCWLC

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything here.

Rating: PG for importunate demands of nookie.

Summary: Someone cheats on someone else, which makes someone jump their true love's bones.

Notes: There's one pairing in here that I doubt many people have thought of, although it makes a twisted kind of sense in my head, the other is Zutara. Also, this is the fic that the label of 'crack' was made for.

Katara staggered down the stairs, pale and shocky.

The others, celebrating in what had become an annual event on the anniversary of the end of the war, didn't notice. At least, most of them didn't, but Zuko did. He rushed to her side, wrapping an arm around her waist and murmuring softly in her ear. She leaned heavily against him, shaking.

It wasn't until Katara was settled at the table that the others began to notice, falling silent, one after another. "Katara?" Sokka asked, rushing to his sister and looking her over for injury or illness. "What's wrong? What happened?"

"I . . ." she looked around at her friends, gathered together. It was a gathering missing only two faces. She shook her head. "I can't believe it. Any of it."

"Can't believe what?" Zuko asked, leaning towards her, concern etched into his face.

Toph chimed in, "Your heart's going a mile a minute, Sweetness, what's going on?"

Katara suddenly turned to look at Toph. "You always know before everyone else. Did you know? Did you know it was happening?"

"Know what?" Toph asked her, confused. "Twinkle – hey, where's Aang?"

"Upstairs," Katara told her. "On the hammock. You really didn't know? You weren't hiding it for . . . for some reason?"

"Hiding what?" demanded Toph, irritably.

Katara just slowly nodded, clearly relieved. "Oh, good. Of course, if I'm the last one to know, I'll still be pretty upset," she said, starting to slowly regain her colour.

Suki decided to give it a shot. "Katara, you're not making any sense. What's going on that you can't believe?"

"Your aura's looking very troubled," Ty Lee put in. "I'd have to say it's roiling."

The waterbender just repeated, "I just can't understand."

"Katara," Zuko said, carefully cupping her cool face in his hands. "You need to focus. I – we – can't help if we don't know what the problem is."

Her face darkened. "All this time. All this time I stuck with it because I thought I had to. Because it was the right thing to do."

Everyone was silent. Waiting for her to finally inform them of what had gone so wrong that she looked like she'd seen a ghost.

"I didn't say anything, I didn't do anything because it was obvious that I wasn't going to ever get what I really wanted, so I settled."

The watching crowd exchanged nervous glances. Katara suddenly looked up and her eyes were like ice-cold steel. The only one who didn't take a step back was Zuko. He moved in closer, looking almost hypnotised. "Do you know how beautiful you are when you get like this?" he murmured into her ear, too softly to be heard by anyone else.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief as the temperature in the room, which had dropped sharply in direct inverse of the rise of Katara's temper, rose back up to normal. She froze. "You mean it?" she breathed.

"Absolutely," he told her.

There was a long pause, then Katara flung herself at Zuko, kissing him passionately.

Dead silence.

Then pandemonium.

"Katara!" howled Sokka. "What about Aang!"

Ignoring the uproar, the couple dropped to the floor, practically vanishing under a table, still locked at the lips. That was when Aang came waltzing in, followed by Mai. "Wow. I guess Katara already told you," Aang said.

The casual comment cut through the shouting and armwaving. "Told us what?" Sokka asked, suspiciously.

"Katara and I are breaking up," Aang explained. "We're not right for each other, but I've found the person who is," he grabbed Mai, pulling her against him and kissing her. "I love you, Mai."

"What!" squawked Zuko from where Katara had dragged him. He came crawling out, trying to fix himself into some semblance of order, while Katara made it impossible by hanging around his neck and rather openly trying to untie his sash.

"Zuko! I'm trying to seduce you. Cooperate!"

"You're leaving me for Aang!"

Mai raised a cool eyebrow in his direction, "You don't seem to have had any trouble replacing me."

"I didn't – Katara stop that – she just grabbed me and – oh sweet Agni! – was she in shock from walking in on you two?" Zuko tried to look stern and indignant, but Katara was writhing all over him, and it wasn't working in the slightest.

Aang had the grace to look a little embarrassed. "Yeah," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I . . . uh . . . Mai and I have been sort of having a . . . a thing for a while."

Mai smiled at the gangling monk, who had shot up in height over the past couple years, until he was as tall as she was. "My darling arrow-top, here, is just so interesting," she explained. "We can travel, see a new thing every day, and I'll never have to do boring and formal things again, because I'm with Aang, so I can rest on his reputation when it comes to helping him with negotiations."

"That's all very nice," Katara snarled impatiently, "But Zuko, I've been wanting to have your tight butt in my bed for years now. I didn't because you seemed devoted to Mai, so there was no point in even trying. Well she's broken up with you, so get moving and scratch my itch, firebender!"

It was now Zuko's turn to be pale and shocky as Katara wrapped a hand around his belt and forcibly dragged him up the stairs.

Aang and Mai just smiled sickeningly at each other and wandered off, while Aang told her all about so weird animal he wanted to take her riding on.

That left everyone else standing around, staring blankly.

Toph voiced what they were all thinking.

"Did someone lace the tea with cactus juice?"

Well, everyone except Sokka, who looked like he might need medical attention. That froth around his mouth couldn't be healthy.