Before we get started, I'd like to thank everyone for reading. This chapter is a bit different from the others. All credit due to James Joyce for the cadence of the last paragraph. Thanks again, and I hope you like it. Happy Zutara week 2012!

7: Seasons

My husband is sleeping. His mouth is slightly open. His brow is smooth. The corners of his mouth are turned down just a little. His breathing is steady and calm. I can feel the blood in his heart pushing in and out, in and out, slowly, slowly, like the sea at low tide. He's a firebender, but the life in him is water, just like the life in me. I can always feel it.

He shifts in his sleep, mumbles something about his uncle and exotic dancers, then quiets. I clap one hand over my mouth to stifle a laugh. I don't want to wake him up; not yet anyway. I don't often get a chance to watch him sleep. He usually sleeps lightly and not for long. I've woken up to him propped up on one elbow and looking down at me more times than I can count. The last time he did it I shoved my pillow into his face and told him to stop being creepy.

I've been waiting to marry him for a long time.

I first knew I would in the Summer. We were on Ember Island. All the jacaranda trees were in bloom. They were so purple. I loved how they looked coated in flowers. I told him so, and then he broke off a sprig and tucked it into my hair. I asked him why he did that. He told me I said it was pretty and that he thought I'd like it and that it might look nice in my hair but if I didn't like it he didn't mean anything weird by it he just wanted to-

I cut him off with a kiss and I thought, I am going to marry him.

That was it. It was simple. It wasn't exchanging secrets about our mothers, it wasn't touching his face in Ba Sing Se, it wasn't tracking down Yon Rha, or escaping Azula's lightning, or saving him from Koh, or finding Ursa. It was him putting a flower in my hair because I said I liked it.

Not that anything else was easy for us. Things are never going to be easy for us. I have my passions and he has his. I love to teach and help and heal and fight. I go where I'm needed and I help people and I teach waterbending to anyone who wants to learn. He's dedicated to the Fire Nation. He stays in Caldera City and listens to complaints and maintains the law and leads his people. Sometimes he comes with me on my trips. Sometimes he can't. We don't see each other as often as we'd like. But I figure as long as we both have things to drive us, the time we do have together will be even better. And you know what? So far, I've been right.

I love being right.

He's awake now. His eyes aren't open yet but his breathing's changed. Soon he's going to roll onto his side and look up to see me looking down at him. It's happening now.

Hi.

It's not creepy when I do it.

Because I said so. Are you really going to start an argument with your wife after being married for one day?

That's what I thought.

You look like you slept well. Any reason why?

Hm. If you liked it that much maybe I could do it again.

I'm very pleased with myself. And I'm pleased with you. I'm pleased that we're going to have seasons and seasons together to do even more things that'll tire you out.

You have no idea.

So. Still nervous?

Yeah. Me too. I was really anxious before the wedding. I talked to Dad about it since him and mom were so happy and he told me that I'd have to learn to compromise if I wanted my marriage to work. I appreciated what he was trying to say but I compromise a ton already! You don't make me compromise. That's one of the things I like about you. You don't ask me to do anything I don't want to do. So in a weird way, even though what he said made me mad, it also helped a little.

What did Uncle say to you?

He was right. We are lucky.

I love you.

We aren't talking anymore. He's kissing me and I'm kissing him. His palm is at the small of my back and I am back in the South Pole on the day he asked me to marry him. It's Winter Solstice. I'm playing the First Waterbender for the festival and he's there to see me. We slip into a closet so no one can find us and he laughs into my mouth and tells me there's no one else like me, no one in the world. The closet is hot from our bodies, just as our bed is now. He asks me to come back to the Fire Nation with him and I tell him I will. That's when he puts his hands on either side of my face and asks me the question I've been wanting to hear since we stood on a hill surrounded in purple trees, a branch of flowers in my hair. I push myself against him as I do now, my chest on his, my heart and his beating like mad and I say yes I say yes I will yes.